Water Is Life

2012-Celebrate Water

2012-01-29T12:49:00.000-08:00

Water is one of my heart's passions in life. It's life, It's breath, the sheer majesty of its cascading torrents of wonder fill my heart with a joy and a respect for nature unlike anything else. Recently however, reports here have been about the real effects human behavior are having upon our global water resources. Pollution, privatization, overuse, ramping up the hydrologic cycle and an overall lack of respect for all that water provides us.

And in the process of relaying the reality we face I know that sometimes hope can be lost. But we must not allow that to happen. We must not allow despair and hopelessness to take the place of our passion to make this world a better place.

There is no mistaking that we face a global crisis regarding our water resources, particularly in areas now being hardest hit by climate change. Glaciers globally continue to melt and recede much faster than scientific predictions which are affecting the water supplies of many people. We see acidifcation, pollution, dams, floods, overuse and population increases putting a tremendous strain on this most precious resource on every continent.

It is easy to think that we can do nothing about this. However, we can. I was trying to think of a theme for this year on this blog and I have. It is to Celebrate Water. To show its grace and beauty. To write of its life and soul saving power. To share its awe inspiring majesty... with a point of course. I wish to dedicate this blog in 2012 to Celebrating Water in order to illustrate just what we are throwing away by not taking water seriously.

So please come back from time to time and watch the videos, read the stories, see the good work being done to bring water to those who need it and be inspired to do all in your power to save this miracle of all life on Earth. An awakening is coming.

Love and water, the two things that bring us together as humans.
Let this be the year we become one in our consciousness with Mother Earth.

Thanks for your support here!
Water Is Life
Jan

Our oceans have acidified more in last 200 years than the previous 21,000 years

2012-01-24T13:41:00.000-08:00

Researchers find unprecedented man made trends in ocean acidity
"Nearly one-third of CO2 emissions due to human activities enters the world’s oceans. By reacting with seawater, CO2 increases the water’s acidity, which may significantly reduce the calcification rate of such marine organisms as corals and mollusks, resulting in the potential loss of ecosystems. The extent to which human activities have raised the surface level of acidity, however, has been difficult to detect on regional scales because it varies naturally from one season and one year to the next, and between regions, and direct observations go back only 30 years.

By combining computer modeling with observations, an international team of scientists concluded that anthropogenic CO2 emissions, resulting from the influence of human beings, over the last 100 to 200 years have already raised ocean acidity far beyond the range of natural variations. The study is published in the January 22, 2012 online issue of Nature Climate Change.

The team of climate modelers, marine conservationists, ocean chemists, biologists and ecologists, led by Tobias Friedrich and Axel Timmermann at the International Pacific Research Center at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, came to their conclusions by using Earth system models that simulate climate and ocean conditions 21,000 years back in time, to the Last Glacial Maximum, and forward in time to the end of the 21st century. In their models, they studied changes in the saturation level of aragonite (a form of calcium carbonate) typically used to measure ocean acidification.

As acidity of seawater rises, the saturation level of aragonite drops. Their models captured the current observed seasonal and annual variations in this quantity in several key coral reef regions.

Today’s levels of aragonite saturation in these locations have already dropped five times below the pre-industrial range of natural variability. For example, if the yearly cycle in aragonite saturation varied between 4.7 and 4.8, it varies now between 4.2 and 4.3, which – based on another recent study – may translate into a decrease in overall calcification rates of corals and other aragonite shell-forming organisms by 15%. Given the continued human use of fossil fuels, the saturation levels will drop further, potentially reducing calcification rates of some marine organisms by more than 40% of their pre-industrial values within the next 90 years.

“Any significant drop below the minimum level of aragonite to which the organisms have been exposed to for thousands of years and have successfully adapted will very likely stress them and their associated ecosystems,” said lead author Friedrich."
end of excerpt

This is a very informative and comprehensive presentation on ocean acidification and its implications for our future world. This is serious. Without our oceans, it is "game over."

The Greatest Water Crisis In The History Of Civilization: Coming To The American West?

2012-01-21T12:20:00.000-08:00

The Greatest Water Crisis In The History Of Civilization: Coming To The American West?

"Consider it a taste of the future: the fire, smoke, drought, dust, and heat that have made life unpleasant, if not dangerous, from Louisiana to Los Angeles. New records tell the tale: biggest wildfire ever recorded in Arizona (538,049 acres), biggest fire ever in New Mexico (156,600 acres), all-time worst fire year in Texas history (3,697,000 acres).

The fires were a function of drought. As of summer’s end, 2011 was the driest year in 117 years of record keeping for New Mexico, Texas, and Louisiana, and the second driest for Oklahoma. Those fires also resulted from record heat. It was the hottest summer ever recorded for New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, as well as the hottest August ever for those states, plus Arizona and Colorado.

Virtually every city in the region experienced unprecedented temperatures, with Phoenix, as usual, leading the march toward unlivability. This past summer, the so-called Valley of the Sun set a new record of 33 days when the mercury reached a shoe-melting 110º F or higher. (The previous record of 32 days was set in 2007.)

And here’s the bad news in a nutshell: if you live in the Southwest or just about anywhere in the American West, you or your children and grandchildren could soon enough be facing the Age of Thirst, which may also prove to be the greatest water crisis in the history of civilization. No kidding.

If that gets you down, here’s a little cheer-up note: the end is not yet nigh.

In fact, this year the weather elsewhere rode to the rescue, and the news for the Southwest was good where it really mattered. Since January, the biggest reservoir in the United States, Lake Mead, backed up by the Hoover Dam and just 30 miles southwest of Las Vegas, has risen almost 40 feet. That lake is crucial when it comes to watering lawns or taking showers from Arizona to California. And the near 40-foot surge of extra water offered a significant upward nudge to the Southwest’s water reserves.

The Colorado River, which the reservoir impounds, supplies all or part of the water on which nearly 30 million people depend, most of them living downstream of Lake Mead in Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Tucson, Tijuana, and scores of smaller communities in the United States and Mexico.

Back in 1999, the lake was full. Patricia Mulroy, who heads the water utility serving Las Vegas, rues the optimism of those bygone days. “We had a fifty-year, reliable water supply,” she says. “By 2002, we had no water supply. We were out. We were done. I swore to myself we’d never do that again.”

In 2000, the lake began to fall -- like a boulder off a cliff, bouncing a couple of times on the way down. Its water level dropped a staggering 130 feet, stopping less than seven feet above the stage that would have triggered reductions in downstream deliveries. Then -- and here’s the good news, just in case you were wondering -- last winter, it snowed prodigiously up north in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.

The spring and summer run-off from those snowpacks brought enormous relief. It renewed what we in the Southwest like to call the Hydro-Illogic cycle: when drought comes, everybody wrings their hands and promises to institute needed reform, if only it would rain a little. Then the drought breaks or eases and we all return to business as usual, until the cycle comes around to drought again.

