Cold water cracks aging water pipes in downtown Sacramento

Two downtown office buildings were closed and hundreds of workers were sent home Wednesday because a nearly 100-year-old water main cracked in the cold weather.

It was at least the 15th broken water main that the city Department of Utilities has responded to in downtown Sacramento in the past week, department spokeswoman Jessica Hess said.

Stretches of cold like the one the city has experienced over the past week put a strain on aging pipes in the downtown and midtown areas, Hess said.

“It’s pretty typical that we have a week or so where we’ve got an increased number of main breaks,” she said.

“It’s just the age of the pipes combined with the type of material and the cold that led to this.”

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/01/13/3320505/pipes.html#ixzz1B26YSP1Z

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Comment: So much for “global warming,” just as the state government begins imposing AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. The state government is more out of touch than usual.

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Susan M. Trager: AB32 Empowers State Regulators

By SUSAN M. TRAGER

As we head down the stretch to the November 2 election, Proposition 23 has become the top initiative people are talking about. The debate mainly focuses on whether it would create or kill jobs.

Prop. 23 affects AB32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which cuts greenhouse gas emissions in the state by 25 percent by 2020. If Prop. 23 passes, AB32 would be suspended until state unemployment, currently 12.3 percent, drops to 5.5 percent or lower for a year.

Proponents cite studies, such as one by the state Legislative Analyst, showing that AB32 would put too many new burdens on business, thus killing jobs. Those backing AB32 insist that it is encouraging companies to create “green” jobs, giving California an edge in a vital new field.

A better way to look it AB32 is to see it as a type of industrial policy. According to the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, industrial policy gives “government officials additional authority, as well as the necessary fiscal and regulatory powers, to directly alter national industrial structures.”

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Mark Landsbaum: Is it time to end climate alarmism?

Five allegedly independent investigations claim to have cleared U.S. and British climate scientists of chicanery in their global warming research. It’s more likely the investigations will be among the final nails in the coffin for the global warming alarmist movement. That’s a position shared not only among respected skeptics in the scientific community, but increasingly in the mainstream press and even by some global warming believers.

Sure, government funding for climate change research probably will continue for a while. And propagandists will continue to crank out new studies claiming we’re cooking the planet to death. They will hold more international confabs and issue more dire proclamations, but to less and less avail.

Most likely, this was the tipping point. Global warming zealots have lost. It’s only a matter of time until they realize it and move on to a new contrived catastrophe, where doubtless they’ll be warmly received by a compliant press and amply rewarded with more tax-subsidized grants. It seems there are insatiable appetites and never-ending tax dollars for the proper causes.

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Climategate whitewash. We’re shocked!

Some so-called “investigations” have concluded and the buddies found their buddies innocent of wrongdoing in the ongoing Climategate and related scandals.

Sort of like the fox conducting an inquiry into what went wrong in the hen house. “Innocent!” the fox sputtered, feathers flittering from his mouth.

We will deal with these “investigations” in more depth in coming weeks in a column. But for now, some highlights (lowlights?):

This is what Patrick Michaels at the Wall Street Journal says of investigations into scientific professional misconduct, data manipulation and jiggering of both the scientific literature and climatic data to paint what scientist Keith Briffa called “a nice, tidy story” of climate history…

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Study: County’s water supply at risk

Riverside County is at “extreme” risk for water supply shortages by mid-century as a result of global warming, a new study found.

Riverside County is at “extreme” risk for water supply shortages by mid-century as a result of global warming, a new study found.

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