David Zetland, the bad boy of water economics, offered up a fascinating argument the other day regarding the traditional argument that agriculture used three quarters of the water in the West. When a farmer irrigates her field, who is it who’s really the “user”? When I use water to flush the toilet, that water only …
I would like to thank Nora for bringing this to my attention.
I’ve been working for the paper on a piece about Aldo Leopold’s years in Albuquerque. It’s a setup for a conference next month, and an excuse to explore some of the issues Leopold’s legacy raises for use living in the desert Southwest today. Here’s a snapshot, from a walk around the University of New Mexico …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere, Aldo Leopold Edition’ »
From Democracy for New Mexico: My partner of 19+ years and I are aging. We’re dealing with a number of health problems. We’re aware that if Mary Ellen loses her job, my health insurance will end that day, because the vast majority of employers in New Mexico can’t, by law, offer insurance coverage to domestic …
If OPEC priced its oil based on how much it costs to get it out of the ground, we’d be swimming in it right now. Or, more precisely, we would have been swimming in it, until we used it all up. The peak would have come long ago. When the market prices oil, the cost …
New data dump today from the St. Louis Fed includes this striking graph of unemployment in New Mexico (in blue, red is national numbers for comparison): We escaped the carnage for a while, anyway.
The rush to get in permit applications for brackish water drilling in New Mexico continues, as the state legislature considers a bill that would give the state regulatory authority. Staci Matlock reports in today’s New Mexican on more applications: Private interests are rushing to tap lightly regulated supplies of briny water deep under New Mexico …
Shaun McKinnon had an item today on the push in the Arizona legislature to back away from the Western Climate Initiative: A group of state legislators has started the process of undoing former Gov. Janet Napolitano’s climate change initiatives and their chances of success are probably good. A bill has been introduced in the Senate …
Continue reading ‘Is the Push for Regional Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Breaking Down?’ »
Michael Tobis models the lawnmower problem: If you have a typical American house, you have a typical lawn in front of it, a lawn that is in need of occasional trimming. Unless you contract out for lawn services, you almost certainly own a lawnmower too. Most likely it has a cheesy, loud, polluting little engine. You only …
The black swans of climate change, national security, the arctic. (ad gated)