WaterWired

Via John Fleck I came across this interesting blog, WaterWired.

I've though for awhile that fresh water availability is going to be a sooner (though not bigger, ultimately) problem than global warmer. The US west is...screwed, I think. Even here in the Pacific Northwest (snow pack down 40% since 1950). Did you see these news items from a few weeks ago?

• Lake Mead has a 50% chance of being dry within 13 years....
• ...and that the western snowpack decline is caused by human-induced global warming....
• ...and, shit, now I can't the press release, but it basically said the 19th century was an anomaly for the US southwest -- that historically almost every previous century had much less rain, and the current drought appears to be taking us back to the historical average. We built up the southwest at a very anomalous time, thinking that water would be plentiful forever.... And guess what?

UPDATE: Here's the article mentioned in the last bullet item above.