A guest post from my child, N. Reed Heineman-Fleck, which grew out of our conversations about my work chronicling the southwest’s fires of 2011: When Dad told me about the Los Conchas fire, and how it was different than normal fires–in some places it turned everything to black dust; it rolled instead of catching, it …
In an interview with Sacramento’s Capital Report, California resources secretary John Laird got off the water wonks’ quip of a lifetime: Water is the Rubik’s Cube of public policy. It will be quoted for all eternity. But really, it’s a lousy metaphor. Here’s the meat of what he said: The thing that probably works to …
Continue reading ‘Water: Why “the Rubik’s Cube of public policy” misses the point’ »
In my automated news searches on California water issues, I’d run across a number of stories of late on a web site called “News Hawks”, which seemed to be devoting an inordinate amount of time to detailing the efforts of an obscure Southern California water agency called the Central Basin Municipal Water District. I didn’t …
Continue reading ‘Central Basin Municipal Water District ignores the first rule of holes’ »
The following appeared in my twitter feed last night: Could it be that the legendary “forecaster” is resorting to twitter spamming to drum up business? (I have suggested the good folks at Twitter look into that possibility.) I counted 115 identical messages that went out at the same time last night in his twitter feed. …
Great job by Jay Lund in unpacking the issue of California water storage – how much it has, how it’s used and what role it might play going forward: Climate warming is reducing the ability of California’s snowpack to store water seasonally. Fortunately, downstream reservoirs on many streams are already large compared to seasonal changes …
Some fun with the newly released USGS historical map collection – here’s Albuquerque circa 1893: update: Ooh, I missed this. From the top left corner of the map – U.S. Geological Survey, J.W. Powell, Director:
NASA’s great Earth Observatory published satellite images of the Aral Sea showing changes over the last year as the sea (really four distinct bodies of water now) shrinks as water that once flowed in is diverted for human consumptive use. Which led me, thanks to a helpful twitter tip, to this great pair of satellite …
From Steven Solomon’s Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization: So closely correlated was river management and governing power that the very Chinese character for “politics” is derived from root words meaning flood control.
I’m all for a serious discussion about the costs and benefits of desalination as a source of water supply in the arid southwestern United States. But I find this argument, from Ted Owen of the Carlsbad, Calif., Chamber of Commerce, less than helpful: Jobs. Everyone in business and government is talking about the need to …
If our carny rides are reflections of our deepest cultural impulses*, what does the “Badlands Express” ride at the New Mexico State Fair tell us about the modern West? Are these kids standing in for our lost Hayduke? *Note: I don’t think our carny rides are reflections of our deepest cultural impulses. I just thought …