H2Ohhhh No!

Due to unforeseen circumstances, I missed posting for World Water Day.

In 1992, the United Nations declared March 22nd as World Water Day to draw international attention to the critical lack of clean, safe drinking water worldwide.  Each year highlights a different aspect of water, with this year’s theme being Transboundary Waters.

The United Nations has named clean water access as one of its Millenium Development Goals because it contributes to increased poverty, high child mortality rates, lower education levels, and more.

FACTS

• Less than 3% of Earth’s water supply is fresh water
• The past century has seen the world’s population triple while water consumption has increased sevenfold.
• 1/7th of the world’s population does not have access to safe drinking water.
• Nearly one billion people do not have access to sufficient amounts of safe water.
• Contaminated water causes the death of more than 5,000 people each day.
• Every year, more than 2 million people die from causes related to drinking contaminated water.
• Waterborne illness is the second largest killer in children under 5
• Every eight seconds, a child dies from a disease caused by drinking contaminated water.
• A person needs about 50 litres of safe water per day to meet their basic needs.
• It takes 10 litres of water to make a sheet of paper.
• A kilogram of meat requires 5 to 20 times more water than is used to produce a kilogram of cereal.
• Bottled water can cost up to 10,000 times more than tap water.
• By 2013, 36 U.S. states anticipate water shortages

What can I do?

Find a restaurant that is participating with the Tap Project during World Water Week (March 22-28).  These restaurants will ask patrons to donate $1 for their tap water, a donation that provides a child with clean drinking water for 40 days through UNICEF.

Follow @chlorine or @worldH20 on twitter and join the group on Facebook.  For every member that joins the group, the American Chemistry Council will contribute five chlorine tablets designed to disinfect 100 liters of water.

For every person who visits SaveWaterAmerica.com and takes the 3 question quiz, Kohler will donate $1 in water-saving products to Habitat for Humanity.  After going through the quiz, I found out that New York City’s per capita water usage rate is one of the highest in the country, and that some cities offer a toilet retrofit rebate program so you can upgrade one toilet in your home to a newer, more eco-friendly model.

If you have to buy bottled water, then I suggest you buy a brand like Ethos, whose mission is to help children around the world get clean water and raise awareness of the world water crisis.  A portion of profits goes towards their goal of making $10 million in grant commitments toward humanitarian water programs by 2010.  So far, Ethos has helped an estimated 420,000 people around the world and committed more than $6.2 million in grants.

 

“There is a water crisis today. But the crisis is not about having too little water to satisfy our needs. It is a crisis of managing water so badly that billions of people – and the environment – suffer badly.”  World Water Vision Report

Read Full Post »

Digg for Water!

Hey everybody!  Together we’re gonna kick off World Water Weekend here at OH, FOR THE LOVE OF SCIENCE!

Perhaps you have heard of World Water Day, which occurs March 22nd every year as a means of focusing attention on the importance of freshwater and advocating for the sustainable management of freshwater resources.  Well, I’ve decided that this issue is so important that it deserves your attention for the entire weekend!

Today I want as many people as possible to help out an organization called ONE DROP, founded by Guy Laliberté (who also founded Cirque du Soleil).  ONE DROP’s mission is “water for one, water for all”, or to  fight against poverty by providing access to water and raising awareness among individuals and communities about the need for mobilization in order to make safe water accessible to all, in sufficient quantity, today and tomorrow.
Vodpod videos no longer available.

I want everyone reading this to help ONE DROP’s grassroots effort called Ripple.  Join their Facebook group and their Facebook page.  Follow them on Twitter.  And most importantly, I want you to Digg for water, in an effort to take over the front page of Digg to raise awareness to the urgency known as the Global Freshwater Crisis.

Where can I Digg for water?

• Support World Water Day: Digg For Water!
• Global Crisis Kills 5,000 People Yesterday
• Best 5 Ways to Save Water

Read Full Post »

A Greener, More Sustainable Thanksgiving

With Thanksgiving just two days away, I thought it would be a good idea to share a few ways to green your holiday and try to make it as sustainable as possible.  If you are traveling this holiday, you can pay to offset carbon emissions.  If you are preparing a holiday feast, then here are a few tips from the World Wildlife Fund:

1. Purchase locally grown, in-season produce
2. Buy organic foods.  Find a store near you with the store finder search from Organic.org
3. Shop online or order by phone to save gas
4. If making your own holiday centerpiece, use natural materials from your backyard
5. Serve tap water instead of bottled water.  Plastic is unnecessary
6. Purchase ingredients that have minimal packaging
7. Serve wine that is sealed with cork, not plastic.  While your at it, serve organic wine
8. Don’t prepare  more food than will be eaten
9. If there are leftovers, try to find new ways to serve them throughout the next few days
10. Share food with those that have less and invite over friends who have no place to go

If you avoid disposable dinnerware and serving trays, buy local and organic goods and offset your carbon emissions, you are well on your way to a green Thanksgiving.  Now that’s something to be thankful about!

