Reviews
Dead Pool: Lake Powell, Global Warming, and the Future of Water in the West by James Lawrence Powell
socraticgadfly's review against another edition
4.0
Just how dry can the Colorado River system get?
I've often thought of the tragedy of Marc Reisner dying fairly young. I have no doubt he would have written a third edition of Cadillac Desert, had he lived long enough to have the hard science on global warming issues that we're getting today.
Well, short of that, we have James Powell, no relative of John Wesley Powell, writing "Dead Pool," a worthy successor to both that and Donald Worster's "Rivers of Empire."
That said, Powell goes beyond those two books in some ways.
First, he not only has the global warming science that Reisner didn't, he works with this issue more than Worster.
He also addresses development issues and water-grubbing in the modern West a bit more directly than they did. And, he addresses the future of what a "dead pool" on either Lake Powell or Lake Mead will mean for city water, irrigation water, and hydropower in the Southwest.
While Powell doesn't tell Las Vegas or Phoenix they should prepare for Armageddon, he pretty much details that's what's facing Phoenix ... an increasingly polluted smog, with Colorado River run-off chemicals in addition to hydrocarbons, nighttime temperatures sometimes staying in triple digits, and no more cheap electricity.
Someone like Ed Abbey, or an Ed Abbey fan, would love this book.
==
Re-read in light of the newest IPCC report. Still good overall, but, while the likes of Katharine Hayhoe could use some of the alarmism of a Powell or a James Kunstler, Powell himself has too much of that on his predictions.
It still wouldn't surprise me if some of the things he predicted would be happening right now, in the early 2020s, don't still come true in another decade. But, the early 2030s isn't the early 2020s.
I've often thought of the tragedy of Marc Reisner dying fairly young. I have no doubt he would have written a third edition of Cadillac Desert, had he lived long enough to have the hard science on global warming issues that we're getting today.
Well, short of that, we have James Powell, no relative of John Wesley Powell, writing "Dead Pool," a worthy successor to both that and Donald Worster's "Rivers of Empire."
That said, Powell goes beyond those two books in some ways.
First, he not only has the global warming science that Reisner didn't, he works with this issue more than Worster.
He also addresses development issues and water-grubbing in the modern West a bit more directly than they did. And, he addresses the future of what a "dead pool" on either Lake Powell or Lake Mead will mean for city water, irrigation water, and hydropower in the Southwest.
While Powell doesn't tell Las Vegas or Phoenix they should prepare for Armageddon, he pretty much details that's what's facing Phoenix ... an increasingly polluted smog, with Colorado River run-off chemicals in addition to hydrocarbons, nighttime temperatures sometimes staying in triple digits, and no more cheap electricity.
Someone like Ed Abbey, or an Ed Abbey fan, would love this book.
==
Re-read in light of the newest IPCC report. Still good overall, but, while the likes of Katharine Hayhoe could use some of the alarmism of a Powell or a James Kunstler, Powell himself has too much of that on his predictions.
It still wouldn't surprise me if some of the things he predicted would be happening right now, in the early 2020s, don't still come true in another decade. But, the early 2030s isn't the early 2020s.
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