We are going to need to distinguish between fresh water, which we absolutely need for a very small number of purposes, and slightly used water ("gray water"), which can be used for other purposes, such as sanitation.

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.

A comprehensive water and GHG saving plan for agriculture, energy, and transportation policy, that's sexy alright canis.

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

Thanks, Grey Falcon.  I do not know which of those two I felt sorrier for: the "prophet of doom," who did his best to remain unflappable, or the ever-ironic host, asking about projections for the Tri-State area.

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.

Hi amazingdrx,

"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

...small scale hydro generally works bvetter than large scale.  Even if takes a larger number of smaller dams to reach the same output as a single large or mega-dam, they collectively still seem to have less negative environmental impact than the larger dam would.

Colbert had Dean Kamen on with his water purification device for the developing world.  Pretty interesting.  Not real sexy though.

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

Water scarcity and energy are tightly related.

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.