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Drought, Migration and the Fall of Civilization: A Cautionary Tale
October 16th, 2023
Via The Hill, commentary on similarities between today’s world and the rise/fall of Mesopotamia: The writer George Santayana once famously said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This adage seems especially poignant at this moment with the twin conflicts that are playing out in the Western and Eastern hemispheres. For, this […]
Read more »Tensions Rise in the Rio Grande Basin as Mexico Lags in Water Deliveries to the U.S.
October 14th, 2023
Via Inside Climate News, a look at rising tensions in the Rio Grande basin where – in 2020 – rebellious Mexican farmers occupied a dam in parched Chihuahua state to prevent the federal government from sending its reservoir water to Texas under a 1944 treaty: By late August, the usual monsoon rains had scarcely materialized […]
Read more »A Dam Waste In the Age of Megadrought
October 14th, 2023
Via TruthDig, commentary on how Colorado’s Gross Dam illustrates the folly of impounding water to feed unsustainable economic and population growth in the American West: Mining explosions and summertime thunder can sound remarkably similar. In my rural Colorado neighborhood, 10 miles southwest of Boulder, the smaller blasts that clear ground for the expansion of Gross Dam […]
Read more »The Colorado River Wars Are Based on Bad Math
October 12th, 2023
Via Mother Jones, a look at how faulty assumptions have brought the Colorado “Law of the River” to a breaking point: California and Arizona are currently fighting each other over water from the Colorado River. But this isn’t new—it’s actually been going on for over 100 years. At one point, the states literally went to war about […]
Read more »Arizona Is Evicting a Saudi Alfalfa Farm, But The Thirsty Crop Isn’t Going Anywhere
October 10th, 2023
Via Grist, a report on Arizona’s recent decision to evict a Saudi alfalfa farm, but the state’s decision will do little to solve a water shortage largely driven by irrigated agriculture; As Arizona struggles to adapt to a water shortage that has dried out farms and scuttled development plans, one company has emerged as a central […]
Read more »Arizona Moves to End Saudi Farm’s Controversial Groundwater Deals
October 5th, 2023
Via AZCentral, a report on Arizona’s move to end a Saudi farm’s controversial groundwater deals to grow, export alfalfa: Gov. Katie Hobbs’ administration on Monday announced two steps to stop a controversial Saudi Arabian company from using groundwater beneath state land in western Arizona to grow and export alfalfa. Hobbs said in a statement that […]
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