The Friday Video: Climate Narrative: 3 Climate Message That Win

In case you didn't attend the lecture and didn't see the story earlier this week in the Times, HERE is the story again about the Udall lecture at UTEP on climate change and drought in the Southwest.  According to the Times, Udall "explained how climate change and future water scarcity in the West are inextricably linked."

Yet, there is still a large population of climate change deniers who influence policy and marketing decisions in the United States and around the world.

A strategy to persuade climate deniers is conversation. Check out climatenarrative.org. Download their free guide.  Grist.org discusses climatenarrative's conversational approach in How to convince the climate slacker to get serious. and tells us everything they know about how to talk about climate change. 

So here's our Friday video, Climate Narrative: 3 Climate Messages That Win:

For further reading and thought:

We’re running out of water, and the world’s powers are very worried (Thank you, Marshall Carter-Tripp for this link.)

Sea Life in Pacific Ocean Will Start to Suffocate by 2030 Thanks to Climate Change

The Monday Links: Water, Development, Open Space and Fracking

[Monday is "Links Day" with links gathered over the past week to online "stuff" to read and sites to surf that impact us directly or offer information about our regional issues. Please feel free to send me links to any conservation, environmental, simple living, city planning, energy and water, etc. stories that you have come across online.]

Water issues (always at the top of the list):

Undrinkable: Safe water was within reach, but politics and entrenched interests undercut decades of work Things are bad in Vinton.


World Faces Catastrophic Water Shortage if Changes Are Not Made, UN Warns

Snow Water Equvalent Percentages for the Western States It's not good. Note southwestern Colorado where the Rio Grande begins.

Policy Priorities for Managing Drought A California white paper but worth reading.

Activists Asking City to Preserve Land Near Franklin Mountains It's about water, sprawl and open space. KVIA's Maria Garcia interviews me about the petition. Good transition to our next topic:


Open Space and Development:

Comments on Land Study May Mean New NE El Paso Neighborhoods in the Franklin Mountain Foothills elpasonaturally did a post about this development. You have got to read the comments following the report. People just don't want the mountain destroyed. Sign the petition online and/or get signatures.

Boulder County Colorado Parks and Open Space It's a huge wish list for El Paso whose leaders just don't seem to get it.

Home Center for ReSource Management More good ideas from pacesetter, Boulder County Colorado.

Welcome to Tiny House Family Be sure to read the blog.


Energy and Fracking: 

Fracking Radiation

Fossil Fuels Are Way More Expensive Than You Think

Chuy Reyes Is Silent about Voting Rights Denial on Water

"A megadrought would present a major risk to water resources in the American West, which are distributed through a complex series of local, state and regional water-sharing agreements and laws. Virtually every drop of water flowing in the American West is legally claimed, sometimes by several users and the demand is expected to increase as population grows."


Senator José Rodriguez' egregious mistake in working with El Paso County Water Improvement District's Chuy Reyes to deny voting rights to citizen on water issues will cost us - probably for a generation or more.

Read NY Times opinion piece, Hundred-Year Forecast: Drought, by scientists, Christopher R. Schwalm, Christopher A. Williams and Kevin Schaefer.

In May I asked the Water Improvement District for copies of the following records:

1. 2008 List of Eligible Voters: provide name, address, owner number of each eligible voter at EPWID in 2008;
2. 2012 List of Eligible Voters: provide name, address, owner number of each eligible voter at EPWID as of April 2012.
3. 2012 Registered Voters: provide name, address, voter number and owner number of registered voters at EPWID as of May 1, 2012;
4. Letters, Instructions, Certificates to Eligible, Registered Voters: please provide a copy of all letters, instructions, certificates or other information that EPWID has mailed to eligible or registered voters in 2012.
5. Lobbyists, Attorneys Fees: please send a copy of all lobbyists and attorney fees statements together with amounts paid by EPWID to lobbyists or attorneys from January 2010 to present.

Without commenting now on items 4 and 5, the two lists of eligible voters revealed that one list (significantly smaller than the other) revealed the qualified voters for the May 12, 2012 election while the other list includes voters disqualified by the Rodriguez/Chuy Reyes effort.

Instructions for voting also made voting very difficult. With looming megadrought, who controls the water from the river? Not El Pasoans but a select few elite, privileged voters.

Subsequent questions by email to Chuy Reyes (July 8 and August 2) have gone unanswered although Mr. Reyes acknowledged by email receiving the questions in an email dated July 8, 2012.

Water Your Trees Right Now!

An email message from three tree organizations had this subject line: "Epic Texas Drought - Water Trees Now!" It was sent to their members and said:

"Most of Texas is at the highest level of drought intensity and this is weakening and killing many landscape trees.

"We urge you to send a message/press release out to your customers, citizens, members and clients asking them to water their trees right now."

It was signed by Dr. Todd Watson, President of the Texas Chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture, Tom Boguus, State Forester and Director with the Texas Forest Service and Gary Woods, the President of the Texas Urban Forestry Council.

As a matter of fact, Oscar Mestas, the Texas Urban Forester for our region, came by this morning and looked at a number of trees in our neighborhood. Some had feared that bugs or disease was killing them. The real cause: lack of water. Water needs to soak slowly into the ground and soak for a long time.

The Texas Chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture offers great tips including watering during a severe drought. Also check out the U.S. Drought Monitor.