The energy-water nexus is an issue all over the western United States. Many new sources of energy, from concentrating solar plants to oil shales, need water. New sources of water, whether pumping it long distances or desalinating brackish groundwater or ocean water, take energy. Few examples on the energy side are as interesting as the …
One of the things my colleagues and I found when reviewing the history of the ’70s global cooling myth was the consistent way alleged evidence was recycled through the literature by those perpetuating the myth. It was easy to verify the recycling in two ways. First, there were characteristic mistakes and elisions introduced early that …
Writing in the latest issue of Skeptical Inquirer, physicist Mark Boslough argues that scientists are being held to a higher standard in the media and political debate over climate change than those who oppose them: Denialists have attempted to call the science into question by writing articles that include fabricated data. They’ve improperly graphed data …
Continue reading ‘Boslough in SI: Playing By Different Rules’ »
From the work blog: Is Dianne Feinstein misrepresenting New Mexico history in her search for a precedent for reducing water for the delta smelt?
From this morning’s Journal, the struggle to help a river get to its destination when it doesn’t really want to go there on its own (sub/ad req): RATTLESNAKE POINT — Without Jason Thibodaux’s help, the Rio Grande would have a hard time making it past this sediment-choked desert flood plain. Around a bend in the …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: The View from Rattlesnake Point’ »
It must have seemed like a good idea. Southwestern Colorado had coal. California needed it. And the Colorado River provided what seemed like a relatively level route to get from Point A to Point B. Thus was R.B. Stanton dispatched in 1889 to survey a route for the Denver, Colorado Canyon & Pacific Railroad. The …
Continue reading ‘The Colorado River, Looking South, Circa 1889’ »
Corporations are doing a poor job of incorporating water variability risk into the disclosures they make to stockholders, according to an analysis released this week by Ceres, an organization of environmental groups and investor advocates: Global water scarcity is one emerging risk that all companies should be focused on – and one about which investors …
Perhaps this explains Pat Mulroy’s recent travails: A court in drought-plagued Malawi has jailed a man accused of casting a spell that blocked rain from falling on his neighbour’s field, police say. The court sentenced Chikumbeni Mwanatheu, 35, to two months in prison with hard labour after he admitted a charge of witchcraft, police spokesman …
Continue reading ‘Here All Along I Thought It Was Climate Change….’ »
Over on the work blog, I’m hosting an impromptu exchange between Cristina Archer and Roger Pielke Sr. over the question of the extent to which the jet stream is moving north, potentially drying out the southwest, and the implications of the current year’s southern storm track for thinking about that hypothesis. (comments off here, comments …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: On Weather and Climate’ »
The Bureau of Reclamation has tuned up its estimates of the chances of release of extra water to help Lake Mead, now putting them at one in four this year, according to an update published today (Wed. 2/10). The jargon here is “equalization,” which happens when there is enough extra water upstream in Lake Powell …
Continue reading ‘Chances of Extra Water for Mead Remain Low’ »