There seems to be a theme to the news this morning.
A drought-stricken Colorado river is drying up.
The water in Cañon City and northern El Paso County tastes foul.
And the future of the Colorado River? Well … we’re probably gonna have to wear shades, but it ain’t exactly looking bright.
No wonder the bears are coming down from the mountain to kick ass.
“All y’all are fuckin’ this shit up,” says Yogi.
“We’d eat you, if we thought it would help, but you don’t even taste good anymore,” adds Boo Boo. “Like cheap industrial lager and soda pop.”
“And B.O.,” says Yogi. “You using any of this water to take showers, or are you just soaking the lawn and washing the Suburban?”
Here in the Land of Entrapment the monsoon has been more of a non-soon, and when asked when we might expect some relief the answer is “Not soon.”
The administration’s drought map shows that 3% of New Mexico is in “severe drought,” namely Albuquerque, Santa Fe and parts of the northeastern corner of the state. About one-third of the state, predominantly in northern New Mexico, is suffering from “extreme drought,” the map shows.
The outlook notes that conditions are unlikely to improve over the next two weeks, with all but the northern and western edges of New Mexico facing 100% probabilities of above-average temperatures.
Meanwhile, my old stomping grounds around Española remain on fire.
I’d love to claim the moral high ground here. But I’m down here in the sandbox with the rest of the dummies. Part of the problem.
We have a lawn. Smaller than the one we got when we bought the house, at the northern edge of the Chihuahuan Desert. But still.
I drink two cups of coffee and one tall mug of tea every morning, plus a bottle or two of water on my bike rides, and more after I get home. There’s that daily shower too. Sometimes it’s jailhouse style, but occasionally I go full Hollywood.
I let God wash the car, when She’s of a mind to. Lately She’s not in the mood. Keeps sending us bears.
Jesus, what a cheery post to wake up to!
“…Udall said that the U.S. is totally failing to address the overall cause of the river’s decline. “There’s a whole bunch of scientific studies that suggest that this is very much human-caused,” Udall said. “It’s due to our greenhouse gas emissions and the warming of the earth right now.””
True, Brad, but to some degree, that answer misses the obvious. Ma Nature never invited 40-plus million of us to live in the desert, either. Especially with our lawns, alfalfa fields, pecans, golf courses, dairies, cotton fields, and other water hogs. We can keep blaming climate change (so stop buying cheap shit from China, you dummies, much of which is manufactured using….coal power), but part of climate change is 40 million of us living here and demanding what the river cannot provide.
Humans are fucking idiots. Brad wants to blame “climate change” because no one wants to mention the elephant in the room: we would likely be oversubscribing the river even without climate change, which is still in its infancy anyway.
Oh, and U.S. emissions have been in decline for the last couple decades (by almost 20%). In part because we have outsourced so much work to the rest of the world. I think China now emits about twice what the U.S. emits as the World’s Arsenal of Cheap Shit.
We all need to live a little more frugally. For example, forswearing that data center that will emit more CO2 than all of New Mexico’s largest cities. Sheesh…..how could we miss that?
Well, we can debate the data and who the bad guys are until the wells run dry.
That what the 7 states living on Colorado river water have done for decades. Politicians do the blame game every 2 years. China is the bad guy not us. Who moved much of US factory production to China? Corporations? Wally world? Cheap ass americans?
The Southwest drought conditions are well documented. Phoenix will be over 110 degrees for the next week. Climate change is accelerating. Weather patterns are quickly changing. A record breaking El Nino is occurring. Europe is on fire and in drought. By the way, the last 20% or so of aquifers are contaminated with heavy metals and other pollutants. So, are we crying wolf?
Nah, our nation is just greedy, ignorant, stupid, and lazy. And we are led to disaster by a fat dotard. Plus we have three other old delusional autocrats, plus a guy who thinks he is a god, with nuclear weapons.
Good morning Herb ole buddy. Is the bar open? I want to sanitize my mouth before I kiss my ass goodbye.
People are really good at voting against their own self interests, right? Wow, stuff is so cheap at Wally-Mart. But that job your Dad had forty years ago? Hmmm. Remember Larry before he had a falling out with this pickle barrel? Larry’s wife had a quip: “People are stupid”.
As far as climate and the N. American Southwest, we are in a very strong negative Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) cycle and it’s been negative for most of the last twenty years. That condition has in the instrumentally recorded past corresponded with drought in the Southwest.
