March 18th, 2013

Americans consume a lot of water as a result of their food and lawn choices. Read Danielle Nierenberg’s blog about how we can lower the stress we’re placing on dwindling water supplies. Ms. Nierenberg, co-founder of Food Tank, has traveled the world, studying food and water scarcity, and can tell you how many Kenyans survive on the same amount of water consumed by one American.

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September 4th, 2012

When I saw that headline on a story in The Guardian, it was like I’d been waiting for it. It struck me as both amusing, in its implication that vegetarianism would be a tough fate even though we’d likely be healthier for it, and also as an inevitability, with which I’d already come to terms.

But the story itself is not funny.
Here was the lead paragraph:

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January 29th, 2010

From Green Right Now Reports

While the rest of America has seen plenty of video footage of drenching rains in Southern California, at least some state officials are seeking a long-term solution to assuring water remains plentiful in the Southland. At a congressional hearing earlier this week, water authorities insisted that the problems of farms and cities across the state will not be solved by the occasional freak storm.

“A couple of days of rain are certainly a nice relief, but they are a reflection of weather impacted by variable ocean conditions and are not the long-term solutions to addressing the issues that underlie our water dilemma,” said Rep. Grace Napolitano, D-Santa Fe Springs, who held the hearing.

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January 26th, 2010

From Green Right Now Reports

Photo: Bill Sullivan

A pair of research teams operating independently has come to the same conclusion: The Southwest portion of the United States, which has experienced rapid population growth, may become even more arid as global temperatures continue to rise.

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August 13th, 2009

By Shermakaye Bass
Green Right Now

California is experiencing its third year of drought, statewide, and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which provides two-thirds of California’s fresh drinking water and yields a giant portion of the nation’s food supply, is dangerously close to running dry, water conservationists and water managers say.

Yesterday, federal officials vowed to act. During a visit to Sacramento, Deputy Secretary of the Interior David Hayes met with local interests – farmers, fisheries, families and municipalities in the region – and promised to free up more water for their use. He acknowledged that the drought has compounded a pre-existing condition – the overall degradation of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

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July 23rd, 2009

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).

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