Cool Rainwater Harvesting Promotional Video...

We need more efforts like this here in the US. This one was done for India.

Anyone want to put together an ad campaign?

Brushing My Teeth in Two Ounces of Water

Today, the plumber came and turned off our water. There was a leak in the pipes and the plumber couldn't fix it for three days. "Three days!!!", I exclaimed.

It is amazing how helpless you are suddenly when there is no ready supply of water.

I quickly filled a few buckets and some other receptacles and then that was that - the water was off. I washed my hands with just a few cups of water. The process went like this: get the hands wet, apply soap, scrub, then add more water until there were no suds left. Brushing teeth was extremely economical. I was able to brush my teeth AND rinse with just one cup of water.

I realized that most of our water usage habits are based on laziness.

I am not as bad these days as I used to be back before Al Gore was a Nobel Peace Prize winner. I used to leave the tap running in many situations, including when I was brushing my teeth. Even though I have much better habits nowadays, having NO water made me think just how far I could push this conservation thing. I became a super-efficient "water hero" who only used exactly what he needed. Actually, in the third world, most everyone consumes water like this, and much less I'm sure.

It was annoying having to use the neighbor's shower, but having to shape my consumption habits was really no more time-consuming than my regular routines - once I adjusted, that is. We really don't appreciate how lucky we are to have limitless clean water flowing out of our taps on command and we certainly have no idea about the true value of water until there is none!

So CONSERVE it!!!

Water vs. Global Warming

"Water is the most critical resource issue of our lifetime and of our children's lifetime. The health of our waters is the principal measure of how we live on the land."
-Luna Leopold, hydrologist and professor, UC Berkeley

Global warming is getting all the attention right now and for good reason. Water is an equally important issue, but much less on the radar for the masses, especially in terms of conservation. Think about it the next time you turn on the tap.

10 Easy Ways to Save Water

10 Ways to Save

1. Give your sprinkler time off. Most lawns and gardens get 20-50 percent more water than they really need. You can cut watering times 2 to 5 minutes for every 10 minutes you water and still have a healthy landscape.


2. Water while you sleep. Water only in the early morning or at night when evaporation is at its lowest.


3. Water wetter. Install a “smart” controller, available at an irrigation supply house. This device automatically tells your irrigation system how much to water.


4. If it’s broke, fix it. Check for leaks, pipe breaks or clogged sprinklers and replace or repair if necessary.


5. Replace outdated, inefficient irrigation equipment. Save money through your local landscaping rebate program, if applicable.


6. Shower shorter. Install a water-efficient showerhead that uses 2.5 gallons/minute or less.


7. No drip policy. Because they’re “on” 24/7, leaky faucets, toilets, and showerheads can waste a lot of water.


8. Flush with pride. Check with your municipality for local rebates to install qualified 1.2 gallons-per-flush toilets.


9. Keep it clean & Get green. Use the energy-saving cycle when washing clothes. Use cold water. Rebates are available when you buy a high-efficiency washer.


10. Fill ‘er up. Run your dishwasher on the energy-saving cycle and only run full loads.

Check out H20 Conserve for tons of tips and tricks for saving water as well as calculating you water footprint.

Red Alert: Water is the Next Oil!

From Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke's book Blue Gold, The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water:



According to the United Nations, 31 countries in the world are currently facing water stress and scarcity. Over one billion people have no access to clean drinking water and almost three billion have no access to sanitation services. By the year 2025, the world will contain 2.6 billion more people than it holds today, but as many as two-thirds of those people will be living in conditions of serious water shortage, and one-third will be living with absolute water scarcity. Demand for water will exceed availability by 56 percent.

Many of us who have lived most of our lives in the industrialized countries of the North may find it difficult to imagine running out of water. We have lived with steady supplies most of our lives and have used it lavishly. But at current rates of use, we will run short. At a time when we are on a rising curve in water use because of increasing industrialization, intensified farming, and population growth, water resources are being depleted at an accelerated rate. Aquifer overdrafts, massive urbanization, and unchecked pollution are withdrawing supplies from the world's water account, just when we need to be saving more...There is simply no way to overstate the fresh water crisis on the planet today. The alarm is sounding. Will we hear it in time?

