Saturday is World Water Day, a time set aside by the U.N. during which member nations are encouraged to address the worldwide water crisis. This year's theme is the "International Year of Sanitation" (sexy!), which is aimed at "accelerat[ing] progress for 2.6 billion people worldwide who are without proper sanitation facilities." For more on this topic, check out the Guardian Weekly's special supplement "Every Drop Counts." [PDF]
But World Water Day is also meant to bring attention to other water-related crises, like the ones facing beautiful places like this:
Wow. Check out that view. Now imagine it on an IMAX screen six stories high and 80 feet wide. In 3-D.
That, my friends, is what it's like to watch the film Grand Canyon Adventure: River at Risk 3D.
The film follows river activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., author/explorer Wade Davis, and their daughters on a rafting journey down the Colorado River. The crew is joined by Shana Watahomigie, a member of the Havasupai tribe and the first Native American to become a National Park Ranger and river guide.
While the story line about Davis' daughter growing up and leaving for college is a bit cliché, the narration about the fate of the Colorado River -- which is drying up due to use in agriculture and to feed the thirst of growing cities in the area -- is compelling and cautionary. The true standout of the film, though, is the scenery, highlighted in gorgeous aerial shots that almost engulf you, especially in 3-D.
I saw the film last night and the brilliant imagery is still running through my head. It's truly breathtaking. But the message in the film -- and in the celebration of World Water Day -- is that we've got to jump-start some change and mind our habits or else we'll lose a lot more than a beautiful postcard image.
Climate Citizen: Mary Stuart Masterson
Happy birthday, EMA Awards ... and you other groups, too
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caniscandida Posted 3:41 pm
21 Mar 2008
One might think, or at least hope, that there is a large number of "green" jobs about to be created any day now, having to do with reforming water use along those lines in our homes.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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amazingdrx Posted 3:02 am
22 Mar 2008
Water conservation starting right here in the US, that could head off the war, famine, and disease from the migration of 100s of millions of people who now rely on melting glaciers for their water. Sexy.
RFK jr's efforts to these ends? Not so much.
Check out NRDC's latest policy positioons going into this vital-to-the-planet election cycle.
They ARE anti-nuclear power now at least. But pro-fuel farming and clean coal. Not much mention of wind, JFK jr is infamous for back room dealing with big coal interests to kill Cape Wind.
No mention of plugin hybrids, smart grid technology, geo heat exchange heating/cooling (capable of eliminating 36% of GHG), direct subsidies for home solar, farm biogas, and farm based wind power.
Nothing on solar furnace power on factories or organic agriculture with biodigestor produced fertilizer.
Water conservation? Nothing on composting toilets, drip irrigation using recycled drain water, air/water spray washing and cleaning, restoring wetlands for flood control and aquifer replenishment, recycling dead biomass that poses catastrophic firestorm risk.
I guess I would enjoy the parts of this film without RFK jr on camera? Poster boy for the traitors opposing Cape Wind.
He's enjoying one of the last few seasons of whitewater travel on the Colorado, while pretending to care, but taking the donations of 500,000 NRDC members and the weight of the environmental reputation of the oganization. And flushing it down the toilet to protect the view from a few Kennedy mansions.
Not sexy.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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manacker Posted 5:05 am
22 Mar 2008
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there are around 2.2 million per year worldwide who die from diarrheal diseases caused by poor sanitation and lack of clean drinking water.
http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/diseases/diarr ...
Now that's a REAL water problem.
The WHO also estimates that another 1.6 million annual deaths in developing countries are caused by indoor air pollution from solid fuels, such as wood, where there is no access to electrical power for cooking.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/02/060215090413 ...
In comparison, all "extreme weather events" took around 20,000 lives per year over the period 2000-2006. These included: droughts, floods, windstorms (tornadoes, hurricanes, cyclones), slides, waves/surges, extreme heat, extreme cold and wild fires. As a matter of interest, this number has come down by a factor of ten as compared to the period 1900-1989, so it is highly unlikely that these deaths can be attributed to recent increased warming from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.
http://www.csccc.info/reports/report_20.pdf
If these poor countries had access to water treatment and distribution systems the problem could be solved. This would require access to electrical power, to make these systems work.
A side benefit from having electrical power generation and distribution systems is that the very poorest could stop using firewood, etc. for indoor cooking.
