Category Archives: Water

Rising Water

09 Friday Feb 2024

Posted by in Global Warming, Rising Water, Water

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Sea levels in the Gulf of Maine have risen seven and a half inches in little more than the last hundred years. The Gulf is located between Maine and Nova Scotia. This has caused much shore erosion and the increase in more violent storms has destroyed centuries old buildings and piers. Storm surges are reaching higher than ever before, flooding modern buildings. Current levels have not had a noticeable effect on upstream communities but will with the projected rises.

The scientists at the University of Maine have been studying the increase along with their climate change research. The models of the effects of climate change over that one hundred year period closely matches the seven and a half inch increase. Their programs indicate the levels will rise another ten inches by 2050 and forty inches by 2100.

As you visit coastal cities, imagine the sea levels being ten inches higher in a couple of decades and four feet higher when a child born today retires. What cities will still exist, not only on the coast, but tens of miles inland? What will Washington D. C. do in just a few years since the area is already being flooded by high tides backing up the Potomac River? Where will the Federal Government move to the next few decades? Will the climate change deniers block the need to relocate cities and tens of millions of citizens until it is too late?

Got Water

03 Saturday Jul 2021

Posted by in Climate Change, Water

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            In the movie “Sahara,” Humphrey Bogart was trying to get the Germans to surrender by pretending to wash his head while water was poured over him. The Germans hadn’t had water for days and surrendered rather than die of thirst.

            Why is that scene relevant? Think of today’s droughts in the Southwest. For decades people have been moving to the Southwest, first for retirement and then for work. In many cities in New Mexico, Arizona, California, Utah, and Nevada, homeowners are paid to tear up grass and go with desert plants and no grass. This is done to save precious water.

            Lake Mead is at its lowest level ever and this is summer when the snow should still be melting. This year was even less than the past few years. The drawdown has been more than the snow pack for decades with climate change causing extreme constant drought.

            We have known for years that much of our fruit and vegetables come from the area irrigated by the Colorado River coming from Lake Mead. Irrigation water is already being reduced to save it for people. Which brings us back to Humphrey Bogart getting the Germans to come to him… The upper Midwest has lots of lakes and rivers to support people moving from the Southwest. T. Boone Pickens has bought the Aquifers under many Colorado Valleys because “one day water will be more important than oil.”. That day may be here!

Our Most Important Resource

20 Wednesday Jan 2021

Posted by in Water

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            One of the most up-setting regulations an earlier President tried to put in effect was the restricting of fertilizers and manure runoff. Thousands of square miles in the Gulf is dead because of the runoff from the Mississippi River. North America has almost one-quarter of the planets liquid fresh water. The regulation was designed to preserve it and keep it safe to drink.

            Soon, many states will be like California and drying up from climate change. Periodic rain and snow storms may help to prolong the inevitable return to a desert environment displacing suburban housing and agriculture. Millions will move to states and areas with fresh surface water. With the oceans rising and flooding coastal cities, their populations will also look to areas with surface water.

            The great underground aquifers are being sucked dry from residential and agricultural use. The Great Ogallala Aquifer of the Plains States is rapidly growing lower with little surface water to replace it. Life on the Plains will have to change.

            Where will the millions of people move to — The Mississippi River and its tributaries, and around the Great Lakes? We must start to be real stewards of our surface water and try to refill the aquifers that the melting glaciers had filled. We must stop polluting our surface water with agricultural, industrial, and municipal waste. Almost every year a majority of Lake Erie is covered with poisonous algae from farm runoffs.             Often we must have some sense and keep ourselves from doing things that harm us and our planet for short term gains. I hope the Biden administration will put us on track to preserve our most precious resource. Where would we be if government didn’t care more for our health than we do?

Billions Aren’t So Lucky

17 Friday Jan 2020

Posted by in Uncategorized, Water

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Here is an intensely relevant and thought provoking moral question. The World Food Organization person for Zimbabwe said they were now feeding two million people and expects to add at least another two million in a few weeks. The reasons for the need to feed those millions were originally political mismanagement. Now the reason is climate change causing prolonged droughts in Africa.

Multiple catastrophes will continue to increase the numbers of climate refugees and those will need to be fed. As these refugees move to better places they will be reproducing at the same time. As the world’s population increases there will be a need to feed millions more each year. At what point can the output from the viable farmland fail to provide enough food to feed us all? At what point do the haves decide the don’t-haves aren’t going to get anymore substance from the haves.

Almost one-third of the world’s population already has a problem with too little drinking water. The wealthy always have water. It’s the poor who die of thirst or fight for it. Civil wars and regional wars will happen. A good example is the water from the Colorado River is used up before it reaches Mexico causing those people and towns to find water elsewhere. Many of them move across the border to live.

The Syrian Civil War, Central Americans coming to our country, and Africans trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea are three examples of what is in our planet’s future. Joliet residents should be glad they are surrounded by surface water as its wells dry up. Billions aren’t that lucky.