“Prime The Pump” On top of these Aral Sea-like health issues is the loss of lake-effect snow, a problem that creates a feedback loop of drying. Unlike the lake-effect of the Great Lakes, the Salt Lake can’t really add much moisture to the air in winter, but it can serve … [continued]
Industrial activity is causing problems with this natural process. Salt mining, potash operations, and other human activity was not only drying the area up, but was taking salt out of the system entirely. For example, potash operations pumped salt water and brine out from beneath the flats, which then got … [continued]
Because the process of drying up Lake Cabeza de Vaca and its remnant child lakes happened mostly naturally (with only the last bit caused by Anthropogenic climate change), this presents the absolute best case scenario for a dried up Salt Lake, but as I’ll get to later, the problem will … [continued]
Utah’s Great Salt Lake is now at a record low. The rivers that feed the big inland sea have been increasingly diverted to not only support drinking water and agriculture for a growing population, but also to water lawns and for other water uses. Underlying all this is a culture … [continued]
In our latest Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), we forecast that electricity generation from U.S. hydropower plants will be 14% lower in 2021 than it was in 2020. Extreme and exceptional drought conditions have been affecting much of the western United States, especially California and states in the Pacific Northwest, which are home … [continued]
Originally published by NRDC. By Lauren Kubiak & Valerie Cleland For weeks, wildfires have been ravaging states across the West and diminishing air quality; and Hurricane Ida, after devastating Gulf coast communities and causing new oil spills, wreaked havoc all the way up through the northeast where it set rainfall records, caused flash floods, … [continued]
Agriculture accounts for about 90% of total water consumption in the western United States and around 80% in the rest of the country. This year, droughts, ferocious wildfires, and extreme heat waves are turning farmlands dusty and ranchlands into grass stubble too short to feed livestock. Without adequate water supplies, farmers and ranchers … [continued]
Originally published by Union of Concerned Scientists, The Equation. By Casey Kalman, researcher for the Center for Science and Democracy at UCS. Sixteen years after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the city has been slammed by another record-breaking storm: Hurricane Ida. A new analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) … [continued]
In parts one and two, I explored the problems with our current toilets (and the systems that support them), and looked at off-grid toilet designs for better ideas. Ultimately, the composting toilet is the best available option because it’s the lowest impact in just about every way. That having been … [continued]
In part 1, I took a quick look at the challenges of designing the toilet of the future, and show that there are serious problems with what we currently do. So far, I’ve only focused on what happens when sewer systems malfunction, but we still need to look at the … [continued]