So don’t be fooled. One day, perhaps soon, Lake Mead will renew its downward plunge. That’s a certainty, the experts tell us. And here’s the thing: the next time, a sudden rescue by heavy snows in the northern Rockies might not come. If the snowpacks of the future are merely ordinary, let alone puny, then you’ll know that we really are entering a new age.

And climate change will be a major reason, but we’ll have done a good job of aiding and abetting it. The states of the so-called Lower Basin of the Colorado River -- California, Arizona, and Nevada -- have been living beyond their water means for years. Any departure from recent decades of hydrological abundance, even a return to long-term average flows in the Colorado River, would produce a painful reckoning for the Lower Basin states. And even worse is surely on the way.

Just think of the coming Age of Thirst in the American Southwest and West as a three-act tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions.

snip
We have already experienced close to 1º C of that increase, which accounts, at least in part, for last summer’s colossal fires and record-setting temperatures -- and it’s now clear that we’re just getting started.

The simple rule of thumb for climate change is that wet places will get wetter and dry places drier. One reason the dry places will dry is that higher temperatures mean more evaporation. In other words, there will be ever less water in the rivers that keep the region’s cities (and much else) alive. Modeling already suggests that by mid-century surface stream-flow will decline by 10% to 30%.

Independent studies at the Scripps Oceanographic Institute in California and the University of Colorado evaluated the viability of Lake Mead and eventually arrived at similar conclusions: after about 2026, the risk of “failure” at Lake Mead, according to a member of the Colorado group, “just skyrockets.” Failure in this context would mean water levels lower than the dam’s lowest intake, no water heading downstream, and the lake becoming a “dead pool.”

more at the link
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People have the mindset that water will always be there for them. Climate change is proving that mindset wrong. Evaporation and movement of water out of the norm of the hydrologic cycle is now something we must consider regarding our water supplies, agriculture, and especially our energy sources, etc. But it's like Ben Franklin stated, you don't appreciate the water until the well runs dry. In today's world that is a very hard lesson to learn.

Climate Extremes-2011 part three

2012-01-21T11:06:00.001-08:00

Human forcings on the hydrologic cycle are now having an effect on more extreme precipitation events around the globe. This video picks up where Part One left off. 2012 cannot be another year like 2011 and previous years in regards to silence. Denial will not get us through this.

Climate Extremes of 2011: part two

2012-01-05T21:20:00.001-08:00

This is part two of my recap of climate extremes globally for 2011. The first video dealt with the global effects in other countries for almost the first half of 2011. This part deals with the U.S.experiencing a taste of what the world has been seeing. Part 3 coming up will deal with the global effects from the second half of 2011 with some other information added. I hope this is at least informative and puts the totality and urgency of what we now face into perspective. I can say that making this even though I already understand these effects has been a sad and sobering experience.

My heart goes out to those who lost loved ones, homes, wildlife and farms.
2012 must be the year we collectively wake up.

Climate Extremes of 2011: part one

2012-01-05T21:19:00.000-08:00

I did a recap of 2011 regarding the extreme climate events we saw that have been the trend. I will say this is a much more daunting task than I had envisioned because without dispute, 2011 was the year climate change by our hand became indisputable. And even so, this was one of the underreported stories in 2011.

This is part 1 and covers not even barely the first three months nor all of the places where we saw these events occur. I will be continuing this in part 2 and perhaps even a part 3, with other different features to present the information.

I believe it is imperative that we understand the connection between our actions and the effects they are now having on the world we live in, our only home and the world community we share it with.

I will also be here to continue providing information on this in the coming year with the hope that we will see the consciousness and perspective necessary to address this in the time we have left to do so.

This is about the survival of humanity! Our agriculture and water resources especially are being hard hit by this and food prices reflect that.

2011: bringing water to those who need it

2011-12-29T19:46:00.001-08:00

Charity Water

Charity Water has been doing wonderful things to bring potable water to those who need it most. Over four thousand projects this year alone. In the coming years with climate change and pollution having a greater effect in a world with a growing population, potable water and sanitation will be even more essential to life.

There is no better gift to give than water. To see the smile on the face of a child as they put clean water from a tap to their lips for the first time to drink is unlike any other.

2011 was a year in which we saw more water sources compromised by scarcity, pollution and the effects of climate change (such as drought, evaporation, floods.) This coming year will be no less of a challenge. However, when we work together for a common cause we can do wonders.

Let us make 2012 the year we begin to heal this planet and bring this living liquid to all in our world who need it.

Water Is Life.

1 in 8 people, nearly 900 million worldwide, lack safe drinking water.

80% of diseases stem from unsafe water and insufficient sanitation.

3,575 million people die each year from a lack of safe drinking water, latrines and hand-washing stations.

4,100 of those deaths are children, 90% of them under age 5.

40 billion hours a year are spent by African people, usually women, walking to fetch water.

$20 can provide clean water for one person.

$1 invested in improved water access and sanitation can lead to an average of $12 in economic returns.

Source: World Health Organization, charity: water.

As 2012 starts I will be featuring other water organizations also working to provide potable water to those who need it most.

Indian Olympic Association To Lodge Protest Over DOW Sponsorship of 2012 London Olympics

2011-12-16T10:08:00.001-08:00

Indian Olympic Association To Lodge Protest Over DOW Sponsorship of 2012 London Olympics

The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) on Thursday came out in open against Dow Chemical's sponsorship of the 2012 London Olympics and has decided to lodge its protest to the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

At its general body meeting in New Delhi, the IOA decided that it would seek the removal of Dow Chemical, which bought Union Carbide, responsible for the thousands of deaths during the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy. However, the issue of boycotting the event did not even come up for discussion.

Acting IOA president Vijay Kumar Malhotra said the IOA will convey the sentiments of Indians to IOC chief Jacques Rogge and London Games Organising Committee chief Sebastian Coe.

"It is IOA's considered opinion that the sponsorship by Dow Chemical is against the spirit of the Olympic ideals. Olympic Games showcase the best of human endeavour, sporting spirit and camaraderie, and to have Dow Chemical even as one of the sponsors negates all these lofty values," said Malhotra.

"IOA's views not only reflect the concerns of the victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy but the feelings of millions of people all over the world and it is not a partisan demand.

"We in fact are making IOC aware of the feelings of the people who have suffered due to that tragedy. It is not only the Indians who are protesting this sponsorship; there has been an outcry against this world over from various NGOs and other bodies. It is no longer a local issue."

There has been a huge outcry in India over Dow's involvement with the Games. Olympians and the victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy have demanded either Dow's sponsorship be withdrawn or India boycott the event.

