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Odds and ends: Dam discussion, cows and water, Economist debate closes, Yale Environment 360, wine on tap, and the real cause of droughts!

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 12, 2008 at 7:34 am

Forgive the non-water related picture, but I just had to share Aqua Spouse’s incredible dragonfly picture!

An interesting post on the effectiveness of dams in the new emerging California climate. One of my favorite bloggers returns to the blogosphere with an interesting discussion on the proposed dams and how they might be operated in the face of climate change. This post discusses the projected changes to California’s hydrology and how those changes would affect reservoir operations; the new dams might even have environmental benefits. However this blogger remains undecided about whether we should build them: So, do we hate these dams? Should enviros fight them forever? Well, we don’t love them for the old-school reason. They won’t produce new water. The big cities in the south have realized this; they aren’t offering to pay or even lobbying for new dams. Both dams would destroy a beautiful valley. They’ll be expensive. On the other hand, they’ll have downstream environmental benefits in ways that old dams never provided. We have more of a need to catch floods, because that’s what we’re going to get in the new hydrology. They may give us a way to keep more of the ag we have now, if that is the goal. There’s a lot more to this post, so go check it out at the Rhubarb Pie blog. If you enjoyed that post, check out this one on how our infrastructure is optimized for the old climatology, and how we are moving from the Age of Abundance into the Age of Management.

Cows are guzzling the West’s Water: the Wuerthner on the Environment blog, written by ecologist and writer George Wuerthner, has an extremely long post on the effects of irrigation on the ecosystem in the west, starting with the cow: When people think of California and water, they often imagine sprawling cities dotted liberally with swimming pools and watered lawns; legions of vain auto owners washing their SUVs, sports cars, and minivans; and endless acres of verdant golf courses - all sucking down rivers both near and far. This image is partly correct - rivers are going dry. But the major reason is not direct consumption by humans - urbanites running sprinklers on their front yards and the like. In California, the major user of water is agriculture, and within agriculture, the thirstiest commodity is the cow. Check out this post at Wuerthner on the Environment blog.

Results are in on the Economist debate: After a torrent of incisive statements and comments over the past two weeks, our debate has now reached a close—and we have a winner. You have voted against the proposition by 59% to 41%. Vandana Shiva prevails. This house does not believe that “water, as a scarce resource, should be priced according to its market value”. Check out the results from the Water Wired blog. Not surprisingly to those who know him, Aguanomics blog writer David Zetland does not agree, saying “We will suffer from “supply-demand imbalances” for as long as water prices fail to reflect its scarcity value“. He gives his thoughts here.

Aguanomics blog reviews the site Yale Environment 360: David Zetland says the posts are “relevant, thorough and accurate”. He reviews and summarizes three of them. From the Aguanomics blog.

Sparkling white wine on tap in Italy: At the heart of the town’s famous Sagra dell’Uva, or Grape Festival, is the moment when sparkling white wine flows from the fountains in the main square. But this year locals and tourists had to make do with water, as bad plumbing meant the wine supply was switched by mistake to local homes. Oops! From the BBC News.

The real cause of drought, in case you didn’t know it, is Daylight Savings Time! Six months of DST is too much for the environment to cope with, (seriously!) says this letter writer in this humorous post, also from the Aguanomics blog.

October 12, 2008 · Filed Under Odds and Ends

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