water crisis
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Data highlights on the global food supply
World agriculture today faces pressure from many sources. On the production side, the amount of unused arable land worldwide has dwindled. Overworked soils are becoming eroded and degraded, and overpumped aquifers are being depleted. Meanwhile, as the global population grows and increasing biofuel production converts grain into fuel for cars, demand for food continues to […]
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Smart meters save energy, water, and dollars
Flickr via Pink Sherbet PhotographyThe other day I came home to find a colorful flyer on my front door proclaiming, “Your meter just got smarter.” While I was out and about in Berkeley, a worker from my utility, PG&E, slipped in the side gate and gave my old gas and electric meter a digital upgrade. […]
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Money’s coming to cool the planet: What’s the winning spending plan?
With their natural resources pilfered, have Native American gambling casinos been payback, a further pillage (described as Tonto’s revenge during the Abramoff scandal) or perhaps both? It’s a relevant debate for today’s global warming talks. During these next weeks of climate change deliberations in Copenhagen, environmental service payment programs will be hammered out. What’s the […]
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The end of welfare water and the drying of the West
This essay was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom’s kind permission. Pink snow is turning red in Colorado. Here on the Great American Desert — specifically Utah’s slickrock portion of it where I live — hot ‘n’ dry means dust. When frequent high winds sweep across our increasingly arid landscape, redrock […]
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Water must be on the table at Copenhagen talks
The participants of the 2009 World Water Week in Stockholm last Friday unanimously said that water must be included in the COP-15 climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December. At various sessions throughout the Week, a number of organizations and officials have articulated the reasons why water needs to be an integral part of the negotiation […]
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A tour through Indian energy projects suggests small is beautiful
A local irrigation project in southern India.Courtesy Michael Foley Photography via FlickrGeorge Black has a fascinating story about how India might lift its people out of poverty without torching the environment in the current issue of OnEarth, the magazine run by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Written largely as a travelogue through clean energy innovations […]
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Reports highlight need to support clean water projects in poor countries
The failure of governments in both rich and poor countries to prioritize basic sanitation is killing thousands of children every day, according to two reports released today by WaterAid and PATH. And a third report released yesterday suggests that the global economic crisis may increase the death rate, at least in Africa. All three reports […]
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The unrecognized link between water and energy
Photo: rutloOur nation is in the midst of some serious energy and water problems, but what many may not realize is that these two issues are very closely linked (see the recent Wall Street Journal article on this topic). The truth is that energy and water are related in just about every way you can […]
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French government interested in solar because it uses less water than nukes
A year or so ago, I spoke at a solar conference in France — a country that produces 78 percent of its electricity with nukes. A couple of folks told me that the government’s interest in solar stemmed from the fact that during the previous summer’s heat wave, river levels dropped to the point that […]
