Water has always been a precious commodity in the western states. Now, with rapid population growth and a drying climate, the way this resource is shared and distributed is becoming more contentious across the region. Freelance journalist Jennifer Oldham talks about the tensions between supply and demand and how to drill down into water rights laws and policies.
"The raft to Bannon Island does not inspire confidence. But Dyrone Woods climbed aboard the piece of crumbling Styrofoam secured to the remains of a wood pallet anyway."
"A draft update of the state’s $50 billion coastal master plan predicts that 61 new projects to build or protect land, a dozen new levees, and new efforts to elevate, flood-proof or relocate flood-prone homes will reduce annual hurricane storm surge damages by at least $11 billion per year by 2073."
"Greenhouse gas emissions increased slightly from the previous year in 2022 by 1.3%, keeping the U.S. just 15.5% below 2005 levels and off track to meet its global pledge to slash emissions 50-52% by 2030, according to estimates published on Tuesday by research group Rhodium."
"The world remained firmly in warming’s grip last year, with extreme summer temperatures in Europe, China and elsewhere contributing to 2022 being the fifth-hottest year on record, European climate researchers said on Tuesday."
"India expects its power plants to burn about 8% more coal in the fiscal year ending March 2024, according to a senior government official and a power ministry presentation, after the country missed its 2022 renewable energy goal by more than 30%."
"Salt marshes, excellent reservoirs of carbon, are living ecosystems with vegetation and microscopic organisms that live, breathe, poop and die in the marsh mud."
"The United States has pledged to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, but Russia’s war in Ukraine set off a bonanza for liquefied natural gas, or LNG. Today, we look at how energy companies and the Biden administration are backsliding on promises to move away from oil and gas."
"Without dramatic cuts to water consumption, Utah’s Great Salt Lake is on track to disappear within five years, a dire new report warns, imperiling ecosystems and exposing millions of people to toxic dust from the drying lake bed."
"A Native American tribe that has one of the largest and most secure rights to Colorado River water now has approval to lease some of it in Arizona, a state that’s been hardest hit by cuts to its water supply and is on a perpetual search for more."
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