13th St.

Water and Power

I made this picture of Elephant Butte about twenty years ago from the beach of the Caballo Reservoir.  The prominent light band at the base of the butte signals what was then considered a low water year.

The Albuquerque Journal recently featured two images comparing reservoir water levels over a slightly longer time span. At present, Caballo is at less than 1.5% of its capacity.

 A hundred miles to the south near the Texas border a huge data center called Project Jupiter is under construction.  It will require massive amounts of water and electrical. power.  

Given the trajectory of climate change it seems extraordinary that a go-ahead should be given for this development.  Yet, that is what happened when Doña Ana County gave a rubber-stamp approval to begin construction of the facility.

New Mexicans are bombarded with slick daily TV ads from Project Jupiter minimizing the environmental impacts and touting the jobs potential.  It is an all-or-nothing proposition with the implication that there is no other way to put together such an undertaking.  Of course,  that is not true.

Given the time an effort, the smart fellows behind the Artificial Intelligence boom could quite likely devise ways to produce needed hardware and processes without fatally compromising the State's essential natural resources.   It is not technical limitations that stand in the way of such a strategy.  It is basically just the unwillingness of the technofeudalists to postpone maximum profits.

Protests and regulatory initiatives are gaining some ground against Project Jupiter, but the outcome of those efforts is far from certain.  What is clear is that an overhaul of State regulations  regarding such projects is urgently needed.

Every year the State surrenders millions in tax exemptions  to industrial developers.  One. useful step away from that path might be to make those kind of contributions in support of innovative strategies to  develop industrial projects which actually help avoid catastrophic environmental degradation.

--------------------------------- 

UPDATE:

 The Friday edition of the PBS Newshour touched on the issue of data centers.  David Brooks said he thought it unfair to single out the ill effects of new data center. construction when there are so many other possible targets such as golf courses that use a lot of water.  That seemed misguided to me.  Should we just add one more big problem since there are so many already?  Is the only option to substitute one bad actor for another?

The other problem I had with the comments by. Brooks was that they ignore the specifics that each locality faces in assessing the possible damages of installing a new water and power guzzling megafactory.  In New Mexico, for instance, the problem is not just a real crisis of water depletion.  It turns out that the data center currently under construction in the southern part of the State will generate more air pollution than the State's three largest cities combined.

AND:

Western Environmental Law Center 

Join us to explore the environmental and legal challenges these projects present, and why thoughtful planning, strong environmental safeguards, and meaningful public participation are essential to ensuring that technological progress doesn’t come at the expense of the places we all call home.



When: Monday, August 31

11:00am-12:00pm Pacific Time (12:00pm-1:00pm Mountain Time) 

Where: Zoom

 

A Colorful Neighbor

This shop is just a block from us.  Should you be in need of knickknacks, trinkets or tchotchkes this is the place to go.  I seldom find anything I really need there, but it is fun to browse because of the endless variety of decorative items.

Saturday

 Back to our new local favorite for dinner.

 We each had a Carnitas Taco.  I added a Mexican Lager

 Over to the Harwood Gallery at 7th and Mountain for the current exhibition.

 One of the first things I looked at was this fine little linocut print by Li Ming Chu.

I liked all of the prints, but the Yerba Mansa sings to me from the Bosque.

San Felipe St.

Dem Bones

 In a morning visit. to. the. New Mexico Museum of Natural History much of our time was taken with a viewing of the spectacular Animal Armor exhibit.

 

A portion is devoted to showing how humans have adopted Nature's design strategy.

The animated Bisti Beast in the main hall is the prime attraction for young visitors.

 ******************************

Catching Up

 I have finally gotten around to  reading The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson.  The book was published in 2010  I don't know what preoccupation preempted my attention back then to produce such an oversight.  What finally woke me up was stumbling on an interview of Wilkerson on the New Mexico PBS program,  Report from Santa Fe, first aired in 2013.

Lorene Mills interviews Isabel Wilkerson

 Wilkerson, before producing the book, had a long and much acclaimed. career in journalism which included a Pulitzer -- the first given to an African-American woman.  She conducted a thousand interviews in the fifteen years of researching and writing The Warmth of Other Sons.  In it she recounts the decades-long story of the migration of African Americans from the Jim Crow Southern states to the North and West of the U.S.

 I found Wilkerson's speaking ability in the PBS program to be totally captivating.  I don't recall listening to anyone before who was so articulate.  Her eloquence in speaking about her experience in producing the book made me immediately resolve to find a copy.  A quick search turned up a copy on AbeBooks for just $7.50, shipping included.

The story of the great migration, covering decades is a complicated one which the author makes into an enjoyable read partly by focusing on the lives of three individuals who found very different paths out of the South.  

For me, the book has got me to remembering my own developing awareness of Black History.  In fact, I recall when I was in school being skeptical about the idea that there was a need for such a categorization of History, even though I had seen a lot of evidence supporting such a need during the course of the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and '60s.

Travel and life experiences eventually showed me the way to a more critical view of how History is constructed and told (and often distorted), but even these many years later Wilkerson's book is filling in a lot of important facts and ideas for me about this country's record of dealing with civil rights and human rights.

**************************

Nina Simone: Mississippi Goddam