I’m giving the first real talk about the new Eric Kuhn-John Fleck book – Science Be Dammed: How Ignoring Inconvenient Science Drained the Colorado River – this Friday to colleagues and friends as part of the UNM Economics Department spring seminar series.

In a nutshell:

The fate of nine states across two nations in western North America is tied to mistakes made a century ago in allocating the waters of the Colorado River. Drawing on early hydrologic studies, John Fleck and co-author Eric Kuhn show that scientists warned as early as the 1920s that there was not enough water for the farms and cities boosters wanted to build. The result can be seen today in declining reservoirs in the western United States, as water managers struggle to come to terms with the mistakes of the past. Understanding how those mistakes were made is crucial to understanding our contemporary problems, and offers important lessons in the age of climate change about the importance of seeking out the best science to support the decisions we make. Based on the forthcoming book by Kuhn and Fleck, to be published fall 2019 by the University of Arizona Press.

Eric and I have actually been talking about this stuff for a while, but this is my first attempt since our crazy December-January finish-the-manuscript-blitz to pull it together into a single book talk.

Room 1002 in the UNM Econ building, 3 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22, 2019. Open to all, I’d be ever-so-happy if you’re in town (where by “town” I mean “in and around Albuquerque”) and would like to join us.