Solving these two problems together could eliminate close to 4 million unnecessary deaths annually.
Problem is, these are "poor man's (and woman's) problems" with no multi-billion dollar "industry" behind them, so they are not "sexy" and thus get much less media and political attention than the "rich man's problem" of anthropogenic global warming.
Just to put the impending "water, water" and climate crises in proper perspective.
Max
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:15 am
22 Mar 2008
http://www.truveo.com/Last-Nights-Episode-Brian-Fagan/id/ ...
http://blog.brianfagan.com/2008/03/14/elephants-in-the-cl ...
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1596913924/
http://blog.brianfagan.com/2008/03/20/the-daily-show.aspx ...
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:18 am
22 Mar 2008
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caniscandida Posted 5:58 am
22 Mar 2008
As for that bit about Maya pyramids being rain-catchers, it is an interesting suggestion, but I wonder how far we can go with it. Tikal in the Pete'n in northern Guatemala has the most spectacular array of tall pyramids, emerging above the forest canopy (George Lucas used the location as the "rebel base," in the climactic scene of the first "Star Wars"). But we do not find so many pyramids, or so tall, at other great Classic Lowland cities, even when there is much beautiful architecture and town-planning present, such as Copan in Honduras and Palenque in Chiapas, Mexico. If rain-catching was an important function of the pyramids of Tikal, in view of a general need to collect water, we would expect there to be similarly designed pyramids everywhere among the Lowland Maya, and that does not seem to be true.
As for the slightly later centers in northern Yucatan, especially Uxmal and Chichen Itza, there are indeed pyramids, of proportions more comparable to those of central Mexico, than to those of Tikal. And also, the climate up there is completely different than in the Lowlands to the south. Water collection there, a rather arid region, was a much more urgent need, presumably, than down in the tropical jungly valley of the Usumacinta River.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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manacker Posted 6:01 am
22 Mar 2008
"Water conservation starting right here in the US, that could head off the war, famine, and disease from the migration of 100s of millions of people who now rely on melting glaciers for their water. Sexy."
Yep. Sounds "sexy", all right.
But before we worry too much about the "migration of 100s of millions of people" which may or may not happen some day depending on how well the computer models can project into the future, we should spend more time worrying about getting clean drinking water to the "100s of millions of people" that do not have access today, thereby resulting in 2.2 million deaths per year today (not maybe some day in the future).
But, unfortunately, this does not sound "sexy".
So the media and politicians plus enviro-activists will give the "maybe" problem of the future more coverage than the real problem of today.
Too bad.
Max
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Tasermons Partner Posted 9:53 am
22 Mar 2008
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Delay And Deny Posted 10:11 am
22 Mar 2008
http://geochange.er.usgs.gov/sw/impacts/geology/arroyos/
Flooding caused by heavy rain may produce arroyos. Although climate records in the southwest were not systematically kept before about 1900, recent studies have found evidence for unusually heavy rainfall in Tucson, Arizona during the late 1800's (Betancourt and Turner, 1993). This rainfall was caused by strong and frequent ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) events, suggesting that heavy rain was a regional phenomenon.
"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." -- Galileo
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amazingdrx Posted 11:44 am
22 Mar 2008
Along with the other water saving measures, conservation with composting toilets, flood water aquifer restoration, and drip irrigation with recycled drain water, it could head off water war and prevent water bourne disease right now.
Other systems are possible in hotter climates that use solar greenhouses in conjunction with geo cooling to condense water vapor from plant transpiration. These can actually be used to cogenerate energy too.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Rob Creighton Posted 1:13 pm
22 Mar 2008
Power plants are some of the largest users of water.
Hydroelectric plants are being starved for water as more water is diverted for upstream uses.
Pumping water uses about 7% of the total world energy supplies.
As ground water tables drop it takes more and more energy to bring that water to the surface. There are many areas of the world that have working pipes and pumps, they just can't afford the energy to run the pumps to bring the water where it is needed.
About 85-90% of the cost of desalinated water is energy to run high-pressure pumps.
My company, WindLift, is developing a system that uses kite energy to power water pumps. This system could be 1/10th the cost of other small scale renewable energy systems. We now have a working prototype, but it will be at least another year before we have a product on the market.
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