I dicked around with this a while ago on my blog (below). Elephant Butte Lake filled up after the dam was built during a positive PDO cycle. Last time the PDO was on balance negative in the fifties through the seventies, Elephant Butte Lake was almost empty. Then the PDO sign flipped positive and Elephant Butte filled up and we were awash in rain for twenty years.
https://labikes.blogspot.com/2018/01/drought.html
The PDO is really strongly negative right now (updated NOAA chart here: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/pdo/ ). Ocean warming due to increased CO2 and atmospheric heat retention stored by the ocean is posited to drive the PDO persistently negative so that might explain our current dire situation–shades of past warm spells in the last two millenia. A while ago I read a paper that posited that the great southwest megadroughts around 1000 or so A.D. were caused by a solar maximum coupled to a volcanic emissions minimum which resulted in warmer climate and century long megadrought in these parts. So it doesn’t take much.
The North Atlantic Oscillation is less well understood, at least by me in my dotage, but some models predict these extreme variations in Europe climate will get worse as CO2 increases.
So the public needs to remember that each of those Amazon Trucks carting cheap shit from China, each new Chevy Exurban, each McMansion, each new subdivision in the middle of nowhere, and each new Data Center has an ultimate price. We always live at Ma Nature’s mercy. And when we fuck with Ma Nature, Ma can fuck back in spades. And she gets the last word.
Word, Khal. Ma Nature don’t need no stinking Viagra. She is ready, excuse me while I steal a Carlin riff, to shake us off the planet like a dog shakes off fleas.
But, Tucson has at least 50 years of water left, and the Raytheon plant there just got a $16B contract for more Tomahawk missiles. So, what am I whining about? To steal another riff, life’s been good to me so far. Except, I apologize to Andy and Liz every time we talk for what our generation has done to ruin their planet.
I’m wondering what happens to the Rio Not So Grande when the gusher from the Colorado River diversion is reduced to a trickle. Already, as I think O’G noted here, some of the Bosque is dying back in Albuquerque because not only is the river dry, but apparently the water table has sunk too deep to support the vegetation. Talk about the canary in the coal mine….
We didn’t have kids, so when we check out, it is with No Child Left Behind. No American kids from us demanding more than the environment can provide.
Not having kids was probably the best thing we could’ve done for Mama Earth.
And for ourselves, too. Herself would’ve made a great mom. But me as El Daddy-o? Of one or more critters that’s half me? Lord, lord, that’s an uphill pull with the brakes locked.
Mother Times has a squint at the Central Arizona Project. A real “Duh” moment comes from the mayor of Cave Creek, who spake thusly:
“The biggest thing for people to overcome is the idea of unlimited, cheap water.”
On an unrelated note, I wish the NYT would throttle back its gratuitous use of pipe-clogging video throughout its website. Not everybody is hooked up to the Bigger and Better Infobahn. Some of us are still putt-putting along the unpaved back roads in our rusty ol’ flivvers.
“They are threatening to shut down the Southwest,” said Brenda Burman, the (Central Arizona) project’s general manager. “It’s not possible to picture it.”
Oh, yes it is. Picture this: Chaco Canyon…Mesa Verde…Bandelier…
Well I did read all the sad SW water treatises and yes, I am drinking a nice Washington State red hoping their agriculture can hang on. Somewhat chagrined to say that we got Rain and more Rain yesterday and everything is as green as I’ve ever seen it in late August.
For those that don’t believe in global warming/greenhouse gases; go sit in your garage with cars running and all doors shut for an hour. Then let’s discuss how you feel about it eh?
Drink up buddy. We are preaching to the choir again. Four Peaks Golden Lager here. Think I will wash it down with a Barrio Rojo. Monday is getting the Corolla serviced. Tuesday is Brown Canyon day on foot. I really need some dirt time. Got to go early since it’s going to be a 100 fucking degrees here.
First thing we do mornings around here is throw all the doors and windows open to let the cool morning air in.
“Cool” being relative, of course. It’s 73° at 5:25 a.m. and we have a long stretch of hot afternoons in the forecast.
Well, we knew it was a desert when we moved here. But this is where the job was. Now and again I glance around, seeking alternatives, and I always wind up thinking that most of the interesting spots have their own drawbacks.
It’s kind of like, “Sure, I could pull that Ultegra derailleur, replace it with Dura-Ace. But why?”
We got 0.20 inch last Wednesday. It was cause for celebration. Unless you happened to be one of the street people who got caught in a steeply walled diversion channel when the water came roaring through.
Our widget reports 0.34 inch for the month so far. Normal would be 1.34 inch. Yow, etc.
Meanwhile, the heat continues. I thought about popping over to the grocery post-ride to score some ice cream but decided I had had enough of the great outdoors for a spell. Had a bowl of grapes for dessert instead.
See? Climate change ain’t all bad! It made me do the smart thing for a change.