More at the link
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DOW continues to allow people to be poisoned by Dioxin in Bhopal... DOW continues to disavow participation in Agent Orange poisoning of Vietnam that still kills agriculture, water and haunts the people as babies are still being born with its effects... DOW continues to perpetuate the killing of biodiversity with monoculture GMO seeds and chemicals in collusion with its protege' Monsanto. DOW continues to be cited for water pollution in Michigan. This is just the tip of the iceberg for a despicable inhumane company that has toxified this planet and now seeks to "greenwash" iitself at an event that stands for everything it does not. it is time for the wordl to stan dup to companies like DOW and not allow them to buy their way into forgetting the lives that have been affectd and lost and the water that has been toxified all for their profit!

Climate Change; DON'T KILL AFRICA

2011-12-10T09:58:00.001-08:00

Mother Earth is mic-checking US.

THANK YOU to those there speaking out for climate justice!

The people united will never be defeated.

World Bank out of climate finance!
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The fact is that climate justice is the farthest thing from the minds of industrialized nations in putting together a climate pact that resembles anything regarding true climate justice and moral courage. Greed, selfishness, geopolitics, intolerance ( yes I can believe a part of this is based on just not wanting to help people of color along with the poor and women) all things that have rotted the governments of these nations to their core. And Americans, our government is one of them. This government and this administration along with others have failed future generations on a huge scale by continuing to serve the status quo that now sees our planet teetering on the edge.

Instead of progress, we get obstruction. Instead of solutions, we get deception. Instead of food sovereignty and recognizing the Rights of Mother Earth, we get MONSANTO and BP. Instead of respecting the science, we get political rhetoric delivered by those so far removed from the reality of what climate change is doing to those who had nothing to do with making it. There is no other way any more to say this. The planet is warming. The effects are real. They are affecting our ability to provide food, water, and sound social structures to MILLIONS of people globally, with climate migration not some distant delusion but a present humanitarian crisis.

When you have the people relegated to the streets and arrested for seeking merely to be able to survive, you know who really runs this show. This is the epitome of what OWS is about. The environmental effects of the actions of the 1% have now insured us that the world our chldren and grandchildren will live in will be unlike the world we pictured and lived in.They are not on the side of working for real solutions that bring justice and equality that in turn brings food sovereignty, clean water, social justice and respect for the processes of our planet that we must now work with in order for our species to survive.They are climate criminals intent on using this crisis for their own profit at the expense of all of us as this is killing people and will kill Africa and many others in this world if allowed to go unchecked any longer.

Therefore, I stress again my belief that they should all be held accused of human rights abuses and abuses against Mother Earth and dealt with accordingly and the people must now take into their hands the work they refuse to do. Our survival depends on us. If anything this will hopefully inspire more people to see the truth and to understand this is a real and present danger to our continued survival. It's time to GET IT DONE.

To Kill A Continent

Article that hits the nail on the head about the mechanisms involved in the schemes being put forth by industrialized nations, the World Bank and other entities in looking to use this planetary emergency as a way to profit from it without really doing anything to address it. And that includes our water.

Occupy movement calls for climate justice in Durban-COP17

2011-11-30T16:17:00.001-08:00

I stand with the indigenous peoples in Durban and those Occupying Durban speaking out for Climate Justice Now!

We need caps on greenhouse gases that do not strip indigenous and poor people of their cultures, traditions and livelihoods and give them local control of their forests and their water. No REDD mechanism will accomplish what needs to be done now. It needs to be taxed at the source to spur transition, sustainability and responsibility. We need caps that are offset by sustainable agricultural practices, reforestation, agroecology, CO2 sequestration in soil that can remove up to 40% of emissions from our atmosphere and to preserve biodiversity plus a massive move to renewable energy sources.

There are currently more developing nations doing this than rich ones. Where the hell is their moral center? Do they have one? Obviously not. We need to hold polluters accountable through a revenue neutral carbon tax and or the financial markets to a financial transaction tax (and yes again I know try passing that here in the U.S.) that makes up for them using our commons as a sewer and use those funds to bring about the energy transition necessary to stave off catastrophe.

We need all countries to participate in this, even if those binding caps are tied to their GDP instead of the same across the board or even if developing nations that do not only participate in sequestration and reforestation. Those countries that are not polluting but experiencing the effects more pronounced should not have to pay the same as the large polluters! However, those countries like the U.S. and now China which has surpassed the U.S. emissions wise (and yes I know that in part is due to them manufacturing the crap we buy here in the U.S.) should stop acting like children and playing politics and be responsible for what they have and continue to put up in the atmosphere. Personally, I think the retiscense doesn't just stem from politics or ideology, but from the fact that so many cannot admit their own culpability in this. Well, the Arctic isn't going to wait for you any longer and people are dying now.

Any failure here is a failure of and for humanity. Water is an integral part of this because of the effects of climate change regarding floods, droughts, crop failures, sea level rise, glacier melt. Africa is the hardest hit continent to date, with all other continents feeling the effects of this as well, particularly Australia. The IEA tells us that we only have about five years to get our act together to avoid dangerous irreversible climate change and every scientic organization in the world has verified the science and the corrolation between these evnts and human forcings on our planet. I have posted about some of these events, but they don't begin to scratch the surface of the extreme weather and climate events we have seen this year, last year and in climate models for the last fifty years.

I personally believe we have reached tipping points regarding Arctic ice melt and will see an enhancement of the positive feedback loop which makes it even more imperative to take action to decrease greenhouse gases at the source. So please, do all you can as an individual to walk light on this planet and respect our water. Demand renewable energy and an end to the destructive practices that are exacerbating this crisis. If we do not stand together as humanity, we will fall. This will not be easy, but this is our planet and it is worth fighting for!

Water Is Your Life

2011-11-26T17:11:00.000-08:00

In writing about water the effects of pollution, waste, privatization and climate change are the primary topics of discussion. And rightfully so because in this world we live in we are seeing more and more abuse of water as population increases and as the commoditization of water takes away its identity relinquishing it to nothing more than a commodity like any other. However, there is so much more to this elixir of life than just to be used as an instrument of our greed or the waste receptacle of it. Water isn't just a part of our lives, it is our lives. It is us.

Have you ever noticed that while walking by the banks of a river the water moves in sync, the sun glimmering off the top of it as if it has a life all its own? Have you ever thought that perhaps there was more to this than just gravity? That perhaps the water is alive and responding to life as we do? Our bodies are inexplicably linked to water. Over 70% of our bodies is water as is the Earth. When we thirst, it is water we crave. When we seek comfort, it is the warmth or cooling of water that sets our souls aright. When we seek sustenance, it is water that grows it, prepares it and cooks it. Water is our life and it lives and breathes as an organism of our Earth just as we do.

Is it any wonder then that our Earth is so out of balance and as a result so are we? For we on the whole have abandoned the special bond of life we share with water. We kill it with toxic chemicals and pollution. We clog its arteries with garbage, oil, plastic. We take all its wonder for granted. We waste it thinking it will always be there when we need it. And we are now paying for it with our health and our lives as it too suffers. There is for sure a much deeper connection to this mysterious wonderful fluid and I believe that until we delve deeper into that connection we will never truly know the secret of life. So, is it possible to transfer our energy to water and vice versa?

