Is it getting warm, or is it just us?

Mention global warming, or climate change, in a group farmers and you are likely to get some heated responses, no pun intended.

That's to be understood, since global warming, or climate change, is the latest big cause celeb of the environmental movement. From past experience, people in a variety of natural resources industries, like farming, ranching and forestry know that when environmentalists tout causes, like the endangered species act, it ends up costing them money, time and sometimes their very livelihood. Many would say, with ample supporting evidence, that natural resources industry professionals are becoming the endangered species.

So discussion of climate change makes some folks nervous. They think they are going to be blamed for it, or blamed disproportionately for it, by urbanites in trendy restaurants ordering tofu dishes and drinking colorful 'tini drinks.

Now comes word from Jonathan Overpeck, director of the Institute for the Study of Planet Earth at the University of Arizona, that the Western United States is getting warmer faster than the rest of the planet.

"The West is warming dramatically," Overpeck was quoted as saying in an Associated Press story distributed today. "Things are just going to get hotter. You can bet the farm on it."

Farmers bet on the weather every single day. But the odds could get steeper in parts of the West if the predictions are correct.

Along with the warmer weather, computer models are also forecasting reduced precipitation.

"We're going to have drier average conditions — then cycles of drought will come on top of that," he said. "Droughts will be more extreme. It's going to be severe in our lifetimes."

Climate change is an issue the Capital Press has been looking at in-dept this year in an on-going series. You can check out the series by clicking this link to our website.

Agriculture
Weather
Global warming
Climate change
Drought
The West