The Great Stagnation
I just finished and very much enjoyed Tyler’s Cowen’s The Great Stagnation (my first ebook too!). Cowen’s argument, for those not familiar with it, is that the stagnation of the U.S. economy is not the result of anything we’ve done wrong, but rather the fact that we managed the impressive rate of growth over the [...]
3 million acre feet
We will know in a little more than a month whether Lake Mead will get a flush of “bonus water” this year, and if so how much, thanks to the better-than-average snow pack in the Upper Colorado River Basin. Right now, things look good. Current snow levels, as measured by the network of federally funded [...]
The first thing we do, let’s kill all the water lawyers…
Let me preface this by saying I am fond of lawyers. We kid because we love! Please don’t sue! I had a bright light epiphany yesterday when talking to a smart water policy friend who works both in the United States and internationally. He was hosting a group of Australians here learning about Colorado River [...]
Water in the Desert: Tempe Town Lake
Reorganizing photo archives as I move to a new computer, I came across this, from a fall 2009 trip to Phoenix. Tempe Town Lake, in the words of its boosters… embodies a unique vision for the future of the Valley. Town Lake is a regional and national destination, welcoming millions each year. Recognized as a top [...]
Will an Empty Lake Mead Sell Skeptics on the Reality of Climate Change?
U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is reported to have said in a talk this morning (Thurs. 2/24) in Washington D.C. that he believes the ongoing drought on the Colorado River could be the spark to shift conservative political opinion on climate change. From the Las Vegas Sun: In comments he delivered at a symposium hosted [...]
Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: Megadroughts
Peter Fawcett has a terrific paper in Nature this week on southwestern megadrought. I’ve been “upstream” (as the science journos like to say) for a while, having been along when Peter and others did some of their very first field work in the Valle Grande in Northern New Mexico back in 2003, and I’ve been [...]
Kenney on How to Fix Our River Management System
Doug Kenney, the University of Colorado law school guy who is going bold in his push toward Colorado River management solutions, has a Denver Post op-ed this morning that looks toward innovative solutions that, importantly, work the problem without requiring us to tear up the Colorado River Compact: If dry conditions continue as predicted, the [...]
The Arizona-New Mexico Connection
No obvious explanation comes to mind for this remarkable correlation in Google Ngrams of “New Mexico” and “Arizona”. I checked a bunch of other neighboring states in various combinations, and nothing comes close. Anyone?
Add Water
I’m told that twice in the last few decades enough water spilled past the Colorado River’s dams to wet the old Colorado River Delta and bring back the life – once during the great El Niño season of 1983, when there was so much water in the system that we almost lost Glen Canyon Dam, [...]
China’s Water Investment
China’s latest 10-year plan, which came out in January, includes what seems to me like a staggeringly large investment in trying to better manage its water: The country will invest 4 trillion yuan ($608 billion) into projects during the next decade to improve water conservation, Chen Xiwen, director of the office for the Communist Party [...]
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