Consider this:

While many remain skeptical and cite that this work on water is not peer reviewed, I can understand and agree with the concept that pollution has the ability to change the crystalline structure of water in a way where it actually conveys the water's "pain" just as it's crystalline structure changes with the opposite effect. In India, Hindus believe that the Ganges even as polluted as it is can be made clean again through positive thought and prayer. We have not even begun to scratch the surface regarding the study of water and its properties and how they react to different stimuli. And Emoto's work actually borders on the study of Noetic sciences as well imo... that thoughts have structure and can affect the physical when strong enough. It is very interesting study regarding the connection between us, our thoughts and the elements that give us life regardless of whether or not you think it is possible. After all, we are water and water is us.

And seeing this is sad as well considering the condition of so many of our waterways globally. If you look at the Yamuna River as an example using this concept it would be considered dead. And we did it. I do pray for a higher consciousness to take hold of us before it is truly too late.

So in writing about pollution, wastefulness, climate change and the selfish greedy attempts by those who do not understand this special bond who undermine the true reason water exists in tandem with humanity, we must always strive within our hearts to connect ourselves to it. It is then and only then that we will realize that to kill it kills the life that burns within our souls and in turn our future existence on this planet.

Blessed Thanksgiving: Be Thankful For Water

2011-11-23T10:27:00.000-08:00

On this thanksgiving day as every day, I am thankful for family, friends, those I love and my health as well as this planet, particularly the seed and water. I am thankful for its beauty; it's grace; its healing; its spiritual comfort; its power and its ability to provide for our survival.

And on this day I am also aware of the billion plus people on our planet who still do not have access to this fundamental right. So I am thankful that whenever I turn on a tap, it is there. Whenever I thirst, it is there. Whenever I need comfort, it is there. Whenever I need healing, it is there.

However, we abuse this precious gift through polluting it, toxifying it, hoarding it, wasting it and taking it for granted. And as we are seeing water has now become a force of destruction to also be reckoned with because of it. I hope for the coming year then that we will truly see a time coming when this resource that is there for all of us will be there for all of us and more will come to understand just how much we need to be thankful for it and the life it brings.

Blessed Thanksgiving to all.

Enjoy the video.

We must reclaim our humanity to save our planet/water

2011-11-05T15:27:00.000-07:00

The state of water in our world currently is endangered. Pollution, privatization, waste, climate change effects and lack of attention to this most crucial life crisis is bringing us to the brink as a species. And we have no one to blame but ourselves. In trying to assess in my own mind why something so basic and necessary to our lives is given such little attention it is frustrating to say the least. Epecially in this age of technology when we see through our modems and other devices so much more information than ever before being shared on this and so many other global crises.

When you look at the world as a whole and realize that 3/4 of it live in poverty and that the majority of those areas also do not have access to potable water/sanitation, the corrolation is obvious. Yet, we as a species even in the 21st century are failing at even providing the basic necessities of life to ourselves and others. Why? Why is water so unimportant to so many even though they know they cannot live without it? Is it ignorance? Arrogance? Or is it because there are those who have been made to believe that we will always have what we need because money can buy you anything even at the expense of taking it from others.

Just look at the levels of pollution in our global waterways. Industry and nitrogen fertilizer rich agriculture alone have managed to kill some of the major river systems of the world and made dead zones devoid of the oxygen marinelife needs to survive. The burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and other destructive land uses (fracking, tarsands extraction, strip mining, mountain top removal) are culminating to push our atmosphere and water to the tipping point. We are now seeing more extreme events (storms, floods, droughts) around the world which are the results of human forcings on the natural cycles of the planet to the point where we have actually affected the hydrologic cycle. And this is now being touted as the "new normal."

This has already resulted in billions of dollars of lost agriculture to the world, most recently in Thailand where much of their rice crop has been destroyed from unprecedented floods that are also happening globally simultaneously, as well as extreme droughts on both sides of the world. This then has a domino effect regarding food prices and the ability to live. And with predictions of these events (extreme floods and droughts) becoming more severe with rainfall patterns changing, the entire way the world grows food is being challenged. And in the process more fall into poverty, illness, war and hopelessness as those with more green paper think it buys them rights to the resources of Earth that belong to all mankind.

So for me there can only be one main reason why this has happened. We have strayed from our humanity. We have allowed materialistic manmade forces to infiltrate our consciousness and perceptions of life on this Earth and those skewed perceptions are now killing us and in the process destroying this Earth for future generations.

And it is the hope of changing those perceptions and bringing a paradigm shift in thinking that is now bringing people out into the streets worldwide calling for justice and equality. Calling for accountability for those who have stripped this Earth of all that was once good in exchange for a world of their making that can sustain no one, not even themselves. The false illusion of money's worth in comparison to the limitless value of this Earth coupled with delusions of grandeur built on sand in failing to understand the true meaning of humanity and its true purpose must now be challenged. And that right now is the hope we have as a species... awareness, awakening, gnosis.

The inate instinct that tells us as humans that we are one with this planet and that to destroy her destroys us. This is the lesson we must learn. This is the perception we must impart to others. We are at the brink, but we don't have to go over. There are ways to heal her and ourselves. We can join globally with likeminded individuals who know the stakes and make this shift happen with our thoughts and our actions. We can reclaim our humanity and in the process save ourselves. It won't be easy. However, the alternative is simply not an option.

Water is life, it is our life, it is the blood of Earth.
And it is worth fighting for.

Human Forcings On Climate Already A Factor In Mediterranean Droughts

2011-10-29T18:26:00.001-07:00

NOAA: Human Forcings On Climate Already A Factor In Mediterranean Droughts

Wintertime droughts are increasingly common in the Mediterranean region, and human-caused climate change is partly responsible, according to a new analysis by NOAA scientists and colleagues at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). In the last 20 years, 10 of the driest 12 winters have taken place in the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea.

“The magnitude and frequency of the drying that has occurred is too great to be explained by natural variability alone,” said Martin Hoerling, Ph.D. of NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., lead author of a paper published online in the Journal of Climate this month. “This is not encouraging news for a region that already experiences water stress, because it implies natural variability alone is unlikely to return the region’s climate to normal.”

The above is from a news release from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “NOAA study: Human-caused climate change a major factor in more frequent Mediterranean droughts.”

It’s a bombshell for three reasons. First, this NOAA team has not always found a human cause for extreme weather events, as Climate Progress discussed here. Second, the study found that global warming is already driving drought in a key region of the world: Climate change is harming a great many people now. Third, the analysis provides important confirmation of climate predictions that human-caused emissions would lead to drying: “The team also found agreement between the observed increase in winter droughts and in the projections of climate models that include known increases in greenhouse gases.”

