Blogs & Ecology

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Imagine, if you will, that a brand new source of water is suddenly discovered in the Southeast. A big aquifer, perhaps, or a giant lake. A new water source that could quench the thirst of millions.

You're probably thinking this sounds like a “too good to be true” dream in a region suffering from record drought.

Today, American Rivers is releasing a new report, Hidden Reservoir: why water efficiency is the best solution for the Southeast. Water efficiency is proven, it is cost-effective, and the results are immediate.

This piece by Christine ran in Crikey's email today.

Late in August, while the Business Council of Australia was making its ambit claim to limit Australia's emissions reductions to no more than 10% cuts by 2020, the famous North-west Passage around the north of Canada opened.

A few days later, just as Martin Ferguson was circulating his "softened" emissions trading proposal to big polluters, the North-east passage, around Russia, also opened.

Image from shredded77

Here’s a potentially live-saving and thirst-quenching design prototype that we like: British designer Alon Alex Gross has created fog and dew collectors that build on existing, traditional techniques of rain harvesting with lightweight, modern materials. (Apparently, the device can also be connected to the internet for better accessibility and remote monitoring.) Yet, the gadgets are low-tech enough for people living in water-scarce developing areas to collect clean drinking water....

It's not yet as dry and dusty as when Woodie Guthrie first sang "So long, it's been good to know yuh..." But, it's getting there.

While heavy rains are flooding crops across the Midwest and most of Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Panhandle has been hit with one of the worst droughts in its history. It's drier now than it was in the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s and to date it's the second driest year on record for the Panhandle.

Via::NewsOK,com, In Panhandle, the best crops are Dust Bowl memories.

There isn't much choice, as groundwater reserves are insufficient. But really...is bottled water any worse than this?

Four years behind schedule and nearly $80 million over the original budget, the nation's largest sea water desalination facility finally supplies much-needed drinking water to 2.4 million people in the Tampa Bay region.

We say "oil-fired" because the desalination is highly electricity intensive and oil burning turbines are Florida's dominant source of electricity.

To remove salt, water must be piped at ...

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Source: TreeHugger

photo by: nivedita kashyap via flickr

Chalk it up to coincidence? New Zealand is on the verge of a power crisis (though prime minister Helen Clark won’t call it an actual emergency) and NZ$2.6 million (US$1.97 million) is awarded to GNS Science to carry out research on the potential of geothermal energy in the Pacific island nation....

This spring-born foal is feeling good about life. The sun and spring rains have returned and things are greening up. People of the drought-threatened Atlanta region of the US State of Georgia, too, are encouraged by the rains of late winter and spring, 2008. But, unfortunately, we have to look at the data rather than just let emotions shape our future. Lake Lanier, Atlanta's major water supply, is indeed looking better with every month that passes (see previous month's water level chart posting here). Then, check out the updated comparative water level chart below the fold....

This has taken a while, but we finally have Christine’s Budget Reply Speech up on YouTube and postable to the blog. Those of you who have enjoyed reading or listening to it may be interested in watching it.
In five parts.

Photo credit: Will Parrinello and Jim Iacona.