Water
Some Intriguing Statistics
I was recently paging through the new 2011-2012 Statistical Abstract of the United States (strange folk, we professors), and came up with some intriguing tidbits that I wanted to pass on: In the past fifty years, total water withdrawals have increased by 150% Carbon monoxide, ozone, sulfur dioxide, particulates and nitrogen dioxide all declined from …
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CONTINUE READINGGoodby Ski Slopes, Hello Drought
Climate change means not only changes in temperature, but changes in precipitation. These precipitation changes are especially important in arid regions like the American West. There is reason to be concerned about the future of Western climate, according to the latest report from ScienceNow: The Rocky Mountains have lost an unusual amount of springtime snowpack …
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CONTINUE READINGAssessing the British Ecosystem
The British government has issued a new report assessing the value of the U.K. environment. The assessment is based on an economic evaluation of ecosystem services. For instance, the report found that: • The benefits that inland wetlands bring to water quality are worth up to £1.5 billion per year to the UK; • Pollinators …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat Does This Logo Mean?
Take a look at the green drop on the bottle of Fiji Water pictured right. (If you are a rational actor, you won’t buy the bottle for $7, but that’s another story). What do you think it means? What if it was accompanied by the website URL “fijigreen.com”? Well, if you are the California Court …
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CONTINUE READINGTMDL Fight Brewing in Chesapeake Bay
On December 29, 2010, EPA finalized a plan to reduce nutrient pollution in Chesapeake Bay by implementing a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) budget using its Clean Water Act authority. That plan will require a 25% reduction in nitrogen, a 24% reduction in phosphorus and a 20% reduction in sediment throughout the watershed. This includes …
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CONTINUE READINGNew White Paper on Reducing Water Use to Save Energy
In California, we’re always talking about conserving water, usually because of a drought, and increasingly because of our growing population and likely future of water shortages due to climate change. But research shows another compelling reason: conserving water means conserving energy. Pumping and treating water is energy-intensive — the state water project, with its big …
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CONTINUE READINGGreat New Blog: AJWS Global Voices
American Jewish World Service, one of the most effective international anti-poverty and pro-development organizations in the worlds, has a new blog up. It’s called Global Voices, and features not only the work of AJWS grantees but also how issues of poverty and human rights interact with ecosystem protection. Some of the recent posts focus on …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Public Trust Doctrine: A Prophet Without Honor
Michael C. Blumm and R.D. Guthrie of Lewis & Clark Law School have an interesting new paper soon to appear in the U.C. Davis Law Review, pointing out that the public trust doctrine has assumed enormous significance in the jurisprudence of several countries around the world, including India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Uganda, Kenya, South …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Dying Dead
Can something that’s Dead still be dying? It can if it’s the Dead Sea and if it’s rapidly disappearing. And it is. Check out this piece from this month’s Scientific American, which details the disappearance of the Dead Sea — which is really a highly saline lake — due to four states (Israel, Jordan, Syria, …
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CONTINUE READINGBush-era EPA § 404 veto survives judicial review
A federal court in Mississippi has rejected a legal challenge to EPA’s 2008 veto of a Clean Water Act § 404 permit for the Yazoo Pumps flood control project. (Hat tip: PLF Liberty Blog.) The Yazoo Pumps project was an anachronism, even by pre-environmental era standards. (This brief history of the project is based on …
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