This comes on the heel of the USGS study, that, despite its flaws still found, “The decrease of floods in the southwestern region is consistent with other research findings that this region has been getting drier and experienced less precipitation as a likely result of climate change.”

And these studies amplify the piece I had in the journal Nature this week that argued drying and Dust-Bowlification driven by climate change — and the impact on food insecurity — are probably the gravest threats the human race faces in the coming decades.

The fact that the NOAA analysis confirmed the climate models predictions of drying is especially worrisome because the climate models project a very dry future for large parts of the planet’s currently habited and arable land in the coming decades:

More at the link
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And in turn this will lead to water and food wars (especially now with corporations buying up land in developing countries to grow corn for fuel) since without potable water you can't grow food, or have proper sanitation which leads to more diseases. Would like to be around to hear what theusual detractors will tell their children and grandchildren when they ask them why they did nothing to address this because they didn't care enough about them.

Cyprus was the first country in the EU to run out of water and experience the meaning of "peak water." Overuse of aquifers with declining rainfall are now making the people here appreciate what they have much more. Desalination is all the Greek south has now, and it is costly both economically and for the environment. But these technological bandaids cannot compensate in the end for understanding the importance of this and doing all we can to conserve water. As the video claims, even though the Turkish north of Cyprus will be getting water piped in from Turkey through a new pipeline, Turkey can simply change that at any time. Turkey is also experiencing drought as well and with more dams being built to provide hydropower in areas of drought ( which I think is so wasteful when the sun is so prevalent) it only makes matter worse. It really does all come down to us.

Why The Earth May be Running Out Of Clean Water

2011-10-18T18:25:00.000-07:00

Why The Earth May Be Running Out Of Clean Water

Earlier this month, officials in the South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu had to confront a pretty dire problem: they were running out of water. Due to a severe and lasting drought, water reserves in this country of 11,000 people had dwindled to just a few days' worth. Climate change plays a role here: as sea levels rose, Tuvalu's groundwater became increasingly saline and undrinkable, leaving the island dependent on rainwater. But now a La Niña–influenced drought has severely curtailed rainfall, leaving Tuvalu dry as a bone. "This situation is bad," Pusinelli Laafai, Tuvalu's permanent secretary of home affairs, told the Associated Press earlier this month. "It's really bad."

So far Tuvalu has been bailed out by its neighbors Australia and New Zealand, which have donated rehydration packets and desalination equipment. But the archipelago's water woes are just beginning — and it's far from the only part of the world facing a big dry. Other island nations like the Maldives and Kiribati will see their groundwater spoil as sea levels rise. Texas, along with much of the American Southwest, is in the grip of a truly record-breaking drought — even after days of storms in the past month, Houston's total 2011 rainfall is still short of its yearly average by a whopping 2 ft., or 60 cm. Australia has experienced severely dry weather for so long, it's not even clear whether the country is in a state of drought, or more worryingly, a new and permanent dry climate that could forever alter life Down Under. "Climate-change impacts on water resources continue to appear in the form of growing influence on the severity and intensity of extreme events," says Peter Gleick, one of the foremost water experts in the U.S. and head of the Pacific Institute, an NGO based in Oakland, Calif., that focuses on global water issues. "Australia's recent extraordinary extreme drought should be an eye-opener for the rest of us."
(See photos of the world's water crisis.)
end of excerpt

Water is being used as a commodity by those who do not understand its true intrinsic value. We need to stop fracking it, stop polluting it, stop disturbing its flow, stop wasting it, stop damming it and stop thinking it will last forever.

Tuvalu is a lesson.

Lake Eries' Toxic Algae Bloom Seen From Space

2011-10-15T16:42:00.001-07:00

Lake Erie's Toxic Algae Bloom Seen From Space

Toxic algae is sucking the oxygen out of Lake Erie.

The lake is currently undergoing one of the worst algae blooms in decades, turning the water a scummy bright green. According to NASA, blooms like this did occur in the 1950's and 60's, but now phosphorus from farms, sewage, and industry have fertilized the waters.

After the 60's, increased regulations and improvements in agriculture and sewage treatment limited the phosphorus and helped to control the blooms. However, the shallower Western basin near Detroit has been more susceptible to the algae than other deeper areas.

The exact reason behind the bloom is a bit unclear, but scientists believe it could be linked to increased rainfall and, believe it or not, mussels. It seems the types of mussel, zebra and quagga that have invaded the lake feed on phytoplankton instead of algae, making it even easier for the blooms to occur, according to NASA.

While the algae doesn't directly kill fish, it's still not good. As the algae dies, it's broken down by bacteria which uses oxygen from the water. This oxygen removal creates areas where fish can't survive. In addition, if consumed, it can also create flu-like symptoms in people or even kill pets.

Former Vice President Al Gore spoke Thursday in Detroit on the matter, associating climate change with the algae problem. "We're still acting as if it's perfectly OK to use this thin-shelled atmosphere as an open sewer. It's not OK," he said. "We need to listen to the scientists. We need to use the tried and true method of using the best evidence, debating and discussing it, but not pretending that facts are not facts."

While in the past, some have criticized Gore, claiming that he's made exaggerated statements about the environment, yesterday's speech drew upon some pretty hard scientific evidence, leading many leaders at the International Joint Commission to listen a bit more intently.

This past summer, an algae bloom spread across a beach in China, dying everything in its path "a shocking bright green."

End of excerpt

Video of Al Gore's plenary speech at the Great Lakes Biennial
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The conditions we see in Lake Erie now are a call to action. It is said that the condititons in Lake Erie usually dictate the future for the other four. After expending so much time and effort to make such inroads in cleaning up the mistakes of the past, it would be a true tragedy to see it all reversed.

Water levels in the lakes are important as well in regards to maintaining their health. Water levels have been down and with Lake Erie being the most shallow of them all, this too (water evaportation due to increasing temperatures) can have an effect on algae blooms as well as overflows due to less but more extreme rainfalls that move fertilizer downstream.

India And Pakistan At Odds Over Shrinking Indus River

2011-10-15T11:24:00.000-07:00

India and Pakistan At Odds Over Shrinking Indus River.

By William Wheeler

For National Geographic News

Published October 12, 2011

This story is part of a National Geographic News series on global water issues.

Nearly 30 percent of the world's cotton supply comes from India and Pakistan, much of that from the Indus River Valley. On average, about 737 billion gallons are withdrawn from the Indus River annually to grow cotton—enough to provide Delhi residents with household water for more than two years. (See a map of the region.)

"Pakistan's entire economy is driven by the textile industry," said Michael Kugelman, a South Asia expert at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "The problem with Pakistan's economy is that most of the major industries use a ton of water—textiles, sugar, wheat—and there's a tremendous amount of water that's not only used, but wasted," he added.

The same is true for India.

