After reading a few things -- namely this from Ezra Klein, this from Brad Plumer, and a Prospect article by Jon Margolis -- I resolved to learn more about the world's water woes. After all, I'm already a giant energy nerd, so why not become a giant water nerd?
Perhaps I should lose some weight, and be a more modestly-sized nerd. In any case, number one on my reading list was When the Rivers Run Dry by Fred Pearce. Read the Salon review here.
The one-word review of Pearce's book is: Terrifying. Whether he's writing about the Indian peasant farmers who draw from poisoned wells every day, the oblivious Arizonans who run fountains in the desert, or the apocalyptic moonscape that is the Aral Sea (once a thriving fishery, now a toxic cesspool), Pearce manages to convey the immense wreckage human activity is making of our lifeblood. No, not oil. The other precious fluid.
I think a lot of people have a hard time imagining that human activity really can have such a profound effect, but this book should be an antidote to that. We've all probably met someone who refused to believe that anthropogenic CO2 could really be responsible for so many problems. This book manages to convey clearly and starkly the effects we've had on rivers and lakes all over the world.
Some examples: The Rio Grande now ceases to exist shortly after is passes El Paso, only to be reborn from a tributary closer to the sea. The Colorado no longer makes it all the way to the Pacific, destroying the habitat of numerous species who thrived in that river's delta. And the Yellow River -- the foundation of Chinese civilization, their version of the Nile -- now barely makes it to the coastal province of Shandong, the birthplace of Confucius. In response, the Chinese are building what will probably amount to the largest water diversion in human history to pipe water from the Yangtze to the North.
But the chapter on the Aral Sea -- or more properly, its rotting corpse -- is simply bone-chilling. After the two main rivers that fed the Aral were diverted to grow cotton in the desert, the Aral rapidly began losing area and became more saline and more clogged with fertilizers and pesticides. The salt that is left on the old shorelines is eventually whipped up in dust storms, getting everywhere. The constant salt exposure gives the Aral Sea residents the highest rate of anemia in the world -- in some places, 90% of the children are anemic. Some fishing towns haven't seen water in decades.
What's especially troubling is cases like the Colorado or the Rio Grande where every last drop is spoken for, because changes in one area of the river can have multiple effects downstream and up. Sometimes, even conservation isn't the answer, bizarrely enough.
One particularly interesting part of the book deals with the legacy of massive hydropower dams, and how ineffective they've been at using water or spurring development in the Third World. Even more ironic, Pearce looks at the surface area that is taken up for the large reservoirs necessary for these dams, and calculates that the "power density" is around a kilowatt per hectare -- far, far worse than solar or wind.
Like all good eco-tomes, When The Rivers Run Dry ends on some positive notes -- emphasizing that there are solutions to many of these problems. The question is whether we are willing to abandon what RFK Jr. (when he isn't torpedoing wind farms) calls the Dominion Heresy: That the Earth is ours to control, define, and master.
Comments
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Daniel Collins Posted 9:00 pm
24 May 2006
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wordwright Posted 8:00 am
25 May 2006
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welldiggers daughter Posted 5:48 am
26 May 2006
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Backcut Posted 1:26 pm
27 May 2006
Returning forests back to historical densities would certainly have major effects on the health of our forests, the amounts of ground water available, the productiveness of springs and increased stream and river flows. However, this will NOT make up for the massive amounts of water our greedy and wasteful society needs to "live long and prosper".
One thing I saw in the news a while back that scares me is a study that was commissioned in Wyoming to see how much water would be freed up by cutting most of the trees in large parts of the state. Why anyone would even consider such a thing and spending money to find out boggles my mind. Fortunately, there will be no debate over this particular potentiality, because no significant amount of new water would be realized for any length of time, as the study concluded. Now, before you all have a collective sigh of relief, there ARE parts of the country where this technique MIGHT yield significant amounts of "new" water. We must NEVER allow such a thing to happen, especially when eliminating our intensely wasteful water habits can go a long, long way towards wild Western survival. (One of my big pet peeves, amongst many, is the planting of water-loving redwood and alder trees in landscaping, instead of native dry-adapted oaks, in hot, dry cities like Sacramento.)
The thought that more trees in a forest is better needs to be realized as false. "Natural" densities with adapted native trees is the way to go. The thought that more trees will change rainfall patterns within a forest is also false, resulting in quite the opposite effect. Trees act as big water pumps, turning groundwater into water vapor. This water vapor ends up being lost to mankind (and our ecosystems) in most of our western forests.
We MUST be successful in balancing our ecosystems if we are to enjoy a high quality of life. We're obviously not doing a very good job of that in this day and age.
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waterdawg Posted 9:44 pm
27 May 2006
peace
having fun at this thing called life! Go Kayaking!
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amazingdrx Posted 10:39 pm
27 May 2006
One of my favorite paradoxes in water management policy.
I think that all the wetlands, that restore aquifers and are a huge carbon sink, should be fed with every flood. By gates in the sides of levies. A much better way to manage flood and drought than a dam.
And an even better way to get hydro-electric power is with underwater turbines, similar to wind turbines, mounted in the gates. The environmental opposition to dams is justified and prevents the exploitation of most hydroelectric power.
This kind of system would not interfere with the residents of the rivers like dams do, preventing fish from spawning. So it would allow a lot more of the energy to be harvested.
Restore the wetlands with every flood and the aquifers along with them!
I would even go so far as to install large water pumping wind mills to pump flood waters up into wetlands further away from rivers to replenish aquifers. Water is vital to all life on the planet and it is worth it to replace dams with systems like this.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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bengarland Posted 12:22 pm
31 May 2006
But my favorite is the assholes who use their water hoses as some sort of dirt broom on their driveway. You know the ones who "wash" their driveway with gallons and gallons of water, for no apparent reason?
If water reflected it's true cost and value, people would be a lot less inclined to waste it. Not that I particularly want to pay more, but I think $0.50 a gallon is reasonable.
I'm not sure what it amounts to with current average prices in the U.S., but when people can get away with wasting it left and right all day long and still only pay $30 a month -- well that's just retarded.
Then again, I also think gas should be $5 a gallon so people would stop wasting it so much.
Anywho, there is another good book on water crisis called "Cadillac Desert", about the American west. I've only read the first bit of it, but I should be finishing it soon. So far so good.
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