Flood Catastrophe Prevention for Ajijic Homebuyers

By Barbara Harwood

A couple of springs ago, a student named Kevin came bounding into the studio: “I think I’ve found a site for my shelter. Can you look?”

One of our duties as Adjunct Professors at the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture is to assist the students in designing and building a desert shelter in which they will live during their winters at Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona.

“Sure,” I replied,” heading out onto the desert path that led to his newly chosen site.

“Look,” he said, using his hands to show me how the shelter would be set onto the site, “I’ll have the south open to the sun here so it can keep me warm in winter, and I’ll put up a stone wall here on the north to protect me from the winds . . .  “

As he continued, I could see his mastery of the concepts of passive solar heating and natural cooling.

But he had missed something vital. “Kevin,” I asked, “What do you see on the northwest edge of your site?”

“A dry channel . . . like maybe an old creek bed?”

“Right,” I said. “Now look northeast. What do you see there?”

“Another dry creek bed?” he answered.

“Right, and where do these two dry creek beds meet?” I asked.

The light was beginning to dawn.  “Oh, right in front of my site.”

“So,” I said, “in Arizona these dry creek beds, or arroyos, look dry and useless in the dry season. But if we should have a heavy rain, what do you think would happen here?”

“Well, I guess water would run down both of these and they would join right here, and if it got too deep, I guess I would get pretty wet,” he said.

“Right. So what does this mean for the site you have chosen?” I asked.

“I think it means that if there is a big rain I might be in serious trouble – like I might be washed away or even drown.”

BINGO!

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Article: Sliding Down the Oil Curve - Part 3

This is Part 3 of a series of articles by Rick Cowlishaw, LCGG Steering Committee Member, on Peak Oil.

Part 3 of 8. (Just click on the link to read the article. Right-click or Control-click to save it.)

In Part 3 we will discuss how peak oil affects us and how will huge the problem is. We are connected in a pyramid of ways to oil. Each of these will be strongly impacted.

In 2010 the world consumes about 87 million barrels of oil per day, or nearly 30 billion barrels of oil per year. It is doubtful if the world will be able to produce much more oil. After several years of maximum production, we should experience a 3 percent yearly decline[i]. There may be a 100 percent increase in the price of oil for every 3 percent drop in production.

Lake Chapala Green Group Dec 7 Meeting

Mark your calendars for the first Tuesday in December. Our guest speaker is Richard Rhoda, PhD.

Rick will bring a lot of very interesting information to this meeting of the Lake Chapala

Green Group. He is a geographer, and has been an Ajijic resident since 1999. Professionally he has directed major development programs in Asia, Africa and Latin America as well as authoring a book on development planning.

In addition to teaching several university level geography courses and publishing numerous articles in professional journals, Richard has delivered scores of lectures on such topics as modern Mexico, development, urban systems, migration, environment and demography. He wrote Geo-Mexico: The Geography and Dynamics of Modern Mexico, with Tony Burton as co-author.

The meeting will be held at LCS, Neill James Patio, beginning at 3:00. Bring any "green buzz" you have to share.