I am going to start a new category on my blog. Sometimes, as I am reading “stuff” I see things that I don’t really want to blog about, but I think you would find interesting. Here, you will discover quotes, articles or other things that generally fall into one of the categories I often write about, but that isn’t my own work.
Up first, from the Natural History magazine we get along with our Pacific Science Center membership, is a blurb from “Blue Planet Blues,” the first article in Water, the Wellspring of Life (November 2007, volume 116, number 9, page 29):
Despite all the water in the world, only a small fraction is available to us and other species that depend on freshwater. Salty seas account for more than 97 percent of the water on Earth. Of the remaining 3 percent or so, at least two-thirds is tied up in glaciers, ice caps, and permafrost, or else lies deep underground, of little use to those of us living on the land above. ~ Eleanor J Sterling
This entire issue of the magazine is devoted to water: its sources, scarcity and conservation. How do we balance our needs for water with the needs of the rest of the planet?