Archive for March 22nd, 2011

World Water Day Photos: Water-Savvy Cities

National Geographic: a Watershed Year for Floods, Droughts?”) It isn’t the hotels and fountains on the strip that consume the most water, it is, in part, the city’s lush green lawns and golf courses that need constant irrigation in this desert environment that can suck up gross amounts of H2O. Recognizing the large water footprints of irrigation, SNWA pays residents of arid Las Vegas to tear up their thirsty turf grass ($1.50 a square foot). According to the Water Authority website, their Water Smart Landscape...

TAKE ACTION! Please Support New Earth Rising: The Book

From New Earth Rising, project of Ecological Internet (EI) Contact: Dr. Glen Barry, President, Ecological Internet glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org Dear EI supporters, For the past seven years, I - Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet’s President – have been researching and writing a book entitled “New Earth Rising” that as a political ecologist academically considers an escalating Global People’s Earth Revolution. The book is done in first draft, yet there are not enough funds for two months of writing to finish a polished final, hire an editor, and get it published. I am now writing this special appeal for donations to Ecological Internet to finish the book. Please donate to the “New Earth Rising” book project specifically at http://www.ecoearth.info/shared/donate/ .

Cochabamba Still Thirsty

Inter Press Service: There is still no apparent solution to the unsatisfied demand for drinking water in Cochabamba, 11 years after this central Bolivian city made international headlines with a popular uprising that halted the privatisation of water service. There is still no apparent solution to the unsatisfied demand for drinking water in Cochabamba, 11 years after this central Bolivian city made international headlines with a popular uprising that halted the privatisation of water service. Only 326,504 people,...

Peak Water Has Already Come and Gone

Inter Press Service: Canadian Kevin Freedman is celebrating World Water Day Tuesday by living on 25 litres of water a day, instead of the North American average of 330 litres per day. And he has enlisted 31 others in his "Water Conservation Challenge" to go water- lean, using just 25 litres per day for cooking, drinking, cleaning, and sanitation for the entire month of March. "People in Canada and the U.S. have no idea how much water they use or how much they waste," Freedman told IPS. "Although people live on...

Population growth, climate change raising odds of war over water, forum hears

Winnipeg Free Press: The potential for violent conflict to erupt over fresh water is rising as the global population grows against a backdrop of climate change, an experts forum heard Tuesday. Until now, speakers said, disputes over water have typically led to co-operation between affected parties but higher demand and lower supplies could alter that pattern for the worse. "Water resources in themselves have rarely been the sole source of conflict or war," said Bob Sandford, a Canadian water-policy expert. "Unfortunately,...

UN calls for action on water, slums crisis in cities

Independent: The world needs to act immediately to tackle an urban crisis of growing city slums that lack water and sanitation, a top UN official warned Tuesday on World Water Day. "We have a crisis, we must recognise that," Joan Clos, UN Habitat executive director, told an event marking the day. "We need to act now. This is a common action at the same time against the slums and against lack of water and sanitation. It's the same problem, it's the same solution: urban planning." Targets set by the UN...

UN wants more access to help with water in parched Somalia

AlertNet: A Somali family sits outside their hut in Medina Xoosh district in Mogadishu January 12, 2011. REUTERS/Feisal Omar NAIROBI (AlertNet) - The United Nations appealed on Tuesday for greater humanitarian access to communities in Somalia, where a severe drought is having a devastating effect on a population already weakened by two decades of armed conflict. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) used World Water Day to urge warring sides in the semi-arid Horn of Africa...

Texas agency: Gas driller didn’t contaminate water

Associated Press: Texas regulators determined Tuesday the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was wrong when it concluded a gas driller had contaminated domestic water wells in North Texas. The unanimous decision by the Railroad Commission of Texas marked the latest battle between state agencies and the EPA in a long, drawn out war that has evolved from disputes over environmental issues into a fierce debate about states' rights. The Railroad Commission blasted the EPA, accusing it of shoddy testing methods and...

Australia: World watching plans to restore health to wetlands and rivers

Sydney Morning Herald: RIVERS and wetlands will bear the brunt of climate change and governments around the world are failing to manage many of the more vulnerable areas properly, says a series of new papers published today. Australia's Murray-Darling river system and the Coorong wetland at its western edge are among the world's most telling examples of damaged rivers, and the conservation plans being considered by the federal government could have wide influence, say several reports in the journal Marine & Freshwater...

Population, climate likely to raise water diversions to Front Range

Grand Junction Free Press: Population, climate likely to raise water diversions to Front Range Grand Junction Free Press A newly released report on water in the Roaring Fork Valley area warns that population growth in Colorado's Front Range counties, and the effects of worldwide climate change, already have Front Range water providers "scrambling to secure additional sources of water." And one key source of that water may well be additional transmountain diversions, or improvements to existing facilities built decades ago,...