Plumb wrong
Posted on | May 12, 2010 | 2 Comments
Thank you to Matt Heberger of ebmgh.com for sharing this gem off a hydrozone graphic, which he spotted as he opened up his latest water bill from the East Bay Municipal Utility District. Go to his post “Earth to East Bay MUD: Are you stupid, clueless or what?” to see him explain climate zones to the hydrozone guys, then offer alternate (better) schematics. The coup de grass is when he refers to recent water ordinances that show the East Bay MUD schematic out of compliance.
While East Bay MUD is clearly (and very possibly passively) promoting wasteful landscaping, it could be that its hydrozone web page is merely mis-categorized under “conservation tips.” Nowhere in the text on the web version does it pretend to conservation value. Rather, it’s illustrating the concept of irrigation zones, mainly for turf.
And here’s the weird part: The irrigation zones in the schematic are wrong for any type of landscape, conservative or wasteful. A random generator could have placed the plants better.
Click here to keep reading
Tags: chance of rain > East Bay Municipal Utility District > Emily Green > hydrozones
A Good idea for school gardens
Posted on | May 12, 2010 | No Comments
GOOD magazine in partnership with the Los Angeles Unified School District is seeking designs for school garden prototypes. To learn about the competition, click on the image.
“Everything but the water”
Posted on | May 12, 2010 | 3 Comments
Dear University of California Regents,
California’s water system is on the brink of collapse. If we fail to figure out our water supply, California fails as a state. Clamor from various users, be they Delta fishermen, Central Valley farmers or Southern California realtors is deafening. Each group tells the story in ways that suit their cases. Only one place, the University of California’s Water Resources Center Archives, is dedicated to systematic and impartial collection and cataloging of the kind of information that will help us find our way forward.
There could be no more foolhardy step than to dismantle the Water Resources Center Archives at the moment that they are most desperately needed. Please find a way to save and build the collection as a powerful way to save and build our state.
Sincerely,
Emily Green
Click here for how, and why, to support the Water Resources Center Archives. Click here for High Country News on the archives, and here for the take of Pacific Institute President Peter Gleick.
The week that was, 5/2-8/2010
Posted on | May 9, 2010 | 1 Comment
Click on the image for NOAA updates and links to the British Petroleum / Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Due to heightened interest in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, media aircraft have been conducting low flights and landings on Breton National Wildlife Refuge’s Chandeleur Islands. These flights and landings threaten the very birds that the media are covering and that the public is concerned about. — Deepwater Horizon Response on Facebook, May 8, 2010
“It’s the ocean, baby.” — Jim O’Brien, Florida State University oceanographer and meteorologist, “Grand Ole Opry flood and other crazy weather: El Niño’s fault?” Christian Science Monitor, May 4, 2010
Why do people wait and watch the water rise? Why do they keep their luggage in the boat and themselves in water the color of milky coffee that is no doubt full of snakes? — “Our deluge, drop by drop,” an op-ed on the Tennessee floods, The New York Times, May 4, 2010
Warming the planet will cause many other climatic patterns to change at speeds unprecedented in modern times … — Letter signed by 255 scientists asserting the existence of climate change, “Climate change and the integrity of science,” Science, May 7, 2010
Science magazine Photoshopped climate bear. Click on the image for Peter Gleick's response in the Huffington Post.
Along with the letter the magazine published a picture of a lonely polar bear floating on a small ice floe … Turns out the picture was Photoshopped, and even worse, this fact was not apparent to readers of the letter. The climate-change deniers jumped all over this. — “Earth to Science magazine: Are you stupid, clueless or conspiratorial or what?” WaterWired, May 9, 2010
NOAA’s State of the Climate report shows the April 2010 average temperature for the contiguous United States was 54.3 degrees F, which is 2.3 degrees F above the long-term (1901-2000) average (14th warmest April on record). — “Above normal temperatures and below normal precipitation in April,” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, May 7, 2010
“This is everyone’s worst nightmare in the water industry.” — Frederick A. Laskey, executive director of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, “A ‘catastrophic’ rupture hits region’s water system,” The Boston Globe, May 2, 2010
“You don’t budget for catastrophic failures on pipes less than a decade old.” — Joe Favaloro, Massachusetts Water Resources Authority advisory board executive director, “Tunnel failure came before back-up could be finished,” The Boston Globe, May 2, 2010
Click here to keep reading ‘The week that was’
The Dry Garden: Raven at Rancho
Posted on | May 7, 2010 | 6 Comments
Peter Raven, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, at dusk in a meadow of irises, poppies and sage at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont, California, where he was honored for his work on biodiversity last Sunday. “It makes sense that we’ll come to a point where we’re sustainable,” he told the audience. “The question we must ask ourselves now is how long it will take and what we will lose in the process?" Photo: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times.
As the program had it, the ceremony at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont was to honor Peter Raven. But those who came away from Sunday’s event might be forgiven for believing that Raven, the man Time magazine called a “hero for the planet,” had come to honor Rancho Santa Ana.
For those unfamiliar with Raven, he is to plants what David Attenborough is to animals. He co-authored the seminal textbook “The Biology of Plants” and advised the Clinton administration on biodiversity. Under his directorship for almost four decades, the Missouri Botanical Garden (the oldest botanic garden in continuous operation in the country) became a lifesaver for the sweeping Flora of North America project. Soon Raven will be in London, at the Chelsea Flower Show, an American lecturing the English on the future of sustainable gardening.
Click here to keep reading about Peter Raven’s message about conservation in California in the Los Angeles Times weekly column “The Dry Garden.”
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