Fresh, clean, drinkable water. In some parts of the world, it dictates life and death. In developed nations, it’s under appreciated, and in decline. We celebrate World Water Day this week with pangs of concern.
Tags: · BarbaraKesslerBlog, save water, water, Water Conservation, World Water Day
The New Yorkers Against Fracking coalition is planning a rally in Albany to urge Gov. Andrew Cuomo to keep fracking out of the state. Opponents of fracking in the Empire State are worried that draft rules for gas wells has paved the way for gas well permits in advance of needed scientific scrutiny.
Tags: · environment, fracking, Gov. Cuomo, New York, New Yorkers Against Fracking, protest, water
It’s been a strange week. I’m blushing, because wherever I go, I am confronted by flushing.
First came news that actor and green activist Ed Begley is endorsing two composting toilets. Leave it to Ed to go where no man has gone before.
I am glad that Begley continues to push the envelope. I assume he’ll be installing these at home, and he will find that composting toilets are at least as easy to incorporate as those stationary bikes he uses to power the TV. I confess I don’t watch the Living with Ed show, but I am a fan of his green advocacy. Another product he’s endorsed, Bayes Waterless Car Wash, has become a favorite at our house. We save untold gallons of water, avoided sending contaminated runoff into the sewer system and still end up with sparkly cars.
Tags: · BarbaraKesslerBlog, Biokleen, Chem Free Toilet Cleaner, chemical contamination of water, composting toilets, Ecover, Ed Begley, Envirolet, environmentalist, germs, GreenWorks, Santerra Green, Seventh Generation, toilet cleaner, toilets, wastewater, water, Water Conservation
By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
Feeling guilty about your bottled water? Or worried that it is not as pure as the pastoral scene on the label implies? Your worries are justified. Bottled water is unregulated in the US, and often as not, it is just filtered tap water – with a heavier carbon footprint thanks to the requisite plastic container and the shipping.
Luckily, just as you’re re-evaluating this resource-intensive habit, so is everyone else, from the cities that have passed bottled water taxes to the bottled water companies themselves to entrepreneurs trying to figure a better way.
Culligan, the big kahuna of bottled water service companies now makes a cooler that hooks up to your tap – an apparent concession that the days of carting around those big blue bottles may be numbered.
But one of the most unique solutions to filling your cup without filling the landfill may be generating your own purified water. You can do that by tapping into the humidity in the air with an Atmospheric Water Generator, which pulls water from “thin air” (as long as that air registers at least 35 percent humidity).
Tags: · Atmospheric Water Generators, Bottled Water, developing nations, filtered water, industrialized nations, purified water, toxic chemicals in water, water, Water Conservation, water contamination, water depletion, water production, water scarcity
Addison, Texas’ planned new water tower is destined to be noticed — and not just because it will be 195-feet tall. The water tower will be among the first in the nation to be powered by wind turbines mounted on top.
Tags: · Addison Texas, Brad Goldberg, Cleanfield Energy, Freese and Nichols, water, Wind Power
By John DeFore
Green Right Now
Ascending through the dense greenery on the way up Rio de Janeiro’s Corcovado mountain, travelers may be caught off guard by the sight of a Toucan or the call of a far-off monkey, they may marvel at the beauty of a wild orchid, and they’ll almost certainly be struck by the size of it — the sensation of being far from civilization, not smack in the middle of a metropolitan area housing well over 10 million people.
Few visitors, one suspects, would guess that this forest is man-made — a mammoth greenification project, dating back over a hundred years, that serves as an example (albeit an over-sized one) of how governments might set out to combat the side effects that office buildings and sidewalks have on both the ecosystems surrounding them and the humans living within them.
Tags: · American Planning Association, Botanical Garden, Bromeliad, Carbon sequestration, Corcovado mountain, eco-tourism, green spaces, heat island effect, Judith Layzer, MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning, pollution mitigation, Rio de Janeiro, Tijuca National Park, urban forests, urban parks, water
By Harriet Blake
Green Right Now
In its waning days, the outgoing Bush administration is promoting oil-shale development in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming by passing midnight-hour regulations that would open public lands to oil-shale exploration, leasing and development. In November, the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management put these regulations into effect to develop an oil shale program that the bureau says could add 800 billion barrels of oil from land in the Western United States.
In response, earlier this week, 11 environmental groups notified the administration and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) of their intent to file federal lawsuits under the Endangered Species Act. The BLM has 60 days to respond. The environmental groups, which include the Sierra Club, the Defenders of Wildlife and the Center for Biological Diversity, among others, want the administration to consider the effects that commercial oil-shale development will have on endangered species.
Tags: · Bureau of Land Management, Center for Biodiversity, Colorado River, Endangered Species Act, energy security, oil shale, water
By Barbara Kessler Our refrigerators, which can be the biggest electricity hogs of all household appliances, have been getting the once-over from the Energy Star program for several years now, with those bright yellow tags alerting us to what sort of electrical consumption we can expect. Washers and dryers, ditto. Now our dishwashers, which have [...]
Tags: · dishwashers, Energy Star, water
By John DeFore
PVC isn’t looked upon kindly by many environmentalists, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t without its uses — like a beautifully simple watering device that could do a lot of good for struggling plants.
The natural tendency, when you’ve planted a tree and are concerned about helping it survive, is to set a sprinkler system on heavy rotation or go out every day to water it. But sprinklers spread water far beyond where it’s needed, and a heavy one-time watering can lose a lot to evaporation and runoff.
Tags: · GreenGoods, landscape, Treegator, Trees, water
Lance Armstrong may have to take his own advice and “dare to change” his life after being outed as the city’s biggest water guzzler, using a whopping 222,900 gallons of water in June, according to an AP report that appeared in the Austin American-Statesman late last week.
In July, consumption jumped to 330,000 gallons, putting him way out in front of the competition at about 38 times what the average household uses, according to the New York Times, which jumped onto the story.
Tags: · Barbara_Kessler, Lance Armstrong, Native Plants, water
By Shermakaye Bass Photo: © Holger Gurski | Dreamstime.com The well was dry beside the door, And so we went with pail and can Across the fields behind the house To seek the brook, if still it ran; . . . – Robert Frost’s “Going for Water” Every year, more about the world’s worsening water [...]
Tags: · conservation, Pasquale Steduto, sanitation, United Nations, water
Barbara Kessler
Andrew Winston
Danielle Nierenberg
Anthony Swift