The week that was, 8/23-29/2009
Posted on | August 29, 2009 | No Comments
A massive mechanical mole surfaced on Wednesday from a nearly 5-year journey under [the San Bernardino] mountains in the final stages of a $1.2 billion tunnel project that will supply extra water to drought-hit Southern California. –– August 20th Reuters report via August 27th comment in Aguanomics
“Every jock thinks he can run a restaurant.” — Chris Matthews on MSNBC commenting during a cutaway to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger mingling among more seasoned politicians at Ted Kennedy’s funeral
Click here for more of The Week that was
The Dry Garden: “If you want to save energy, save water”
Posted on | August 28, 2009 | 4 Comments
WEEK before last, more than 1,000 climate experts from around the world gathered in Stockholm for World Water Week. If you didn’t read about it or hear about it on TV, it’s not necessarily because of the crisis besetting modern journalism. It could easily be the subject. If there is anything that can clear a room faster than a plague of toads, it’s discussion of climate change and water.
Peter Gleick, a MacArthur fellow and president of the Pacific Institute in Oakland, was in Stockholm for the meeting. He is, above any Californian, our man on the unmentionable.
So are there ways to address this topic, I asked Gleick recently, without leaving everyone feeling utterably depressed and helpless? Absolutely, Gleick responded. “If you want to save energy, save water.”
To keep reading Emily Green’s latest Dry Garden column in the Los Angeles Times, click here.
Correction: In an early version of the article, I stated that “the pumps that convey and treat California’s water account for roughly 20% of the energy consumed in the state.” This was incorrect. It accounts for 20% of the electricity, along with 30% of California’s natural gas and 88 billion gallons of diesel fuel every year. — EG
Smoke, heat in Los Angeles
Posted on | August 28, 2009 | 1 Comment
For a special Greater Los Angeles weather advisory, click here
Tags: chance of rain > Emily Green > Los Angeles > National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
“Glen Canyon is talking back”
Posted on | August 27, 2009 | No Comments
“I don’t know that there’s very many people in the world who want to kiss, love, hug, lick, touch, and talk to sandstone,” says 89-year-old Katie Lee, as she sums up the loss she felt when the 170-mile Glen Canyon in Arizona was dammed in 1965. The Colorado River backed up, creating one of the largest reservoirs in the United States, Lake Powell, etching about 2,000 miles of shoreline as it flooded the main canyon and nearly 200 side canyons.
… To read more from a purely magical story in the environment pages of the Christian Science Monitor, click here.
Via the Great Basin Water Network and Aquafornia.
Too silly to water?
Posted on | August 27, 2009 | No Comments
THANKS to Thirsty in Suburbia for posting this ad from Denver Water. Click on the blades to see what grass would say if grass could speak.
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