Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: Climate Change and the West
Fingerprinting global warming.
Archive of entries posted on January 2008
Drinking Pee
Eilene Zimmerman on efforts in Southern California to do that which seems both obvious but somehow icky: treat our sewage and then reuse it: We don’t have enough water where we need it; if we don’t learn to deal with drinking toilet water, we’re going to be mighty thirsty.
Things I learned this weekend
It was Gertrude Stein who introduced Ernest Hemingway to “the violent theater of bullfighting.” Raymond Chandler, before he captured LA’s darker angels, was a failed oil company executive. ((Leland, Hip: The History))
Water in the Desert: Main Break Edition
It’s sort of an infrastructure triple junction. Below, you’ve got a big open concrete channel that substitutes for what used to be arroyos carrying water off of what is now a city. Adjacent to it, you’ve got a buried water main, carrying drinking water to the residents of that city. Above it, you have one …
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Walking the Dogs
Seen from the bike today – a woman in Corrales, New Mexico, taking her dogs for a walk.
Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: Forecast Edition
On the current status of our snowpack: Much of New Mexico is just like the forecasters said we should expect it to be: dry. With La Niña’s cool Pacific waters pushing storms away from us this year, Albuquerque and most points to the south and east have been drier than average since Oct. 1. The …
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“Dank, cloudy and small”
By way of describing its home island’s lack of suitability as a place to grow biofuels, the Economist in its Jan. 19 issue describes Britain as “dank, cloudy and small.” Makes me want to fly over on one of Sir Richard’s biofuel jets to go on holiday.
Heath Ledger Survey
I was puzzled by the range of reactions I heard from those around me yesterday to the death of actor Heath Ledger. So I’m conducting a survey. When you heard the news that Heath Ledger died, was your reaction: Who’s Heath Ledger? Wasn’t he that guy in that movie about those guys? OMG! Other (please …
Wal-Green
I have no idea how to judge whether this is serious, as opposed to greenwashing, but I do know that Wal-Mart could probably do more than any three of the rest of us combined: “We see customers having to choose between filling up their gas tanks or buying medicine and food and clothes,” ran Mr. …
Prediction Markets
A smart friend recently commented thus: “Gambling is just a way to redistribute resources from the dumber to the smarter.” In that regard, it’s a good thing I’m only playing Intrade with play money. Intrade is the betting-prediction market that’s all the rage among the Wisdom of Crowds Crowd, and I’ve been using it over …