New York Times (July 10)
“California is in the third year of its worst drought in decades. But you wouldn’t know it by looking at how much water the state’s residents and businesses are using.” Nearly half a year ago, the State called for a 20% reduction in water use, but so far actual savings have been closer to 5% and, “in some parts of the state, like the San Diego area, water use has actually increased from 2013.” California needs to urgently take “much stronger conservation measures.”
Tags: California, Conservation, Drought, Reduction, Residents, San Diego, Savings, Water, Water use
Los Angeles Times (March 28)
“California ought to learn from the experience of Australia, the driest continent on Earth, with a broadly similar economy.” California has been reeling from perpetual water shortages: the result of a flawed water policy. California “uses enough water in an average year to support, in theory, 318 million Californians (and their lawns and dishwashers), more than eight times the actual population of 38 million.”
Tags: Australia, California, Dishwashers, Dry, Economy, Lawns, Policy, Population, Shortages, Water
The Economist (March 22)
“Global spending on basic infrastructure—transport, power, water and communications—currently amounts to $2.7 trillion a year when it ought to be $3.7 trillion. The gap is almost as big as South Korea’s GDP. And it is likely to grow fast.” To close the gap, governments need to step forward, and new ways need to be found to coax private capital investment in infrastructure.
Tags: Communications, Gap, GDP, Government, Infrastructure, Investment, Power, Private capital, South Korea, Spending, Transport, Water
The Los Angeles Times (January 26, 2014)
After three years of severe drought, Californians are being asked to cut water usage by 20%. The drought, billed as the worst in over a century, “serves as a reminder of the urgent need for action—to plan, to conserve, to store, to reuse, to transport and to share the state’s most precious resource.”
Tags: Action, California, Conserve, Drought, Plan, Reminder, Reuse, Severe, Share Resources, Store, Transport, Urgent need, Usage, Water
The Economist (December 7, 2013)
Despite frequent assertions, there is no evidence that genetically modified (GM) crops are bad for people. On the other hand, copious evidence demonstrates how GM crops “benefit the health of the planet. One of the biggest challenges facing mankind is to feed the 9 billion-10 billion people who will be alive and (hopefully) richer in 2050. This will require doubling food production on roughly the same area of land, using less water and fewer chemicals.” GM crops provide the hope that we will be able to meet this challenge.
The Economist (October 12)
“China is dangerously short of water. While the south is a lush, lake-filled region, the north—which has half the population and most of the farmland—is more like a desert.” To try to solve the problem, China has now “built as many large dams as the rest of the world put together.” To really solve the problem, however, China will need to focus on regulatory issues, such as cracking down on polluters, and economic incentives, such as increasing water rates to encourage conservation.
Tags: China, Conservation, Dams, Desert, Economics, Farmland, Polluters, Population, Regulation, Water
The Wall Street Journal (September 3)
There’s only one way the world can feed 9 billion people and provide them with fuel and water. According to Nestle’s Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, politicians around the world must decide “no food for fuel.” Increasingly food has been diverted for biofuel production. About one half of corn production in the U.S. and rapeseed production in Europe already goes to biofuels, which are also water intensive (producing a liter of biodiesel can require over 9,000 liters of water). While the result of rising food prices from this diversion is merely “annoying” in rich countries, it means people “go hungry” or thirsty in the Third World.
Boston Globe (July 13)
Lucky for Massachusetts’ rivers that this summer’s wet. Many go dry in August because of unreasonable demands made on them by cities and residents. The Globe urges lawmakers to pass the Sustainable Water Resources Act which would restrict the amount of water that can be removed from rivers, keeping them at safe levels for the fish and other aquatic denizens, as well as humans.
Lucky for Massachusetts’ rivers that this summer’s wet. Many go dry in August because of unreasonable demands made on them by cities and residents. The Globe urges lawmakers to pass the Sustainable Water Resources Act which would restrict the amount of water that can be removed from rivers, keeping them at safe levels for the fish and other aquatic denizens, as well as humans.
Tags: Massachusetts, Rivers, Sustainability, U.S., Water
