If you are browsing for a bit of water related humor, turn to the Reuters news on Turkey. This month, Istanbul, a cultural capital of Turkey, was part- host of the Fifth World Water Forum which connects experts from over 150 countries around the world to address impending global water crises. According to UN reports,…
As expected, the Environmental Protection Agency is calling carbon dioxide (CO2) a danger to public health and welfare, a necessary first step for the agency to regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act. Commentators, including myself, have doubted that the endangerment finding will lead to comprehensive regulation of CO2 under the Clean Air Act, as…
The 5th World Water Forum ended on Sunday (World Water Day), and in spite of the many pieces of good news, the dominant news story is that the group recognized water as a basic human need, not a basic human right. While this may seem like an issue of semantics, I think there is a…
During last week’s World Water Forum, Conagua, Mexico’s National Water Commission, announced plans to build a purification plant to treat rain and water runoff. The US$1.3 billion project is expected to be completed in 2012 and is a build/operate contract. Mexico’s per capita water availability declined to 4,312 cubic meters in 2007 from 18,035 cubic…
As of last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has a new leader. The U.S. Senate named Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D. Administrator of NOAA on March 19, 2009. As the first woman and the first marine ecologist to fulfill this position, Dr. Lubchenco is committed to using science to create sound policy. Her specific…
World Water Week organized by the Tap Project will kick off this Sunday in major cities around the US, raising awareness and funds for the many important water and sanitation projects implemented by UNICEF.
It’s been a bad stretch of years for farmers in California…and things don’t look like they will be getting better any time soon. Three years of consecutive drought in the state have ravaged the agricultural industry, leading Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to declare a state of emergency. The announcement was accompanied by pleas for municipalities to…
The G-20 meeting in London, England, on April 2 will be watched by the entire world with urgency and with a yearning for hope, vision and programmatic clarity. The preparatory work is not adequate. The G-20 discussions do not move sufficiently beyond financial regulation. I would like to suggest the following main points for G-20…
Representatives from the agriculture and energy industries convened here at the 5th World Water Forum to debate how, why, where and whether humankind’s rising demands for water, oil, food and energy will lead to conflict or cooperation. The Forum tackled issues of food and energy, conflicts over water, and pragmatic synergies among vital resource sectors. …