In a month or two, I have a new book coming out from Island Press called Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water. Look for it at your local… well, wherever you buy books now.
Californians have improved their efficiency of water use over the past 25 years. The state’s economy and population have grown. But total water use has not grown, and per person, each Californian uses far less today. This improvement in efficiency has saved the state’s collective rear end. So far.
Information on the disaster in Haiti is only slowly coming out, but it is clear that the magnitude and extent of the catastrophe is vast, in a land seemingly cursed by endless environmental destruction.
It would be nice if water resources fell neatly into national political boundaries. It would be nice if countries that shared water resources cooperated more. It would be nice if climate change wasn’t a growing threat to the stocks and flows of water around the world.
In general, tap water in the United States is remarkably safe — the envy of people in much of the rest of the world. The water-related diseases that still kill millions of people throughout the world, like cholera, typhoid, dysentery, and more.
In all of the recent news about climate change, leaked emails, complex negotiations, and watered-down agreements in Copenhagen, one fact has’t received enough attention. The climate “hoax” is real.
A NASA report summarizing data collected from new satellites confirms what most water observers have known for a long time. Massive amounts of groundwater are being sucked out of California’s Central Valley groundwater aquifers — unreported, unmonitored, and unregulated.
In an ongoing effort to understand the connections between water resources, water systems, and international security and conflict, the Pacific Institute initiated a project in the late 1980s to track and categorize events related to water and conflict.
The western United States is still in a drought. If you have any doubts, take a look at the latest map from the U.S. Drought Monitor. Maybe we’ll be lucky and the rains will start soon and be healthy. But California water agencies and users must begin planning for another dry year.
Injecting water, chemicals, and sand to “frack” the gas from shale rock formations.
In a good indication of just how important water is to us, some of the most exciting news from the Moon since the initial 1969 landing has revolved around research to determine whether or not it has water.
Last week, I wrote about the demand by the Poseidon Group to receive two major public subsidies to build a private desalination plant at Carlsbad near San Diego. After years of claiming that they needed no public support to build this plant, this claim has finally been proven false. The private profits they need will only be possible with public subsidies.
 |
 |
 |