Nature just landed another hard left jab. Got that right cocked and ready to come over the top.
https://perimetermap.com/washoe
Yikes. I have a couple old pals who live up thataway. Been through the Reno-Tahoe-Truckee area a ton of times. As I recall Santa Fe-based BTI has a West Coast distribution in Sparks.
Here’s the InciWeb report. Nothing but bad news.
As one who has lived in the Reno fire area, I’ll give you a little insight. Fires on Peavine Mountain are nothing new. I saw a lighting strike on a tree up there once kick off a fairly large multi-day wildfire that was well contained. What’s new of course on Peavine as with many places, is the encroachment up the hillside of expanding developments. But fortunately at this time, I believe that local and supporting fire infrastructure is doing a pretty good job of containing the fire to areas of limited property damage. My sister lives in one of the “Go Now” areas and where her home is at is actually in a fairly safe area. I believe though that after Paradise, Superior/ Broomfield, Lahaina, Fort McMurray, Spokane and many areas of California, that community leaders are now taking more proactive measures and making sure that people are ready to move asap. We are finding that with the lower humidity levels in areas, along with stronger more sustained winds, our playbook for evacuating and fighting wildfires has changed. All of us out here in the west, if we don’t already have one, should have a go-bag duffel ready with the top unzipped to cram important items into when our time comes.
With respect to wildfires in general, here’s to hoping that we continue to have enough water to fight them while at the same time, understanding that there are people in other parts of our country that are cursing the amount of water they they have/had as they dig through the mud and debris coated remnants of their flooded homes.
Here’s hoping sis gets by a’ight.
I’ve only ever visited Reno and its environs. Many moons ago I dropped in to see Bruce and Jodie Ruana, who relocated their Off the Front handlebar-tape operation from SoCal to the Minden-Gardnerville area. Later they abandoned the bike biz for straight jobs in Reno after the overseas competition cut the legs out from under them.
In my Jackoff Kerouac period (the Seventies) and my job-hunting days (the Eighties, before I bailed on newspapers for bicycle magazines), I drove through Reno more regularly than UPS, on The Loneliest Road, or I-80, depending.
A time or two I remember the snow being so deep at roadside past Verdi that the highway signs were obscured. Thank Dog for 4WD Japanese pickups.
A couple old newsie pals and I have crashed in a ski lodge at Truckee and ridden around and about the vicinity. Pretty country, when the gods aren’t having their way with it.
To the point for New Mexico, saw an article today where Elephant Butte Reservoir (New Mexico’s largest) is now sitting at 1.4% of total capacity.
For the US, AccuWeather forecasts 65,000 – 80,000 US wildfires this year. The good news? Down potentially from last year’s 77,000. The bad news? Due to the drought and higher temps, larger and more destructive blazes burning 5.5 to 8 million acres.
Yeah, EB is in the shit for reals. I see a lot of spiderwebbed boats collecting dust in side yards as I cycle around town.
A slight change of topic, but we’re in a sour mood up North.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ford-news-conference-canada-us-trade-war-9.7318104
Haw! Nice. Beelzebozo should hear that sort of thing more often. He’d forget having heard it before the echo died. But still.
Wow! Who would have thought that we would get into a pissing match with Canada? Well, I should rephrase that and say, Who the fuck would have believed that a large portion of our population could be stupid enough to elect a loser like we have in the altered oval (because of some ridiculous construction on his balls) office now? One that would create chaos out of thin air and cause us to revert back to the state we were in back in about 1870, only without the country’s development and resources to tap in the future.
Perhaps in a sense I wish I had a Canadian girlfriend that I could run off with up into the Great White North and forget the stateless-nous of the country to the south. But because I’m an ageing burden, I think I’ll hang around and ride this hulk of a sinking ship to the bottom of the deepest abyss that it will be going to.
I’d concur with Ford’s comment regarding the loser in office, but I don’t want his lips anywhere near my ass.
On a weather note, perhaps a lot of you would have enjoyed riding in Spain earlier today.
https://www.cyclingnews.com/pro-cycling/racing/tadej-pogacar-pulls-over-peloton-as-hailstorm-neutralises-vuelta-a-espana-stage-3/
Does anybody know of a good tune that goes along with all Hail breaking loose? Fire on the Mountain by Mr. Daniels and crew maybe? No that would be for Reno.
Good for Tadej taking control.
I love Doug Ford’s comment. I think we all ought to ditch the 86/47 logo for a “Kiss My Ass, Donald” logo.
Looks like riding my bike over to Windsor on the new Gordie Howe bridge isn’t such a hot idea right now. But I’d love to see Adolph tRump thrown off it’s highest point into the river below. No…take that back Herb. The oil slick he’d leave would just wash up onto the shores of each nation.
Give a hoot; don’t pollute.