Water, Water Everywhere

Water, Water Everywhere

Opinion: The country that is showing the world how to save water

Opinion by Seth M. Siegel

‘Playing Russian roulette’: Water conservation efforts stall as Lake Mead dries up

03:04 – Source: CNN

Editor’s Note: Seth M. Siegel is the author of “Let There Be Water: Israel’s Solution for a Water-Starved World” and “Troubled Water: What’s Wrong with What We Drink.” He is currently the Chief Sustainability Officer of N-Drip, a company which developed water-saving technology for agricultural use. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.

CNN — 

Scorching temperatures and reports of water scarcity are grabbing headlines, as drought caused by climate change creates long-term problems for farmers and communities in the United States and around the world. Without adequate supply of water, farmers are being forced to plant less in order to conserve the water they will need to get through yet another year of prolonged drought. The consequences will be higher food prices here, but also social instability in countries important to the US.

Seth M. Siegel     Courtesy Talia Siegel

As frightening and as insurmountable a challenge as chronic and growing water shortages may seem, there are solutions at hand that can save us from crisis.

A small country in one of the driest regions in the world is among those that have developed policies and techniques to provide water in cities and farms alike. That country is Israel. And with drought becoming the new normal, policymakers would be wise to take a look at what Israel has done, and to begin the process of creating their own water-resilient societies that are less dependent on rainfall that may never return.

Although Israel gets nearly all of its tap water from desalination plants along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and a large part of its water for agriculture by purifying and re-using the nation’s sewage, Israel refuses to rely on any single strategy or technology in addressing its water needs.

This “all of the above” approach leads to resilience from this intentional redundancy, but it also opens the door to innovation and risk taking that has often resulted in world-changing breakthroughs.

 Israel became a nation in May 1948, but decades before, while under the control of the British Mandate, the Zionist leadership began prioritizing excellence in water, along with defense and immigration policy. In most countries, the (unromantic) subjects of water infrastructure and technology are in the hands of mid-level officials and more junior cabinet members. But to read the diaries of Israel’s founders is to see the daily interest, bordering on obsession, on getting water policy right. For example, long before desalination took off in Israel, the country’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, often wrote about the prospect of “desalting the sea” in order to “make the desert bloom.”

Not everything Israel does is relevant everywhere. Because of its small size, approximately the land area of New Jersey, it can do things more easily than can water-poor countries of vast dimensions. Likewise, having a long coastline and most of its population within relatively easy reach of the country’s desalination facilities, provide opportunities that aren’t available everywhere.

But some of what Israel does, everyone can do – at least, in theory.

First, Israel charges the real price for water. (Though the cost is subsidized for those receiving social welfare; everyone else pays the full price.) By use of market forces, consumers, farmers and industry are always looking for ways to conserve water, or to use technology that leads to the most efficient use of water possible. In most of the world, water is deeply subsidized which leads to enormous wasting of water due to overuse. As one example, because at full market price it is cheaper to fix leaky pipes than to waste the water, Israel has an uncommonly low leak factor of about 7-8%Even in the US, there are communities with water mains that lose up to 50% of the water flowing through them.

Israel’s success in water is also tied to the decision to put the administration of the country’s water is in the hands of apolitical technocrats. Their job is to get the highest quality water to the largest number of people possible. Price is a factor, but not the only one. By comparison, in some US cities, mayors know that their constituents may see a rise in water rates as a de facto tax increase. This results in suppressed water fees, and with it the inability to modernize facilities with the best equipment and software, and difficulty in attracting and retaining highly skilled engineers.

 Israel also differs from much of the world in its approach to agriculture. Decades ago, flood irrigation – which soaks soil by flooding fields with water – was discouraged by the government, effectively ending the practice. Yet, around the world, 85 percent of irrigated fields use flood irrigation, a practice that goes back to the time of ancient Egypt and the flooding of the Nile River Basin.

While this wasteful and unsustainable method may be thought to be in use only in less developed countries, here in the US, we flood irrigate millions of acres in California, Texas, and even in the parched southwest. Farmers have little incentive to switch to water-saving technology because they can continue using water as if it were as abundant and inexhaustible as sunshine or air. In Arizona, for example, 89% of the irrigation used is flood irrigation, and in the states of the rapidly depleting Colorado River Basin, there are as many as six million acres that continue wasting trillions of gallons annually by flooding fields.

Fittingly, Israeli technology may come to the rescue in the US southwest. Low-cost, gravity-fed drip irrigation, developed by an Israeli scientist, has already been deployed on thousands of acres in Arizona and elsewhere. (Full disclosure: I work with this scientist’s company.) The technology saves half of the water previously needed for flood-irrigated fields while improving yields and reducing the need for water-polluting fertilizer. This newer approach is similar to the more familiar form of drip irrigation invented in Israel more than 60 years ago. But this system uses gravity as its energy source, eliminating ongoing external energy use and expense.

It’s been said that the wars of the 21st century will be fought over water. That may be so, but it is cheaper and smarter for every water-stressed region and country to transform how it uses its water. That has to start with changing how we think about our water. And in that, every country – rich or poor, large or small, landlocked or with a long seacoast – can learn from what Israel has done.

