Lately, I’ve stopped worrying about climate change. Wait, that’s not quite right. But I only have so much worry bandwidth, and what is keeping me up at night lately is scarcenomoics, the idea that in a finite world, we may be hitting limits on some natural resources. Climate change doesn’t even have to play a major role in these fears, …
Water
Climate: A New Study Finds That Global Warming Could Dry Out the Southwest
It’s not the heat that might get us with climate change—it’s the humidity, so to speak. The risk of sea level rise due to melting land ice is one of the most recognized—if controversial and hard to predict—threats posed by global warming. Other potential impacts from global warming include increasingly powerful storms and …
What If Yemen Is the First Country to Run Out of Water?
Experts cited by CNN say Yemen could be the first nation to completely run out of water in a few years, a prospect that does not bode well for its young population of 24 million that is expected to double in 20 years, or anyone worried about the rising influence (and ability to get bombs on planes) of an al Qaeda branch in one of the …
Planet of the Apes…and Monkeys and Humans
There are a lot of perks that come with being a primate. You get to be smart. You get to be social. You get to have opposable thumbs — which are very handy things to have. Most of all, you get to keep living even during hard times. If the history of humans indicates anything, it’s that we’re survivors, and a new study is showing just …
Is the Caribbean Heading for Another Record Year in Coral Loss?
Anybody who has been visiting coral reefs for the past 20 years or so will tell you that the scene underwater pales – quite literally – in comparison to what it used to be.
New research published in PLoS ONE yesterday shows that coral bleaching in the Atlantic and the Caribbean in 2005 was the worst bleaching event ever …
Water: New York City Wants to Make Water Fountains the Norm
You remember water fountains, right? If your grade school experience was anything like mine (Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Class of ’93!), you’ll recall getting your water not from a plastic Evian bottle, but straight from the ceramic fountain—usually kid-sized. The same went for parks, museums and public buildings—water fountains were …
Water: Lake Mead Is at Record Low Levels. Is the Southwest Drying Up?
The Hoover Dam may be the Eighth Wonder of the World, but to me the more impressive achievement has always been Lake Mead, the man-made reservoir—which can contain nearly 10 trillion gallons of water—that the dam holds back. Lake Mead is a vast, living tank of water in the middle of the Nevada desert, as unexpectedly remarkable …
Oil Spill Report Hits White House. Is it Fair?
Sometimes a President can’t catch a break—a lesson the current, beleaguered resident of the Oval Office keeps learning. The latest bit of bad news came from a commission the President himself appointed back in the spring to study the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. President Obama announced the creation of the study group on May …
Can the World Meet its Promise to Halve Hunger by 2015?
A new report released by Oxfam this week has some good news and some bad news for the state of world hunger. The good news: last year, the FAO recorded the first significant dent in world hunger in 15 years, with a decrease from a record 1.02 billion people going hungry in 2009 after the global food crisis down to 925 million this …
Will Shipping Water from Alaska to India Help Solve the Water Crisis?
Happy World Water Week! Yes, it’s that time of year again, as water wonks who spend their worthy careers thinking about how to get more people access to clean H20 kick off meetings in Stockholm today. So as you kick back on your sprinkled lawn or float in your pool this Labor Day, spare a moment to consider water, the element that puts …