From North Carolina, word that residents are not really all that altruistic and require some sort of pricing structure to help them understand that they’re in a frickin’ drought: Less than two months ago, Gov. Mike Easley urged all North Carolina communities to reduce water consumption by 50 percent. After showing marked declines in the …
I recently discovered the USGS’s wonderful photo archive, which (among many other things) has a huge collection of the photography from the second John Wesley Powell survey of the Grand Canyon. Powell quote of the day: Many droughts will occur. Many seasons in a long series will be fruitless.
From K. V. Ramesh and P. Goswami last week in Geophysical Research Letters, evidence that India’s monsoon, bringer of the rains to feed the farmers who feed the residents of one of the world’s largest nations, may be in decline: We show here, based on an analysis of daily gridded observed rainfall data for the …
Malcolm on the rains in Australia. The blessings of La Nina? Fortunately, things have definitely improved. The latest weekly report from the Catchmtent Authority shows that we have remained above 55% capacity for a couple months now and it is even ticking up slightly of late. The next mark of interest is 70%, which is …
Regular Inkstain readers will no doubt be aware of my ongoing search for “the solution space” – public policy options that unite those with disparate views in search of solutions to thorny problems that can actually be implemented – that are robust to underlying political disagreements. My friend Dave is pushing something in this regard …
I’m unclear on antipodal Christmas rituals, but apparently this is another area the Australian drought is being felt: With the Christmas tree season beginning this weekend, growers reported their crops would be up to 75 per cent smaller than previous years because of dry conditions last year. But decent rains this year have been good …
From ABC News: A severe drought that has parched corn and soybean fields across the Southeast has also scorched marijuana crops, leaving plants that should be 10 feet tall so puny that Roberts and his deputies simply pull them up. (Hat tip waterblogged.b)
One of the disconnects between science as it’s practiced and science as it’s understood by the public is “the results of the latest study”. When we report on “the results of the latest study,” the public is likely to be left shouting: “But last week I though they told me coffee was good for me!” …
Continue reading ‘The Colorado River: Dwindling Under Climate Change’ »
Funny is hard, especially when it’s about the fact that we’re all screwed because we’re running out of water. So I’m happy to discover a water blog that is both informative and funny: As we glumly consider our half-empty glass of tap water, which may or may not be contaminated, we decide that we have …
Japanese Garden, Albuquerque botanical gardens Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck. No doubt there’s a rich literature out there about the idea of the “park,” a human-created faux natural setting, so I won’t try to reinvent it here. This is the new Japanese Garden at the city of Albuquerque’s beautiful botanical gardens. It just opened, it’s lovely, …
Continue reading ‘Water in the Desert: Japanese Garden Edition’ »