Possible Gila Diversion

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I don’t know southern New Mexico water issues, so I’ll offer up this Las Cruces Sun-News story without comment, except to suggest that the issue is worth following:

Local conservation groups are balking at the idea that the Gila and San Francisco rivers could be used to supply water to Doña Ana County as part of a proposed construction project to divert water to southwest New Mexico.

The suggestion was brought up by Rep. Joe Stell, D-Carlsbad, outgoing chairman of New Mexico’s legislative Water and Natural Resources Committee, during a recent meeting by the committee. Stell said while counties in southwest New Mexico should be first in line to benefit from the water, it could also be used to help meet a growing demand for water in Las Cruces.

Unlikely Support

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Steve Lohr has a nice piece in today’s New York Times about the economics of carbon mitigation, pointing out how some in carbon emitting industries actually welcome a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system:

So it is something of a surprise that James E. Rogers, chief executive of Duke Energy, a coal-burning utility in the Midwest and the Southeast, has emerged as an unexpected advocate of federal regulation that would for the first time impose a cost for emitting carbon dioxide. But he has his reasons.

“Climate change is real, and we clearly believe we are on a route to mandatory controls on carbon dioxide,” Mr. Rogers said. “And we need to start now because the longer we wait, the more difficult and expensive this is going to be.”

Daybook

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Forced to write a daybook on account of ’cause I ran across a cool word of the day, which is:

word of the day: “apophenia” – “the experience of seeing patterns where none exist” – definition from Bob Park, writing in the 9 December New Scientist

reading: Acequia Culture, Jose Rivera’s book about the village-based irrigation culture of northern and central New Mexico (and a bit in Colorado), rooted in practices of old Spain and remarkable resilient to the climate variability that has caused a bit of havoc for some folks living in this arid landscape

paper of the day: While all the cool kids are at the AGU meeting in San Francisco, all I can do is read the organization’s journals from afar. Today’s entry in the “how screwed are we by global warming” derby comes from Marika Holland at NCAR, whose modeling work suggests a chance of an ice-free late summer arctic by as soon as 2040. Of course, in true media hype-mongering, I’ve picked the worst case example here. But hey, it’s just a blog.

Water in the Desert

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windmillOriginally uploaded by heinemanfleck.

ESTANCIA – It occurred to me yesterday why I’m so fascinated by the pinto bean farmers of the Estancia Basin. They are very much like the trees prized by the scientists who use tree rings to piece together ancient climates: at the edge of their range, and therefore sensitive to small changes in climate that a fatter and happier tree might take in stride.

Lissa and I were on a wander Sunday through the basin, which runs down the east side of New Mexico’s central mountain chain, an hour east-southeast of Albuquerque. I’m fascinated by the place because it’s a perfect lab for the sort of climate storytelling I’m interested in. In the late Pleistocene, during the tail end of the last ice age, the enclosed basin held a lake that rose and fell with the changing climate. By some 10,000 years ago, the lake was gone, save for one brief resurgence. In more modern times, the Tompiro lived in the region, in cities like Gran Quivira, on a hill at the far southern edge of Torrance County. They traded the salt that can still be found in the playas in the bottom of old Lake Estancia. It is those same playas, dug by the wind, that gave scientists their first glimpses of the layering of the lake’s sediment that makes ancient Lake Estancia one of interior North America’s great paleoclimate tales.

Continue reading ‘Water in the Desert’ »

RailRunner

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RailRunner

Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck.

The thing I like about trains is the same thing I have always enjoyed about walking in alleys: you get to see the backs of things. It’s the place where people pile their junk, where they show the things they don’t really want you to see, but that are a real part of their lives.

Lissa and I rode the RailRunner up to Bernalillo yesterday, stopping on the way back to take the feeder bus up to Cottonwood Mall. The Mall is all about showing you the front side of things, all prettified and glossy. The train ride was much better.

Those Batshit Crazy Livermore Guys

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Lowell Wood illustration

The boy dropped off his pass-along copy of the Nov. 16 Rolling Stone, that I might enjoy Jeff Goodell’s powerful strange and fascinating piece about Lowell Wood and geoengineering. Wood’s idea – not really “Wood’s idea,” really “lots of people’s idea” – is to pump shit into the atmosphere to cool things off, a geoengineering approach to the question of climate change, kind of like optimistically drinking a lot of coffee before you drive home from the bar.

The idea frankly sounds batshit crazy, but I’ve got no real way to judge it on its technical merits. What I’m fascinated by is the the Goodell/RS rhetorical approach. Lowell Wood is a giant in batshit crazy military technology circles, a supreme optimist in his belief that our technological solutions will really turn out the way we intend them. This is the brains behind Star Wars (the missile defense technology, not the epic film series). Star Wars was batshit crazy – would never have worked. But it didn’t really have to in order to succeed. All that really had to happen was for the Soviets to think it might work, and that we’d be crazy enough to try it. The Soviet military apparatus, you see, was infested with people every bit as batshit crazy as Wood.
Goodell/RS (I’m lumping them together because one cannot distinguish between writer and editor/publisher) entertains Wood’s geoengineering ideas, treats them with profound seriousness, while at the same time baldly calling them “nefarious” and absolutely loving the “Dr. Evil” appelation. Goodell could have done a story about perfectly serious, not batshit crazy people who are serious about geoengineering to deal with climate change. But the idea sounds so perfectly batshit crazy that Wood seems the perfect vehicle through which to tell the story.

This is postmodern, ironic journalism, right? (See Colbert, Stephen)