These things are blooming like nutso in the countryside around Copenhagen. They average around 24 inches of rain a year here, so it’s not a super wet place, but wet enough that there’s stuff growing everywhere. But not so wet that they don’t have problems with overdrafting their aquifers. Sound familiar? (More when I’m not …
Mexican fans watching Mexico v. Argentina on a giant TV on the waterfront in Copenhagen, June 27, 2010.
I just got my copy of my friend Chuck McCutcheon’s new book,What are Global Warming and Climate Change?: Answers for Young Readers (Worlds of Wonder). It’s the latest in the UNM Press series that includes my book. Haven’t read it yet, but it looks great! If you have a young friend or relative you’d like …
I’m headed to Copenhagen next week for a journalism workshop. While the workshop will fill most of my time there, I’ve scheduled a few extra days to play. Suggestions?
From this morning’s newspaper (sub/ad req), a story about the new paper in today’s Science by Jonathan Overpeck and Brad Udall about climate change in the West. Udall and Overpeck have become fixtures on the western water meeting circuit over the last several years delivering this message, and the paper contains no real surprises. But …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: Dry Times Ahead in the West’ »
I’ve written in the past about the remarkable fact that, despite the 10 driest years on record on the Colorado River, no one’s had their allocation reduced or cut off. The first plausible scenario under which that would change happens when the surface of Lake Mead drops to 1,075 feet above sea level. Under the …
Continue reading ‘River Beat: Chances of Mead Hitting 1075’ »
The book project means I often pay more attention to the Colorado River, at least journalistically, than the river through my own back yard. But via the work blog, you can see that it’s dry over on this side of the continental divide as well: Over the last 14 years there have only been three …
The suddenly ubiquitous Bureau of Reclamation Colorado River supply-demand graph showed up today in a helpful Bruce Finley story in today’s Denver Post about the conversation in Colorado regarding the disconnect between shrinking Colorado River supply and growing Colorado River demand: Colorado River water consumed yearly for agriculture and by the 30 million Westerners who …
Continue reading ‘River Beat: The Conversation About Limits’ »
This observation from the first draft of next year’s U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Colorado River Annual Operating Plan should come as no surprise: Inflow to Lake Powell has been below average in nine of the past eleven years (2000-2010). Although slightly above average inflows occurred in 2005 and 2008, drought conditions in the Colorado River Basin persist. …
Continue reading ‘River Beat: Up to Driest 11 years on the Colorado’ »
David Appell triggered an interesting discussion over at his blog about comparing the Gulf oil mess to other ecological disasters, presaging a nice piece by Justin Gillis exploring a lot of the same issues. As I mentioned over at David’s, this raises what has long been for me a discomfort about the ecological insults we …