irrigation
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Wind and solar can save the planet — can they save our water supply, too?
In California, the rapid growth of solar and wind could help replenish depleted aquifers.
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Climate change leaves trees out to dry
We’re OK with the drought killing your lawn — but, c’mon, the trees, too?
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Watch how much water goes into your foodWhen it comes to conserving water, we have a lot on our plate.
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Cacti can clean up poisonous soils
Here are a few things you do with a prickly pear cactus: Get poked. Turn its fruit into jam. Use it to clean up dangerous concentrations of selenium in arid California lands. In California’s San Joaquin Valley, a long history of artificial irrigation has impregnated the soil with selenium. In small quantities, selenium is beneficial […]
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Et tu, pistachios? How climate change will mess with trail mix
Pistachios: What shell remain? Photo: PatternedCross-posted from Cool Green Science. What won’t climate change affect? Well, cross trail mix and cherry pie off that ever-shrinking list. It turns out that crisp apples, chewy almonds, ripe plums, and a host of other nuts and stone fruits might become much more costly to grow — or not […]
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Where Westlands water flows, California’s agriculture follows
What's happening in California's Westlands Water District provides a sneak peek at the problems that farmers all over the world will soon confront.
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The ‘food bubble’ is bursting, says Lester Brown, and biotech won’t save us
As food prices spike anew, the pioneering environmentalist has a chilling report about the global "food bubble." I asked him whether policymakers and biotech execs are right that genetically modified seeds are the answer to "feeding the world." His answer? No.
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The world is only one poor harvest away from chaos
Over the last few decades we've created a food production bubble based on overpumping aquifers, overplowing land, and overloading the atmosphere with carbon dioxide. The question is not whether it will burst, but when.
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Raising water productivity to increase food security
Drip irrigation is a simple and easy way to reduce water use.Photo courtesy of photofarmer via flickr With water shortages constraining food production growth, the world needs an effort to raise water productivity similar to the one that nearly tripled land productivity over the last half-century. Since it takes 1,000 tons of water to produce […]
