As drought grips the Lancang-Mekong basin in Asia, tensions are growing over China’s dam, according to Richard Stone, writing in Friday’s Science (sub req): The drought’s effects have spilled across China’s borders, stoking tensions with neighbors and prompting scientific debate. Rice yields in Thailand are expected to take a big hit, and the Mekong River—the …
In theory, one of the benefits of interbasin water transfers is spreading risk. One basin may have drought while the other does not. But for folks on the Arkansas River in Colorado, that may not work out so well, based on new tree ring analysis by Jeff Lukas and colleagues. Chris Woodka of the Pueblo …
My colleague Mike Murphy’s story last week about New Mexico’s historic unemployment rate (sub/ad might be req, I can never tell) got me thinking about how we measure our economic ills, and how we compare to others around us. A couple graphs. In both cases I’ve chosen Nevada (red) as our comparison state because I’m …
I noticed the lilacs starting to leaf out in our backyard this afternoon. We moved the weather station last week, so I’m not sure what 65F (18C) means, but that’s what the thermometer says. (Anthony Watts would no doubt disapprove of its current location in the corner by the back wall, but my old cotton …
Daniel Sarewitz had a piece in Slate today arguing that science is not going to settle the current political fight over greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Michael Tobis thinks Sarewitz is wrong. I agree with Sarewitz. Here is why. The core of Sarewitz’s argument is that the contest over the science serves to mask the …
It’s looking increasingly likely that we’ll see history this summer, of the dry, unpleasant sort, on Lake Mead. With a meager snowpack in the Upper Green and Upper Colorado, the chances of a water surplus in the Upper Colorado River Basin that would allow an extra dollop of the wet stuff for Lake Mead have …
Continue reading ‘How Low Can Mead Go? Let’s Talk Come June’ »
Longtime Inkstain readers will know of my interest in giant scissors (see here and here, for example). I’m happy to report that Stuff Journalists Like has advanced this important story with an exploration of its close relationship with really giant fake checks: The giant check screams: “Giving anonymously is for suckas.” Journalists wonder how much …
Emily Pierce has a story in Roll Call that illustrates the dilemma facing those who advocate greenhouse gas reductions. Action on climate change has become politically toxic, while action on energy legislation has not: Dorgan was upset that the so-far failed efforts of Kerry and Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) to craft …
Another example of the conflicts that occur when we move water from one basin to another, this one from here in New Mexico: Stella Davis in the Carlsbad Current-Argus talks about the negative reaction from folks in the Pecos River Basin to a proposal to build a pipeline to ship groundwater from the Fort Sumner …
In which my daughter makes an appearance in this morning’s newspaper (sub/ad req): Nora Heineman-Fleck, social networking liaison for the University of New Mexico and a frequent user of online networks, has learned to tailor her personal networks like Facebook to make them more useful. “I very rarely actually ‘unfriend’ people,” she says. “I usually …