Jesus

Jesus

While I’m not a religious person I am admirer of the reported teachings and admirable life of Jesus. Most people know of his life through the four gospels. What many people are not aware of is that these were written between 40 and 80 years after his death and by people who did not know him. Their narratives while not duplicates are fairly consistent. They are obviously comprised of oral histories which may or may not be entirely accurate. Regardless they represent a life we can all respect. It is ironic that much of what he aspired to in life is ignored by many of those who call them selves Christians.

Jesus Christ is not the man’s name. It is more a title like saying Jesus the Savior. He likely had a surname. I like Jesus Josephson. His mother was definitely a virgin early on but not after siring his brothers and sisters. While here is little about his siblings in the “Good Book” there are copious details in the Urantia Book. It narrates a detailed biography of Jesus that includes his childhood, teenage years, family life, and public ministry, as well as the events that led to his crucifixion, death, and resurrection. Its papers continue with appearances after he rose, Pentecost and, finally, “The Faith of Jesus.”

Another good source on the life of Jesus is contained in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Scriptures. One thing that Jesus displayed was that a “Church” need not be one of bricks and mortar. His was a traveling show that required very little financing. What is most important is his stance on morality and love of his fellow man. How great would the world be if we were all to treat others as we which to be treated.

Dinosaur Extinction

Researchers reveal dinosaurs may have been extinct before the meteorite hit

They collected 1,000 dinosaur fossils for the study.

Published: Sep 20, 2022 05:42 AM EST

Nergis Firtina

Researchers reveal dinosaurs may have been extinct before the meteorite hit

Tyrannosaurus rex

It has become general knowledge that the extinction of the dinosaurs was due to a large meteorite that hit Earth, but according to a new study, we may be wrong.

The general belief was that dinosaurs lived in the Cretaceous period, but new research reveals that dinosaurs may have been extinct long ago.

Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) and collaborators recently announced that they had discovered evidence to support the hypothesis that dinosaurs were not very diverse before their extinction and declined overall during the Cretaceous period.

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Prehistoric worldCoreyFord/iStock 

The Shanyang Basin in central China produced more than 1,000 preserved dinosaur eggs and eggshells, which the researchers studied. The rock sequences where these fossils were found totaled about 492.126 ft (150 m) in thickness.

By examining and using computer modeling on more than 5,500 geological samples, the researchers were able to determine precise age estimations for the rock layers.

As a result, they were able to construct a timeline for the end of the Cretaceous with a resolution of 100,000 years, marking the moment just prior to extinction. Direct comparisons with global data are possible using this timeline.

1,000 dinosaur egg fossils collected

Based on 1,000 egg fossils from three different species — Macroolithus yaotunensis, Elongatoolithus elongatus, and Stromatoolithus pinglingensis — scientists managed to identify the dinosaurs.

Tyrannosaurus and sauropod dinosaurs also inhabited the area between approximately 66.4 and 68.2 million years ago, according to a few additional dinosaur bones found in the area. Before the mass extinction, central China had a low diversity of dinosaur species throughout the previous 2 million years, as Eurekalert reported.

The results of the research show us that the dinosaurs were already declining before the meteor hit Earth.

What do you know about the Cretaceous period?

The Cretaceous period was approximately 145 to 66 million years ago. It is the Mesozoic Era’s third and final period, as well as its longest. It is the longest geological period in the Phanerozoic, lasting approximately 79 million years.

Due to the comparatively mild temperature of the Cretaceous epoch, there were many shallow inland seas because of high eustatic sea levels. While dinosaurs continued to rule the land, these oceans and seas were home to now-extinct marine reptiles, ammonites, and rudists. There was no ice on the planet, and forests reached the poles. New species of mammals and birds also emerged at this time.

Abstract:

Whether or not nonavian dinosaur biodiversity declined prior to the end-Cretaceous mass extinction remains controversial as the result of sampling biases in the fossil record, differences in the analytical approaches used, and the rarity of high-precision geochronological dating of dinosaur fossils. Using magnetostratigraphy, cyclostratigraphy, and biostratigraphy, we establish a high-resolution geochronological framework for the fossil-rich Late Cretaceous sedimentary sequence in the Shanyang Basin of central China. We have found only three dinosaurian eggshell taxa (Macroolithus yaotunensis, Elongatoolithus elongatus, and Stromatoolithus pinglingensis) representing two clades (Oviraptoridae and Hadrosauridae) in sediments deposited between ∼68.2 and ∼66.4 million y ago, indicating sustained low dinosaur biodiversity, and that assessment is consistent with the known skeletal remains in the Shanyang and surrounding basins of central China. Along with the dinosaur eggshell records from eastern and southern China, we find a decline in dinosaur biodiversity from the Campanian to the Maastrichtian. Our results support a long-term decline in global dinosaur biodiversity prior to 66 million y ago, which likely set the stage for the end-Cretaceous nonavian dinosaur mass extinction.

ABOUT THE EDITOR

Nergis Firtina Istanbul-based writer and editor Nergis graduated from Istanbul University’s American Culture and Literature and is currently doing her master’s at Bahçeşehir University’s Sound Technology / Jazz Performance Department. Besides her music career, she also worked as a content producer.

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