Not everyone was smitten with the methodology in the recent NRDC report on climate change preparedness. Here’s a post from Emily Green on the Chance of Rain blog. Thanks to the High Country News for the link. Ms. Green writes:
If a state that turned Owens Lake into a salt bed, that led the West in destroying the Colorado River estuary and is well on its way to finishing off the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay Delta gets a top ranking for water management in the face of climate change, it must be asked: What merits a fail?
The NRDC’s enthusiasm for California water security policy amounts in many ways to a pat on its own back. It lobbied hard for the legislation that the new report congratulates for, among other things, mandating reduction of urban water use by 20% by 2020. What the report doesn’t mention is that lobbying by urban water authorities ensured that the reduction could be set against such a high use point that it’s not really 20% from the date of the bill.