Letter to the Editor: Wake Up America, Water and Oil is Underpriced!

I wrote this short note to the editors of about ten major newspapers across the country:

It is amazing how spoiled Americans have become. We pay five dollars for a gallon of gas and everyone freaks out. Europeans have been paying three to four times that much for years, which has encouraged more fuel efficient vehicles, and also smaller vehicles.

Market forces are at work here, people. Tapping into fuel reserves, off-shore drilling, these short-term fixes miss the point. Oil is a scarce resource and any scarce resource that is in huge demand, will constantly go up in price. Americans have been spoiled and treat these precious resources as God-given rights. It is about time that we pay more realistic market prices for our two most important resources - energy and water.

Water is the next oil. We will see price increases in the future as the cost of providing ready, clean supplies of water goes up. Currently, water is cheaper in the desert of Las Vegas than in snowy Boston; isn't something clearly wrong with this picture?

You can - and should - write a short note to the editor's of newspapers about how you feel about environmental issues. Visit Al Gore's non-profit initiative - wecansolveit.org - for a great resource for the concerned individual. There are many ways you can get involved, under the "Take Action" section of the website. Here is a link to help you write a short note to some editor's right away: http://www.wecansolveit.org/page/speakout/augustchallenge.

10 Greatest Challenges Facing Humanity

The late Richard E. Smalley, considered one of the early fathers of nanotechnology, founded the appropriately-named Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology in the heart of Houston at acclaimed Rice University, which is now a global leader in advanced energy and nanotech research.

Before his death in 2005 at age 62, Smalley and his team came up with a list of the 10 greatest challenges facing humanity:

1. Water
2. Energy
   
3. Food
4. Environment
5. Poverty
6. Terrorism and War
7. Disease
8. Education
9. Democracy
10. Population Growth

From The Clean Tech Revolution by Ron Pernick and Clint Wilder.

Conservation and Efficiency: Two Often Overlooked Areas

Most people trying to save the planet think that the best thing that they can do is to buy a hybrid vehicle like a Toyota Prius or put solar panels on their home. However, two of the most important areas in environmental change are being overlooked: conservation and efficiency.

The two most important resource-savings take place in energy and water usage. Although this is much less sexy than getting some semiconductors installed on your rooftop, efficiency and conservation are the easiest areas to make a difference right now, and should be regarded as the most important first step for any concerned citizen. I am amazed by how many people make the big jump towards other more technology-heavy measures, before they consider the changes that are less interesting on the surface, but if everyone did them, could literally change the world.

Often referred to as the cleanest power source of all, efficiency is the most effective way to save resources. Amory Lovins, founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute in Snowmass, Colorado, is one of the world’s most respected efficiency technology gurus. He first coined the term negawatt in 1989 as a unit of conserved electricity, or a megawatt of power that the power plant never has to generate because of efficiency.

Both in the water and electrical industry, the incentives have to be changed for efficiency and conservation to flourish. In the past, water and energy companies have been rewarded by how much water or energy they sell, without any incentives to sell less or encourage efficiency and conservation.

Nowadays, utilities are changing that model and reforming the system to create financial incentives for utilities to promote efficiency. For example, the Northwest Power Act of 1980 allowed power generators to share a portion of their customers’ savings from using less electricity, giving them a financial stake in the efficiency game. Among utilities’ large-scale efforts in efficiency is market transformation, a program in which utilities and regulators promote the manufacture and purchase of energy-saving products (appliances, building materials, etc.) with rebates, industrial training, consumer education, and marketing assistance.

But in most areas in the United States, except for the Northwest, California, New York, and a few others, regulatory efforts to drive efficiency measures have a long way to go. The decoupling of utility sales and profits has not happened yet in most areas, which gives utilities the wrong incentives to encourage efficiency and conservation.

We must spread the word about this important and often overlooked agent of change. Visit the website Flex Your Power [www.flexyourpower.org] for more information about conservation and efficiency. Also visit H20 Conserve [www.h2oconserve.org] for water efficiency tips and advice.