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Exporting The Colorado River To Asia, Through Hay: Beneath California Crops, Groundwater Crisis Grows
April 6th, 2015
Courtesy of the New York Times, a detailed look at California’s groundwater crisis: Even as the worst drought in decades ravages California, and its cities face mandatory cuts in water use, millions of pounds of thirsty crops like oranges, tomatoes and almonds continue to stream out of the state and onto the nation’s grocery shelves. But […]
Read more »How Agricultural Growers Gamed California’s Drought
March 30th, 2015
Via Daily Beast, an interesting article on how growers – who consume 80 percent of California’s developed water but account for only 2 percent of the state’s GDP – thrive while everyone else in the state is parched: “I’ve been smiling all the way to the bank,” said pistachio farmer John Dean at a conference […]
Read more »Sin City Water Grab Pits Mammon Against Mormons As U.S. West Dries Up
March 12th, 2015
Via AgWeb, an article on water tensions in the U.S. southwest: It’s Mammon versus Mormon as Las Vegas and its glittering towers of glass and greed seek to quench their growing thirst by draining billions of gallons of water from under the feet of ranchers whose cattle help feed the church’s poor. The biblical battle […]
Read more »Unprecedented 21st-Century Drought Risk In The American Southwest And Central Plains
February 13th, 2015
Via The Guardian, an article on a recent report on drought risk in the US: The US south-west and the Great Plains will face decade-long droughts far worse than any experienced over the last 1,000 years because of climate change, researchers said on Thursday. The coming drought age – caused by higher temperatures under climate […]
Read more »Thirsty Agriculture: Water Source For California Almonds May Run Dry
December 28th, 2014
Courtesy of the New York Times, an interesting article on the water-food nexus in the United States: California’s almond orchards have been thriving over the past decade and now provide an $11 billion annual boost to the state economy. Covering 860,000 acres, they account for 80 percent of world production. But the growth coincides with […]
Read more »How The U.S. West Was Lost
August 6th, 2014
Via National Geographic, a report on the drought gripping the U.S. west: The Colorado River at it delta Just as the settling and development of the arid American West was fueled by harnessing its available fresh water, the growing lack of water availability may well be its undoing. California’s epic drought is just the latest […]
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