Another excellent weekly compendium of water world events awaits us once again from Emily Green.
Yes, it is time for another The Week That Was, 8-14 August 2010.
As if we needed more evidence of global warming, she starts us off with this 'hot' graphic of Lake Superior's surface temperatures, which are now the warmest they have ever been. In fact, the summer surface temperatures have increased about 2 degrees F per decade since 1980. Oops!
By the way, on this morning's GPS (Fareed Zakaria's wonderful show on CNN), he featured Jeff Sachs and two climate scientists, Gavin Schmidt of NASA's Goddard Institute and Patrick Michaels of The Cato Institute (former University of Virginia professor) discussing climate change and what should or shouldn't be done. Enlightening, and not the discussion you might expect. You can watch it here (about 10 minutes from the start).
So what else does Ms. Green feature? The Pakistan floods are front and center, including a question about whether a dam might have prevented the disaster.
Get your own watery grave! Wouldn't you rather be 'aquamated' as opposed to cremated? Now you can - and the Catholic Church approves the process! But do your loved ones meet their ultimate end being flushed down the drain en route to a wastewater treatment plant? I can hear it now: "Flush twice - Uncle Harry weighed 300 pounds."
Stay out of the water - lots of yucky stuff in Chesapeake Bay.
The Colorado Basin states' proposed water cuts are not enough, according to SIO's Tim Barnett. My money's on Barnett. He doesn't have as much of an axe to grind or a dog in the show (choose your aphorism) as do the 'water buffaloes' of the Colorado River basin states.
She's got a lot of stuff on the California water bond. Could mega-farmer, Fiji Water guy, and billionaire Stewart Resnick have benefited from the bond? Read about that and more.
LA is in there too, including arguments over grass - the lawn kind.
The Russian peat fires are discussed.
'Naptown' is selling its water and sewer systems; San Jose might sell its water utility. Sacramento is selling 'excess' tap water to a Nestlé SA bottling plant. And we have a dog water park and pet resort opening at Disney World.
Another great summary, so give it a read.
"The process, though approved by moral arbiters, was considered unpleasant to think about, and prone to being made fun of in the press as ‘sending your loved one down the drain.’ "— ‘Aquamation’: What’s in a name?, The Daily Undertaker,12 August 2010
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