Growing the Desert The cover of February 1950 issue of Desert Magazine is a telling departure from previous covers that depict Native Americans, natural desert vistas or plant life. The Hoover Dam looms large as the first “modern” man made structure to adorn the cover of the publications. (Figure 1) Into the 1950s more depictions of Anglo…Continue Reading Growing the Desert
In October of 2010, at the groundbreaking of Brightsource’s Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, then California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger stated, “Some people look out into the desert and see miles and miles of emptiness […] I see miles and miles of gold mine.” Schwarzenegger’s statement was but the apogee of an on-going debate about the…Continue Reading Getting Over the Color Green
Valley Fever is a reemerging infectious disease that calls home in the southwest United States (California, Arizona, Utah, Texas, Nevada, and New Mexico), Mexico, Central America, and South America. 40% of the infected population either does not show symptoms or they receive mild, flu-like, symptoms that resolve without medication. However, for those that develop a…Continue Reading Catching Fever and Waiting for Rain
Borrego Springs emerged in the late 1940s alongside Palm Springs as a desert playground for a newly mobile and affluent postwar American middle class. While Borrego Springs shared some of the flash and glamour of its more famous desert cousin, the development of the smaller desert town manifested the careful planning and slow growth characteristic…Continue Reading A Prehistory of Drought
As of late October, nearly 60% of California faces conditions of “exceptional drought,” a category that the National Drought Mitigation Center refers to as indicating “exceptional and widespread crop/pasture losses,” with “shortages of water in reservoirs, steams and wells creating water emergencies”. Mandatory conservation measures are in effect across the state, and Governor Brown recently signed a Sustainable…Continue Reading Notes from the Field: Water from the Ground, Water from Space
Citizen scientists take action to stop invaders! It seems unintuitive to think that drought might be a good thing for deserts; at least for many of the native plant species that call the Anza-Borrego desert home. The recent drought that has been devastating the southwestern US has surprisingly offered a sigh of relief for some…Continue Reading When water chokes the desert: finding an unseen benefit in California’s drought stricken deserts