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The ruling highlights the precarious condition of long-term water supplies in California and the West. Previous rulings to restrict water deliveries to protect the delta smelt were challenged in court by local water districts. The latest opinions will likely end up in court according to a spokesperson for the Westlands Water District.

The state itself is examining ways to boost local water supplies through greater stormwater infiltration and capture. A hearing occurred on June 17 in Sacramento to discuss the issue as part of AB32, the state’s climate action law.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (i.e., Stimulus Bill) may also help kick start water recycling projects across the state. The U.S. Department of the Interior announced that 26 California projects will receive more than $130 million in federal funding.  A worthy use of Stimulus funding.

Faced with another year of drought, water agencies around the state are taking steps to reduce water usage by customers. Last month, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power began offering customers a cash incentive to replace their grass lawns with drought-tolerant plants. The Residential Drought Resistant Landscape Incentive Program will credit single-family residential customers $1 for each square foot of turf removed and replaced with drought-tolerant plants, mulch and water-permeable hardscapes.

The current emphasis for greater efficiency for homes and businesses will soon be directed at our taps, I believe.

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Listen to the stories (accessible here) or click on the interactive grid map to identify existing and proposed energy infrastructure in your area. You can also easily see your state's generation mix. For example, California's power comes from the following sources:

• Natural Gas (47%)
• Hydro (20%)
• Nuclear(18%)
• Geothermal (7%)
• Biomass (3%)
• Wind (2%)
• Oil (1%)
• Coal (less than 1%) 
• Solar (less than 1%) 
• Other (1%) 

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There’s much talk about how climate change will affect weather patterns, causing more intense events such as hurricanes and tornadoes. In California, one consequence of the greenhouse gas buildup is a change in precipitation type; climate change is expected to cause a shift from snow to more rain during winter months (i.e., a diminished snowpack), and an earlier snowmelt.

While you may think that water is water, regardless of its physical state, this shift may have significant ramifications for water-capture infrastructure in the West. 

Reservoirs on 22 major rivers in the Sierras release winter waters to provide space behind the dams to prevent flooding from spring snowmelt. The snowmelt is then released in the late summer and fall to supply water to agribusiness in the Central Valley and cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco. According to the U.S. Geological Society (USGS), as much as 75 percent of water supplies in the western states are derived from snowmelt.

Researchers have identified a trend toward diminished snowpack and earlier snowmelt in western states, which may be related to global warming, and in precipitation form or timing.

According to the National Streamflow Information Program of the USGS:

Annual streamflow in most western rivers has come progressively earlier during the past several decades. …The long-term tendency of springtime streamflow (that fraction of overall flow that occurs from April to July) as a fraction of overall flow has declined during the 20th century in the central and northern Sierra Nevada. These results broadly reflect a regional trend toward warmer winters and springs during the same period.

If weather patterns shift, causing an increase of winter rains (as opposed to snow), runoff will occur earlier than normal. Water resource management of western rivers is based on the fact that much of the runoff to reservoirs occurs during the early parts of the warm season. The natural reservoirs provided by western snowfields will become less useful for water resource planning.

One approach, advocated by the State’s Governor, is to increase surface storage capacity. According to the state’s Department of Water Resources, the State and federal governments have funded five surface storage investigations.

Conservation groups such as the Sierra Nevada Alliance, are opposed to dam building and advocate for a comprehensive approach to accommodate the changes. The group's 4-point plan includes increased focus on Sierra meadow and forest restoration (i.e., water storage), dam re-operation (to better predict water releases); better floodplain management (to prevent damage during spring floods); and water conservation.

California and the West have a long history of tangled water politics. Climate change will force state leaders to examine all options when confronting a new era of reduced water availability. The first step for citizens is recognizing their individual responsibility. 

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Moving forward, posts will focus on energy and water: supply, conservation, technology, and our collective struggle to reshape our thinking about these 'commodities.' Energy use has gained a national spotlight. I believe water will be next.

Last Sunday, March 22, was World Water Day. The theme for this year was Transboundary Waters: Sharing Water, Sharing Opportunities. 

Whether its water or energy, confronting challenges and exploiting opportunities is in our future.

Technorati Tags: water, energy, world water day, kema,

According to the Natural Marketing Institute's 2007 LOHAS Consumer Trends Database, "most consumers prefer to learn about CSR through the news media…" This is understandable given the media’s perceived neutrality. An active media relations program is therefore important for any sustainability program.

The NMI survey also points out the importance of independent 3rd party groups/ratings. Public relations is far larger than media relations alone. Identifying trusted organizations and working collaboratively to improve a company's operations will help convey program credibility. As discussed in Battling Communication Schizophrenia, don't forget to have consistent messaging across the company website, product packaging, marketing materials, and more. 