That impact is an important part of a complex water equation in countries already under strain from booming populations. More people means more demand for water to irrigate crops, cool machinery, and power cities. The Indus River, which begins in Indian-controlled Kashmir and flows through Pakistan on its way to the sea, is Pakistan's primary freshwater source—on which 90 percent of its agriculture depends—and a critical outlet of hydropower generation for both countries.

(Related: "Discover Fair Trade Cotton")

Downstream provinces are already feeling the strain, with some dried-out areas being abandoned by fishermen and farmers forced to move to cities. That increases competition between urban and rural communities for water. "In areas where you used to have raging rivers, you have, essentially, streams or even puddles and not much else," said Kugelman.

In years past, the coastal districts that lost their shares of the Indus' flows have become "economically orphaned," the poorest districts in the country, according to Pakistani water activist Mustafa Talpur. Because Pakistani civil society is weak, he says, corruption and deteriorating water distribution tend to go hand in hand.

In the port city of Karachi, which depends for its water on the Indus, water theft—in which public water is stolen from the pipes and sold from tankers in slums and around the city—may be a $500-million annual industry.

In the balance is the fate not only of people, but important aquatic species like the Indus River dolphin, which is now threatened to extinction by agricultural pollution and dams, among other pressures. Scientists estimate that fewer than 100 individuals remain.

Threat to Peace?

One of the potentially catastrophic consequences of the region's fragile water balance is the effect on political tensions.

In India, competition for water has a history of provoking conflict between communities. In Pakistan, water shortages have triggered food and energy crises that ignited riots and protests in some cities. Most troubling, Islamabad's diversions of water to upstream communities with ties to the government are inflaming sectarian loyalties and stoking unrest in the lower downstream region of Sindh.

But the issue also threatens the fragile peace that holds between the nations of India and Pakistan, two nuclear-armed rivals. Water has long been seen as a core strategic interest in the dispute over the Kashmir region, home to the Indus' headwaters. Since 1960, a delicate political accord called the Indus Waters Treaty has governed the sharing of the river's resources. But dwindling river flows will be harder to share as the populations in both countries grow and the per-capita water supply plummets.

Some growth models predict that by 2025, India's population will grow to triple what it was—and Pakistan's population to six times what it was—when the Indus treaty was signed. Lurking in the background are fears that climate change is speeding up the melting of the glaciers that feed the river.

Mountain glaciers in Kashmir play a central role in regulating the river's flows, acting as a natural water storage tank that freezes precipitation in winter and releases it as meltwater in the summer. The Indus is dependent on glacial melting for as much as half of its flow. So its fate is uniquely tied to the health of the Himalayas. In the short term, higher glacial melt is expected to bring more intense flooding, like last year's devastating deluge.

Both countries are also racing to complete large hydroelectric dams along their respective stretches of the Kashmir river system, elevating tensions. India's projects are of a size and scope that many Pakistanis fear could be used to disrupt their hydropower efforts, as well as the timing of the flows on which Pakistani crops rely.

(Related: "Seven Simple Ways to Save Water")
End of excerpt.
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This is the perfect storm between population, climate change and political corruption. A true dichotomy in a land that with excessive flooding still thirsts. The Indus River is the most important river in Pakistan and also the longest river. Without its flow Pakistan has no life. The system is fed mainly by the glaciers of the Himalayas which are now seeing melting as well due to climate change. Extensive deforestation, industrial pollution and climate change are affecting the vegetation and wildlife of the delta as well as a rash of dams being built that only exacerbates the deforestation and affects the flow of the river.

Study Of Glacial Lake Outburst Floods On The Indus

India Issued Restraining Order Regarding Dam in Pakistan

World Energy Use To Double By 2035-Driven By Fossil Fuels In China/India

2011-10-08T12:12:00.000-07:00

World Energy Use To Double By 2035-Driven By Fossil Fuels In China/India

"Global energy consumption will increase by 53 percent over the next 25 years to a mind-boggling 225,700 terawatt-hours (770 quadrillion BTUs ) as water- and carbon-intensive fossil fuels continue to dominate the world’s economies, despite the global recession and the strong growth in the renewable sector, according to a new annual report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

About half of the projected increase in energy use will occur in China and India, the world’s first- and third-largest energy consumers, respectively. The two developing economies will account for more than 30 percent of the global energy use during the next two decades.

“China alone — which only recently became the world’s top energy consumer — is projected to use 68 percent more energy than the United States by 2035,” said Howard Gruenspecht, the administrator for the EIA, in a press release.

In general, however, the overall projections made in the EIA report only reflect laws and policies as they stood at the beginning of 2011. In other words, the report does not incorporate prospective legislation — in China, for example — that, together with oil-price volatility and the pace of global economic recovery, could significantly affect energy markets.

Coal Production and Consumption
China relies on coal for about 70 percent of its energy generation, consuming 3.15 billion metric tons (3.5 billion tons) of coal last year. Meanwhile, India has been steadily increasing domestic coal production, its major source of energy, reaching over 500 million metric tons (551 million tons) in 2010.

Though future generation from renewables, natural gas, and nuclear power will largely displace coal-fired production, coal will remain the largest source of world electricity through 2035, particularly in developing nations, according to the EIA projections. China alone will account for 76 percent of the projected increase in world coal use."
more at the link
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I truly hope this report does not come to pass, because if it does, we will be living in a world of degradation, famine and continuous war. Nothing will change for all of our protests if we do not move towards a clean energy economy now. The same status quo will be in place. Personally, I think we need to be occupying the THE WORLD BANK and the IMF. They are the entities perpetuating global poverty and working to keep us from moving truly forward globally. And China dares to try to outdo us regarding solar energy to make themselves look "green" when they still use mostly coal.

The time is now for us to push off the oil soaked members of Congress who think China has beaten us already and for them to start supporting this country and its people regarding renewable energy! Solar is a rising market despite their BS on Solyndra and their media PR. Oil companies make BILLIONS a yr by destroying and toxifying this planet and killing life and all these traitors in Congress can do now is say "Solyndra?"

Water access and scarcity must also be taken into account here. We simply cannot afford a future where water wasting and polluting fossil fuels remain the only source or primary source of energy or for use in agriculture, especially in countries where the effects of climate change and water shortages are already being felt at the extremes they are now. PRICE FOSSIL FUELS with the indirect costs of it included in the price and see how soon this tide turns.

We are going in the wrong direction!

We must change our perception of this world and our place in it before we can understand just how much is at stake.

This is a MUST SEE documentary in order to understand how important it is to change our perceptions.

Wangari Maathai dies at 71

2011-09-26T14:33:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: Dr. Wangari Maathai Laid To Rest In Kenya

Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize recipient and leader of Greenbelt Movement dies at 71

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, President Obama, and other world leaders today paid tribute to Professor Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and one of Africa’s foremost environmental campaigners, who died on Sunday. She was 71.

