Ensconced in my office in Albuquerque, I’ve been popping in and out of the webcast of today’s California State Water Resources Control Board workshop on the future of the Salton Sea, and I’ve noticed a very interesting subtext to the discussion that I think is important. It’s about the importance of Salton Sea environmental management …
Faith Kearns has a smart look at an under-covered piece of the problem of drought – the psychology of waiting: [W]hile waiting for uncertain news, people often focus on preparing—emotionally and logistically—for any possible outcome. People tend to shift between optimism and pessimism, and both states can help increase readiness. Optimism engenders people to take …
Emily Green has written a great primer for Southern Californians on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the distant geography from which a big chunk of their water emerges: [W]hat makes the Delta the Delta is water. After winter rain and snow, roughly half of California’s fresh water arrives in this quirkily engineered, mis-named place. Twenty five …
Continue reading ‘Sacramento Delta 101, and sharing water’ »
David Zetland: [W]e see a total lack of vision or action to address the REAL drivers of scarcity — retail prices too low to notice, permissive overuse of groundwater, failing water-as-charity policies, and the blinders of a historic pretension that water rights are properly allocated (nope) in the correct volumes (NOPE). Taken together, the excess …
Continue reading ‘An economist’s view of California’s water problems’ »
Jeff Michael at the University of the Pacific’s Center for Business and Policy Research summarizes data on economic recovery in California suggesting that the impact of the drought has not, at least to date, been as significant as some might suggest: Focusing just on the Central Valley, there is a geographical pattern from north to south. …
UC Davis’s Jay Lund responding to the flurry of news coverage surrounding Jay Famiglietti’s Los Angeles Times op ed: While the drought is serious, a UC Davis scientist is casting doubt on Famiglietti’s dire prediction. “It’s not the right impression that one more year of this and we’re toast,” UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences …
Continue reading ‘How much water does California have left? The other Jay disagrees’ »
Here’s a reader quiz. Which headline would be more like to draw your click? “California has about one year of water left.” “California has about one year of reservoir storage and then we must rely even more on groundwater” The first is the headline the Los Angeles Times put atop a Jay Famiglietti op-ed last …
In a twitter discussion this morning, Brian Jordan shared a telling graphic that exposes the problems with Victor Davis Hanson’s recent City Journal essay about California’s water problems. Hanson’s argument is that California abandoned a dam-building program that, had it been pursued, would have provided the necessary storage to meet needs in this year of …
Overheard on the 766 Rapid Ride bus as it pulled into downtown Albuquerque…. Guy standing in the aisle: “Is that a good book?” Guy seated: “I don’t know, I haven’t read it yet.” Pause. “It’s as old as fuck, though.” I look over to see the guy sitting across the aisle from me has a …