Technorati Tags: csr, audits, sustainability

As environmental messages are inserted, other messages become diluted and obscured. Do the true benefits of the product or service still resonate? Have customer service and support elements fallen lower on the list, displaced by carbon offsets? Do printed brochures reflect the same messages as (more easily updated) web pages?

Communication audits are a great way to systematically examine all channels of communication and identify conflicts, exaggerated claims, and off-topic messages. Communication schizophrenia is easy to diagnose. Are you telling vendors and distributors one thing while employees another. Are clients receiving a consistent message about your true value proposition? Has your messaging stayed current with you’re your business strategy?

These evaluations can also be more narrowly focused on how the company is portrayed in the media (i.e., media audit) or how the company stacks up against its competitors (i.e., competitive evaluation).

It’s easy to understand how messages stray from their intended purpose. The solution is to objectively evaluate communication channels and develop a plan for realigning messages with business strategy.

Technorati Tags: communication audit, media audit, public relations, greenwashing,

Using a free service like Wordle, users can enter an RSS feed or blocks of text. Here's the word cloud for this site; click to enlarge.

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The July/August 2008 issue of the Columbia Journalism Review examines climate change and asserts that "media coverage of climate change is at a crossroads." Essentially, the article is saying that we're [moving] "beyond the science of global warming into the broader arena of what governments, entrepeneurs, and ordinary citizens are doing about it." Hence…

"Journalists will play a key role in shaping the information that opinion leaders and the public use to judge the urgency of climate change, what needs to be done about it, when and at what costs. It is a vast, multifaceted story whose complexity does not fit well with journalism’s tendency to shy away from issues with high levels of uncertainty and a time-frame of decades, rather than days or months.

How does this affect the communications professional? Media relations is all about building helpful, supportive relationships with those that cover our subject area. Better understanding reporters' challenges will enable us to better serve our clients.

The article goes on to discuss how climate change coverage might be sharpened in the year ahead in the broad areas of science, politics, and business.

Science and Technology
Scientists will continue to publish studies examining the "why, where, how fast, and with what impact climate change might occur." As is typical with science, some of these studies will likely be contradictory. Journalists should avoid “yo-yo” coverage with each new study and try to put the latest findings in context. Also, journalists will be increasingly wary of techno-energy fixes as well as conflicts of interests. Communicators should be prepared to not oversell stories.

Politics and Policy
Whether examining the policy nuances (e.g., cap and trade, nuclear power, emerging nations, etc) of the presidential candidates or analyzing those measures enacted by cities and counties, reporters will be especially a tune to how policy makers and politicians confront climate change. Communicators, especially those with large advocacy organizations as clients, can examine how member organizations are influencing decision makers. 

Business and Commerce
The article wisely points out that "evaluating economic forecasts is even tougher than evaluating the science." Is climate change good or bad for the economy? Interface Corporation, the poster child of sustainability reporting is once again discussed with its often-told story of cutting waste, lowering energy use and reducing emissions, which in turn saved money. While it's vogue to set emission targets, how are governments and corporations performing?

No doubt, climate change reporting has the potential to touch on virtually all aspects of contemporary life. Reporters will need to "tell the story on their watch." The schools editor could examine changes to curriculum and how the climate change debate is affecting text book publishers. The garden editor should examine planet hardiness zones and how both home gardeners and seed producers are affected. Will shifting food production impact the quality and selection of the local farmers market?

Communicators have a responsibility to help the media place climate change in a context in which readers will feel compelled to act.

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For businesses and organizations wondering how best to overcome this consumer fatigue, I suggest that they reexamine and narrow their audience. Rather than jumping on the green bandwagon — which is increasingly becoming a congested freeway — and widely broadcasting their environmental achievements (which are oftentimes inconsequential) in hopes that the media will cover their efforts, I suggest carefully targeting their communications to very select constituencies.

- Corporate sustainability efforts should be reexamined and explained from a recruiting perspective. As talent becomes more difficult to find, a good corporate citizen has the advantage in the recruiting pool.

- Less packaging, high recycling rates, and reusable materials should be presented to business analysts as examples of efficient manufacturing and sound business practices. Benefits to the environment are a perk.

- Analyzing one's carbon footprint and taking proactive steps to reduce carbon emissions across the board from employee trips to raw material use to finished product packaging demonstrates to potential investors that the company is well prepared to adjust to a carbon-regulated future.

The era of 'broad-brush green' is over.  

Technorati Tags: greenwashing, pr