Hurricane Ian has already devastated Cuba and Florida, and will soon reach the coastline of North and South Carolina. The storm intensified rapidly in a very short period of time and has been fueled by rising ocean temperatures due to climate change. This increased storm intensity has been predicted for years, and the U.S.’s preparation efforts and response to climate change will impact millions of lives.
View More How Climate Change Intensified Hurricane Ian
A historic heat wave in California has led to high demand for energy usage this past week, but officials have urged millions of residents to turn up their thermostats and shut off their appliances to prevent overwhelming the power grid. However, lawmakers and regulators at the forefront of the state’s green energy initiatives are also feeling the heat.
View More How California’s Heat Wave Almost Broke the State’s Power Grid
Moving water from outside a city in for its residents is a challenge in growing metropolitan areas, and engineers are needed to create the systems and structures and to oversee the work. Engineers often go far away to get water, and transporting it can be difficult and expensive. In the early 1900’s, Los Angeles needed its engineers to move water into the drying city. They chose to take water from the Owens Valley, a water-rich valley high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The engineers did so in a legal way, although it was not done in a highly ethical way. This paper will argue that the way the Los Angeles aqueduct project was done was highly unethical. It uprooted a whole area forcing farmers and families to leave their lands. It was hard on the local ecology, drying up the Owens Lake. And it has greatly changed the landscape of Southern California. The engineers on the project used underhanded means when the water could have been procured in an ethical manner.
View More Ethics of Decisions Behind the Los Angeles Aqueduct