“It is with great sadness that the family of Professor Wangari Maathai announces her passing away on 25th September, 2011, at the Nairobi Hospital, after a prolonged and bravely borne struggle with cancer. Her loved ones were with her at the time,” the Green Belt Movement announced on its website. Maathai was the founder of the Green Belt Movement that encouraged women in rural Kenya to plant trees to improve their livelihoods through better access to clean water, firewood for cooking and other resources. Her movement planted an estimated 45 million trees in Africa and assisted nearly 900,000 women to establish tree nurseries and plant trees to reverse the effects of deforestation, according to the United Nations tribute to her.

“Her passing is a loss for the people of Kenya and the world,” Ban Ki-moon said in a statement published on the UN website. Maathai was a “globally recognized champion for human rights and women’s empowerment” and a “pioneer in articulating the links between human rights, poverty, environmental protection and security,” he added.

“She was a visionary who saw over the tree canopy, but never lost sight of the roots.”

“She was a visionary who saw over the tree canopy, but never lost sight of the roots,” said Jan McAlpine, Director of the Secretariat of the UN Forum on Forests, adding that Ms. Maathai was a great woman and a wonderful leader who made a difference both in Kenya and around the world, one tree at a time.

“Wangari Maathai was a force of nature,” UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said in a news release. “While others deployed their power and life force to damage, degrade and extract short term profit from the environment, she used hers to stand in their way, mobilize communities and to argue for conservation and sustainable development over destruction.

“She was, like the acacias and the Prunus Africana trees Wangari fought so nobly and assiduously to conserve, strong in character and able to survive sometimes the harshest of conditions,” he added.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2004 to Wangari Maathai for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.

“Peace on earth depends on our ability to secure our living environment. Maathai stands at the front of the fight to promote ecologically viable social, economic and cultural development in Kenya and in Africa. She has taken a holistic approach to sustainable development that embraces democracy, human rights and women’s rights in particular. She thinks globally and acts locally,” the Committee said when it announced its decision to award her the Nobel Peace Prize.

“Maathai combines science, social commitment and active politics. More than simply protecting the existing environment, her strategy is to secure and strengthen the very basis for ecologically sustainable development,” the Committee added.
more at the link
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Greenbelt Movement
Website for the Greenbelt Movement. Information on dedications, testimonials, memorials, etc. can be found here.
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For those who claimed environmentalism and peace were not connected, the life of Dr. Maathai proves them wrong. Depletion of resources especially now in a world where those resources are being depleted twice as fast as they are being restored is one of the primary reasons for conflict. Water scarcity, deforestation, land grabs, pollution, etc. as well as the effects of climate change as a result of human actions is already leading to crop failure, degradation of land, water scarcity and other effects on biodiversity up the food chain and web of life.

Dr. Maathai understood all of these residual consequences of our actions and devoted her life to preserving forests which balance out biodiversity and climate while providing water, sustenance and a way of life for so many indigenous people who now see their land and water being sacrificed for corporate greed. For those who did not know of her, your life can only be enriched by reading her story of courage.

I got to know of her by reading of her while researching a paper on the environment when I was college. I learned of the Greenbelt Movement and what she had done in regards to inspiring the women in her group to plant trees. At this time it was considered a threat for women to take on so much power in controlling anything. Yet, Wangari Maathai and her movement brought about great change in Kenya and the world with passion, resolve and courage even in the face of beatings and arrests. For me she was the personification of courage and an inspiration in my life.

A great light has gone out, but the light and hope she gave to this world will never go out. Thank you so much for the gift you gave us all. We will hopefully pay it forward.

My Dedication To Dr. Maathai

You too can plant a tree to keep her legacy alive.

TAKING ROOT: The Vision Of Wangari Maathai

"I will be a hummingbird"

I will do my best.

The Colorado River-Running Near Empty

2011-09-24T09:39:00.001-07:00

The Colorado River: Running Near Empty

Excerpt:
"Photographer Peter McBride traveled along the Colorado River from its source high in the Rocky Mountains to its historic mouth at the Sea of Cortez. In this Yale Environment 360 video, he follows the natural course of the Colorado by raft, on foot, and overhead in a small plane, telling the story of a river whose water is siphoned off at every turn, leaving it high and dry 80 miles from the sea.

In the video, McBride, a Colorado native, documents how increasing water demands have transformed the river that is the lifeblood for an arid Southwest."
End
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Where to begin. It was sad to watch this as you see the marked decline of the American Nile as it turns to desert. A once vibrant river, dying. All of the water falls over the Western mountains, yet the people live on the Eastern plains...the desert, which was not considered as being a hub of population growth when the Colorado Water Pact of 1922 was signed. Neither were the effects of climate change considered, nor the two decades of drought the Southwestern U.S. has been dealing with, nor the declining rainfall or snowpack in an area where population continues to rise as then does water usage. And neither was the proliferation of dams and diversion schemes (and golf courses) that were undertaken to satiate the increasing thirst and needs of those who live there and continue to move there.

This is exactly what I was referring to in my entry, Water Changes Everything. Human activities in and of themselves working in harmony with nature without harming the whole are fine. However, we as a species seem to be lacking in this potential on a collective scale.

Click on double bar near the timer to stop it.

We must save the Colorado

Report raises Concerns About Colorado River Basin Dam Impacts To National Parks

As we look back upon the history of this river, its majesty, its power and the concerted efforts of humans to tame it, divert it, strip it, dam it and partition it for their own use one can only wonder as we enter the world we are making by exacerbating climate change where it will end.

How much is enough?

Al Gore To Speak At Great Lakes Water Quality Biennial Meeting

2011-09-23T14:50:00.001-07:00

Vice President Al Gore To Discuss Climate Change In Detroit

The International Joint Commission (IJC) is pleased to announce that former Vice President, best-selling author and Nobel Prize co-recipient Al Gore will be the plenary keynote speaker at its Great Lakes Water Quality Biennial Meeting in Detroit, Michigan at 1:15 pm on October 13, 2011.

“Vice President Gore’s appearance underlines the importance of the IJC’s Biennial Meeting,” said Lana Pollack, U.S. Chair of the IJC. “The Biennial is a true summit of everyone from interested members of the public to a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. His efforts on climate change will inform the IJC’s future science-based work on Great Lakes climate impacts.”

Canadian Chair Joe Comuzzi noted: “We have a very substantive three-day program focusing on topics of concern to both scientists and the public, such as the increase in toxic algal blooms, the need to keep beaches healthy, rapid response to invasions of alien aquatic species and emerging chemicals of concern. Vice President Gore joins a distinguished and long line of thought-provoking speakers who have addressed the Biennial Meeting about scientific issues that are vitally important to both Canada and the U.S.”

Before serving two terms as the 45th Vice President, Mr. Gore served in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. He is the author of bestsellers Earth in the Balance, An Inconvenient Truth, The Assault on Reason, and Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis. In 2007, Mr. Gore was the co-recipient, with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, of the Nobel Peace Prize for “informing the world of the dangers posed by climate change.” In addition to a variety of other important projects, Gore spends the majority of his time as chairman of The Climate Reality Project, a nonprofit focused on solutions to the climate crisis.

