• “Across the country, resourceful homeowners have embraced rainwater capture as a way of conserving community water supplies while maintaining healthy gardens. Unfortunately, rain barrels are sometimes at odds with the law. Facing certain water scarcity, cities and states have begun to wrestle with the conundrum of water rights versus conservation.” Colorado still bans it; Tucson requires it; Seattle decriminalized it. Circus time!
• Some scientists lay down the bottom line [see image]: “greenhouse gas emissions must be cut by more than 50 percent by 2050 relative to 1990 levels, if the risk of exceeding 2 degrees C is to be limited to 25 percent.” 25 percent is still high, but can we even get the 50 percent cut? Not without a serious emissions policy. I prefer a carbon tax, of course.
• “For the 2008 Olympics, Chinese officials called for reductions of 60% to 70% in automobile emissions and up to 30% in industrial emissions… The researchers report… that pollution-control efforts reduced the overall amount of aerosols in the atmosphere by about 10% to 15%… In spite of the reduction in local emissions, winds from the south and southeast sullied Beijing’s air by bringing in pollution from distant industrial areas”
• “Plant genetics could yield crops that need less water… Success could clear a path for private industry to develop synthetic chemicals that can be sprayed on mostly food crops, such as corn, soybeans and rice. Also, the research has the potential of providing companies the option of using genetics to create a new generation of drought-tolerant, cultivated plants.”
• MS writes with an example of the complexity of prior appropriation elsewhere: “In the ongoing saga of Idaho’s East Snake River Plain conjunctive management, a deal was struck by a very senior non-consumptive user (Idaho Power) and the state that has averted a call that if litigated would have had major ramifications for prior appropriation’s future no matter how the court ruled. The answer: the state will support Idaho Power rate increase requests to satisfy company claims of lost revenue due to upstream diversion. The kicker is the rate increase is likely to be spread across Idaho Power’s entire rate base, not just ag producers (ground water pumpers) and that increase, when it happens, I’d bet is headed for the courts.”

Hattips to JN and DW