The Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System is the world’s largest known fossil water aquifer system. It is located underground in the Eastern end of the Sahara Desert. Gaddafi had invested $25B into the aquifer, which he announced had the potential to turn Libya that is 95 percent desert into an arable and fertile oasis. You know how that ended.
In California’s epic drought, wars over water rights continue, while innovative alternatives for increasing the available water supply go untapped.
Red wine grapes; click to enlarge (source)by Gaius PubliusMeanwhile on the climate beat ...In a piece on the California drought, I added this as an aside:
by Gaius PubliusThe current multi-year California drought is not on most people's radar yet, but it's about to be. The video above, from KQED, is an excellent look at the scope of the problem. If you have just a little time, watch the first two minutes (I've set up the player to stop at that point, I hope).As you do, you may want to pause and study three sets of images — the before-and-after shots of Folsom Reservior (0:42), Lake Oroville (0:49), and the snowpack regions from which reservoirs are filled (0:57).
What if the following headline comes true, as stated by Jay Famigliette, Ph.D. senior water scientist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Caltech, “California has about one year of water left”? LA Times, March 12, 2015.
Well, maybe, maybe not, depending upon the depth of aquifers, assuming they are not polluted. More on this later.
On the other hand, what if a mega drought has set in?
Sebastopol, California — Sonoma County, Northern California, used to be spoken of as part of the natural “Redwood Empire.” Then the bloated wine industry re-named it as the commercial “Wine Country.” A growing number of locals have had it with the expanding wine industry in both Sonoma County and the neighboring Napa County and are beginning to challenge their over-expansion.
A moral person would not buy “blood diamonds.” It is time to consider the various environmental, climate change, and human factors when one buys Sonoma or Napa County wines.
Tuesday the House passed David Valadao's misleadingly-named California Emergency Drought Relief Act of 2014, 230-182. It was co-sponsored by 6 clueless right-wing California Republican ideologues, Ken Calvert, Paul Cook, Doug LaMalfa, Kevin McCarthy, Tom McClintock and Devin Nunes, plus the most right-wing fake Democrat in the California delegation, Blue Dog Jim Costa.
Every time a frigid blast of Arctic air, or an extraordinarily heavy snowfall, or a devastating ice storm hits the Northern Hemisphere, especially off season, all sorts of commentators, principally in America, hit the news wires and blogs with: Uh-Oh! Global Warming?
There's a horrible drought in California and I'm going to rip out my lawn and replace it with a rock and cactus garden, as several neighbors and friends already have. The city even offers a cash incentive for doing so. There are also serious drought conditions on northern Texas, western Nevada and southeastern Colorado. But not in Detroit-- nor anywhere in Michigan or Ohio (which is closer to Detroit than lots of Michigan itself is). Plenty of water there... except for people to use. Well, not all people.
According to the Assessment of Southwest Climate Change (Arizona Institute of the Environment), the five decades from 1950 to 2000 were the warmest in over 600 years. The report predicts that reduced snowfall and increased evaporation from global warming will lead to more droughts over the next 90 years.
