Monday, October 4. 2021

Today's schedule is ABCD 

A Block Criminology - Today, we start in the library / learning commons, and your journal / blog entry is to answer the following:

What are the short and long term impacts on victims of Crime? Use both Harper from the Law & Order episode you watched on Friday and Chapter 3 pages 54-7 in CRIM textbook to help.

Next, I'd like you to find an article (news story) about a victim of crime and for that you should outline the impacts of the crime on them. Finally, using the two stories (one fictional and one real) explain what we should do to mitigate (soften the impact) the impacts of crime on victims (be realistic). 

Don't forget to find stories on crime in Canada check out: CANOE CNews Crime site...or the Toronto Star Crime site...or Global News Crime site...or the Huffington Post Canada Crime site...or the Vancouver Sun Crime Blog 

B Block Physical Geography - Today we shift our focus (ha ha...see what I did there? Such a bad Dad Joke...turning into Arsenault now) to earthquakes. We'll look at some video of the aftermath of the Izmit Turkey 1999 Mw 7.4 earthquake along the North Anatolian fault. We'll also look at the Loma Prieta (San Francisco) 1989 Mw 6.9 earthquake along the San Andreas fault. We'll try to compare the two and then take some notes down about the three types of faults. After, you'll have a series of questions to complete from the Geosystems text (14, 15, 16, & 19 from p. 412). 

Check out the cool interactive activity at National Geographic Forces of Nature or the Today in Earthquake History at the USGS. For more information check out the Latest Earthquakes map from the USGS or the science of earthquakes from the USGS or Earthquakes Canada or BC Public Safety Earthquakes

C & D Blocks Social and Environmental Sciences - We have the learning commons / library booked for the entire afternoon. Your final assignment is to prepare for a round table discussion about what a renegotiated water compact should include. Instead of states you will be representing "user groups" (agriculture, municipalities, power generation, recreation, environmental organizations, Indigenous governments)

Consider all of the following for tomorrow's discussion...How much will groups have to share? Who will share it with? For what purpose should the water be used? Will it be sustainable in the face of growing populations and uncertain climate? How can we make our water use sustainable? Are there any conditions that need to be met before different user groups can use the water? The original pact for the river was made in 1922. What changes have occurred that would support changes in the pact today?

Remember that the river is a system where all the water is allocated and there is less water available as a whole. Giving more water to any one area or user group means less water available for everyone else. You know your groups. Today research the heck out of it, keep the questions above in mind and come prepared to participate on Wednesday in the discussion and come up with solutions. We will ask each group to explain their point of view first and then we will ask you to try to find a solution to increasing demand and dwindling supply. Consider:

What re-allocation schemes are feasible?
What changes regarding allocations and water rights should be made?
How would these changes impact other stakeholders?
Are all the many uses of the Colorado River compatible?
If not, what should the priorities be and why?
Are there fair ways to move water from one use to another?

California and the West prepare to get by on less water from the Colorado River
States sign short-term Colorado River drought plan, but global warming looms over long-term solutions

What kind of agriculture is practiced in the Colorado Basin? There are Six Types of Commercial Agriculture in MDC's (like Canada and the US): Mixed crop and livestock farming; Dairy farming; Grain farming; Livestock ranching; Mediterranean agriculture; and Commercial gardening and fruit farming. So in the Colorado Basin...

Agriculture provides extraordinary benefits for humans and consumes the vast majority of the Colorado River’s water. Diversions from the River for agriculture total about 78% of the River’s entire flow, almost 4 trillion gallons. Water is pumped in tunnels through the Continental Divide in Colorado to the vast irrigated plains of northern Colorado where it grows alfalfa and corn, much of which is used to feed cattle. Conversely, many times more water is pumped to the desert landscapes of southern California where it is used to grow vegetable crops that are shipped to grocery stores and restaurants across the United States.

About 90 percent of the pastureland and harvested cropland in the Colorado River basin is irrigated (NOTE Irrigated land ‐ includes all land watered by any artificial or controlled means, such as sprinklers, flooding, furrows or ditches, sub‐irrigation, and spreader dikes. This includes supplemental, partial, and pre‐planting irrigation).

From the 2013 Pacific Institute Study "Irrigated Agriculture in the Colorado River Basin"... 

More than half of the land and water use in the Colorado River basin is dedicated to feeding cattle and horses. Irrigated pasture and forage crops, used primarily to feed beef and dairy cattle and horses, cover about two million acres (60 percent) of the irrigated land in the Colorado River basin. Irrigated pasture and forage in the basin consume more than five million acre-feet of water each year. Nevertheless, Arizona, California, and Mexico’s 750,000 acres of forage crops and pasture in the basin consume roughly three million acre-feet of water each year.

Alfalfa, planted extensively from Wyoming to the delta in Mexico, alone covers more than a quarter of the total irrigated acreage in the basin. Arizona, California, and Mexico have more crop diversity than the other states in the basin, with hundreds of thousands of acres in vegetables, wheat, and cotton. Nevertheless, Arizona, California, and Mexico’s 750,000 acres of forage crops and pasture in the basin consume roughly three million acre-feet of water each year.

Links...

Western states chart diverging paths as water shortages loom

Lake Powell Is Losing So Much Water, It May Not Be Able to Generate Hydropower in 2 Years

There's a 1-in-3 chance Lake Powell won't be able to generate hydropower in 2023 due to drought conditions, new study says

And the CAP (Central Arizona Project) brings water from the Colorado to Phoenix and Tucson...here's what it looks like