Read Full Post »

Rethink Your Food Choices, Consider Organic

So, in keeping with yesterday’s theme, let’s talk organic.  I am a big advocate for consuming organic meat and dairy after seeing the award-winning The Meatrix movies.

Today, most eggs, meat and dairy come from factory farms, also known as confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs).  Most animals never get to experience sunlight and fresh air, and many cannot even move around in their cages because there are so many animals crunched in together.  This creates the perfect stage for disease, so animals are fed antibiotics regularly.  This creates disease-resistance bacteria, like MRSA, and is a public health crisis waiting to happen.

Cows are also given rBGH, recombinant bovine growth hormone, to make the cows bigger and allow them to produce more milk as well.  The hormone is banned in both Canada and the European Union.  It is believed that this could be why young girls are developing at early ages.  I can speak from personal experience and say that I had a friend who was a vegetarian for eight years before she began to eat meat again.  After several months of her return to the life of am omnivore, we both witnessed her…..ahem, growth.  Most 20something year old women are beyond such growth, and we attributed her bust increase to her meat consumption.  

Learn more about sustainable food choices by visiting Sustainable Table.

Find local, organic and sustainable food near you by using the Eat Well Guide.

Read Full Post »

Long Island’s Playground to Go Green

Who would’ve thought that Long Island’s playground of the elite, Southampton, would be the first town in the country to develop groundbreaking building codes for energy efficiency? In July, Southampton adopted a progressive four-tier building code to make homes more energy efficient. The catch? The larger the home, the more energy efficient it has to be.

The amendments to the town building code are unique across the country, as each tier gets progressively more strict, and is also based on the size of the home. The guidelines for energy efficiency are based on the Home Energy Rating System (HERS). The desired HERS ratings for homes in Southampton are between 84-95 out of a possible 100. Builders and architects say that ratings in the 80s are feasible but anything beyond that is asking too much.

Southampton knows this change won’t be easy. That’s why they are implementing a gradual phase-in for the new codes. For instance, they have pushed back the requirement for swimming pools to be solar heated until January 1.

John Barrows, a local builder and a green building instructor for the National Association of Home Builders, said factors other than basic energy consumption levels, such as site design, construction materials, water usage and indoor air quality, all have to be considered for a house to fully “be green”.

If you are interested in learning more about greening your home or where to buy green building supplies, check out Green Depot, located in Brooklyn.

To read the New York Times article, Debating How Green to Go.

Read Full Post »

LIPA Empowers Nassau County Schools

On September 19, 2008, the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) hosted the first “Back to School Energy Efficiency Summit” for Nassau County School Districts, in an effort to educate and assist the schools in becoming more energy efficient and reducing their costs. A second summit is scheduled to be held on October 3, 2008 for Suffolk County School Districts.

LIPA has partnered with the New York Power Authority (NYPA) on their school energy efficiency programs in order to increase savings for Long Island’s schools. NYPA has been a leader in providing energy efficiency services across the state; having completed more than 1,600 projects totaling over $1.2 billion, and having committed to an additional $1.4 billion through 2015 as part of Governor Paterson’s “15 by 15 initiative”, which is aimed at reducing electricity use 15% by 2015.

There are various programs offered by LIPA to help reduce energy costs both at school and at home. This latest program will “provide direct assistance to school districts to plan, develop and implement energy conservation” according to Ron Friedman, the President of the Nassau County Council for School Superintendents. It will help schools save money and reduce their carbon footprint, and teach children how to be responsible caretakers of our planet. LIPA President and CEO Kevin S. Law said, “introducing these concept to the many thousands of bright young and impressionable minds that walk through the halls of your facilities everyday will surely impact the future in a positive way.”

To see a list of LIPA’s Energy Efficiency programs, read the article from NewsLI.com.

“With the cost of oil nearly ten times higher than it was a mere decade ago, and with property taxes and energy costs in our region continuing to escalate and driving young people to more affordable pastures, we must take affirmative steps to stem the tide and do what we can now to lower energy costs, emphasize conservation and be cognizant of the impact we as energy consumers have on the environment.”

-LIPA President and CEO Kevin S. Law

Read Full Post »