After reading David Zetland’s excellent “End of Abundance” I’ve read his blog very closely. I’ve set a personal limit on the number of blogs I follow and I’ve used Aquanomics to replace a top 5 blog that I was reading. Here is a post he just reposted from last year: a nice Sunday evening reflection. I’ve had the same experience in many settings.
In her talk, Hosterman said [paraphrasing] “water problems have big impacts… one California town has 40% unemployment; water shortages have led to thousands of job losses.”
Knowing that these numbers are somewhere between disputed and wrong, I went up after her talk and said:
- The 40 percent unemployment figure in Mendota, CA is persistent; it does not go up or down according to water supplies.
- The headline figure of 80,000 job losses has been disowned by Richard Howitt. He and Jeffrey Michaelcollaborated on calculations to arrive at a figure of 5,000-7,000 job losses.*
Her basic response was “so what?”
I clarified: “No, you don’t understand — the researcher, Howitt, who made the estimates denounced them.”
She said, “I don’t care, I will use those numbers.”
Read the rest.
Hehe, then I’m sure you’ll have a field-day with this. 😉
Truly Awesome Picture Perfectly Shows How Little Water There Is On Earth
“This is one amazing visualization by the U.S. Geological Survey: a picture that gives you a perfect idea of how much water there is on Earth compared to the solid materials that form its main body. It’s truly staggering:”
http://gizmodo.com/5909889/awesome-picture-perfectly-shows-how-little-water-there-is-on-earth
WC, lazy, but your link did not work.
Regarding water, one thinks of the Great Lakes and history, not to mention the Hudson, the Delaware, and the Susquehanna Rivers. I’m happy Alexander Hamilton took charge, as opposed to some Frenchman or some Arab.