{"id":19913,"date":"2016-04-13T13:16:04","date_gmt":"2016-04-13T18:16:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=19913"},"modified":"2016-04-13T13:16:04","modified_gmt":"2016-04-13T18:16:04","slug":"drought-el-nino-blackouts-and-venezuela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=19913","title":{"rendered":"Drought, El Ni\u00f1o, Blackouts and Venezuela"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/euanmearns.com\/drought-el-nino-blackouts-and-venezuela\/\">Drought, El Ni\u00f1o, Blackouts and Venezuela<\/a><\/h3>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/panampost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/ft-crisis-energetica-venezuela.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300;\" align=\"left\" hspace=\"10\" \/>It\u2019s fashionable these days to blame everything that goes wrong with anything on human interference with the climate, and we had yet another example last week when President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro of Venezuela fingered drought, El Ni\u00f1o and global warming as the reasons Venezuela\u2019s lights keep going out. In this post I show that his Excellency has not a leg to stand on when he makes these claims, but that because no one ever looks at the data everyone believes him.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-13410\"><\/span><br \/>\n<b>International Business Times:\u00a0\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibtimes.com\/venezuelan-leader-blames-el-nino-global-warming-nations-energy-crisis-2349921\">Venezuelan Leader Blames El Ni\u00f1o And Global Warming For Nation\u2019s Energy Crisis<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The fierce El Ni\u00f1o event under way in the Pacific Ocean and warming global temperatures have helped create the brutal drought now racking Venezuela, President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro said Wednesday night. Venezuela is facing its worst drought in almost half a century. The nation depends on hydropower for nearly two-thirds of its electricity, but the reservoirs that fuel its facilities are evaporating. Power outages in recent weeks have forced factories to send workers home early, slowing production, and many residents are now scrambling to secure enough drinking water supplies.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The\u00a0<em>fierce<\/em>\u00a0El Ni\u00f1o created the\u00a0<em>brutal<\/em>\u00a0drought now racking Venezuela,\u00a0<em>the worst in almost half a century<\/em>. No pulling of punches. Boiled down to essentials, however, there are three issues here \u2013 a) is there really a \u201cbrutal\u201d drought in Venezuela, b) if so, did the \u201cfierce\u201d El Ni\u00f1o cause it and c) has global warming made it worse? We\u2019ll take a look at these issues shortly, but first it\u2019s important to note that about 70% of Venezuela\u2019s electricity comes from one massive installation, the Guri dam on the Caroni River (officially the Simon Bol\u00edvar Hydroelectric Plant) which holds back a 4,000 square kilometer lake, about the same size as Rhode Island or Somerset.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Drought, El Ni\u00f1o, Blackouts and Venezuela It\u2019s fashionable these days to blame everything that goes wrong with anything on human interference with the climate, and we had yet another example last week when President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro of Venezuela fingered drought, El Ni\u00f1o and global warming as the reasons Venezuela\u2019s lights keep going out. In this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[79,220,252,11260,11842,369,2422,11990,851],"class_list":["post-19913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-blackouts","tag-drought","tag-el-nino","tag-energy-matters","tag-euan-mearns","tag-global-warming","tag-nicolas-maduro","tag-roger-andrews","tag-venezuela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19913"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19914,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19913\/revisions\/19914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}