The Biennial Meeting is being held October 12-14 on the campus of Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Under terms of the Canada-US Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, the IJC convenes the Biennial Meeting to report on progress toward restoration of the physical, chemical and biological quality of the waters of the basin ecosystem. In particular, the IJC and its Great Lakes Regional Office in Windsor are charged with engaging and informing the public about restoration efforts.
________
I am pleased to see Al speaking at this event! It is so very important to preserve the Great Lakes which are now in danger due to coastal erosion, invasive species, pollution and declining water tables due to the effects of climate change as well as effects now from tarsands development. Thirty five million people depend on the Great Lakes, the last great source of freshwater in an area of rich and immense biodiversity. The Great Lakes must be preserved and not fall prey to diversion for privitization or the whims of those who would seek to loosen clean water restrictions.

This is also a must see documentary on the Great Lakes called Waterlife.

Site about Great Lakes Environment and Restoration

Great Lakes Environment

Water Changes Everything

2011-09-17T13:46:00.000-07:00

When I started this blog several years ago these were the main areas of concern surrounding lack of access and potability of water in the world. And as with the climate crisis there have been many people out here talking about this and trying to educate people in doing what is necessary to provide this human right to all and warning of the consequences of not doing so. Unfortunately, though we have come some part of the way thanks to education, activism and the work of NGOs like Charity Water and others whose links I will also post here there is a long way to go.

As we are now seeing across the globe privitization is still trying to make more of a headway (even though we have seen initiatives in Germany, Italy and in the US in stopping this insidious move to control our global water supply) and moving to "commoditize" water in a market system sure to deprive the most poor of this basic human right even though it was declared so at the UN.

War is also playing a part. As a result of the tumultuous battles taking place in Libya the Great Manmade River Project started by Gaddafi (and this is not to be a political post so I will refrain from discussing opinions of him) which regardless of politics was and is an engineering marvel (I will post video on that here too) has been bombed and essentially shut down thereby cutting off water to more than half of Tripoli and other regions. Water is then still being used as a weapon of war which I find insidious regardless of who does it.

We are seeing as well increasing pollution levels in rivers, continued toxification of our oceans, acidification of our oceans, plastic garbage patches in our ocean's gyres that stretch for miles and on top of all of this, effects of a changing climate brought on by human activity that now threaten water supplies for billions of people worldwide and the systems that sustain our marinelife.

What are we to make of all of this? Are we finally reaching the point where more people will discover just how crucial water is to all of the systems that sustain us? If not, by the time critical mass is reached will it be beyond saving? For the next couple of weeks I will be writing and reporting on ways that we are affecting water and also ways we can save it. In the world we live in now water access has never been more of an urgent crisis.

That is why supporting organizations like Chartity Water are essential in working to provide equality, access and potability of water to the billions who now go without and that also includes adequate sanitation. It is unfathomable to believe that in the 21st century with all of the technological advances we have achieved that we still cannot provide basic sanitation and potable water for the people who live on this planet, even now as we explore other worlds. I say, let's take better care of the one we have now.

Please watch this video and look at the links to other organizations I will post here and reflect on what you can do to address this crisis locally and globally. Water is the one tie that binds us all. We cannot afford to lose it.

Amman Imman/Water Is Life

Water.org

Waterkeepers

American Rivers

UN Water

Very comprehensive site explaining Libya's Great Manmade River Project

Remembering Rachel

2011-07-31T17:18:00.001-07:00

Charity Water

Rachel's Dream

Rachel Beckwith was doing something very different for her ninth birthday. She set a goal of collecting 300 dollars to send to countries to provide water for those in need. But days before her birthday she was tragically killed in a motor accident. The page above is Rachel's page at Charity Water which has now reached well beyond her goal of 300 dollars and is over 729,000 dollars for clean water. This beautiful child has left a legacy that will live on and will now make many other children happy. I posted the link in case you also wish to donate to this most important cause of providing clean water to those in need to keep her dream alive.

Plastic Beach

2011-07-31T16:49:00.000-07:00

This was posted by a friend of mine who was on Harbor Island which is across from Port Aransas, Texas which is a tourist attraction. There are literally miles of trash and plastic bottles here and it is disgusting and forgotten. This is simply one example of what is seen throughout the United States. We are literally turning our waterways and oceans into garbage dumps. This not only affects other ecosystems but also marinelife that feeds on this plastic and in many instances dies from having it caught inside them.

It is a sad statement on humanity when people do not even care enough about their environment and waterways to make sure their garbage is disposed of properly or to even be more considerate in the amount they use and what they use. We need more people to record this type of environmental abuse and to join with communities to do something about it. We are literally being drowned in plastic.

Extreme snowfall blankets parts of South Africa

2011-07-26T19:28:00.000-07:00

Extreme snowfall blankets parts of South Africa

This video shows the snow In South Africa which in some places is only used to a dusting a couple times a year. This following the 32 inches dumped on Chile this past week... Keep connecting those dots. The hydrologic cycle is oversaturated as we keep contributing to it daily while waiting for some magic bullet. Water evaporation in places of intense heat and drought as wel as oceans are now drying out areas of the world and carrying the moisture to other places where it is not usual, while places in the world needing it sit in drought. This is the damage to our agriculture that has been warned about as well as crops dying in either wilting heat and extended drought or extreme floods.

Excerpt:

'Snow blankets parts of South Africa
By Jason Samenow

Up to two feet of snow covered parts of eastern South Africa Tuesday, bringing traffic to a standstill along major routes and disrupting air and rail transportation. The snow also closed shops and schools.

Reuters Africa reports:

Parts of South Africa usually receive a dusting about once or twice a year but the storm that hit large parts of the eastern half of the country on Monday and Tuesday dumped up to 60 cms (2 feet) in some areas. “Snow is not unheard of but it is usually not this extreme,” said national weather service forecaster Karl Loots.'

Climate change and the effects on the hydrologic cycle.

And just as a reference, Durbin South Africa, a city hit by this extreme snowfall while extreme drought and precipitation also happen across the globe simultaneously is located at a subtropic latitude which is considered predominantly dry with average mild winters. And as this video brought out, not all areas of the world receive the same level of precipitation. However, with climate change, wet becoming wetter is not good for all agriculture and neither is dry becoming dryer. And neither is seeing extreme precipitation due to increased GHGs with increased water vapor and moisture that is moved around the globe and dumped on areas where such precipitation is unusal or not needed while other areas that are the breadbaskets of their countries go dry. This is why it is so important to monitor these effects in order to prepare for changes in growing seasons, what can be grown, the economic fallout and migration of inhabitants to other areas.

Texas Drought Disaster

Heavy Snow in Central Chile

Record Runoff into the Missouri Basin

Severe Drought Causes Famine in East Africa

July Snow in the Uinta Mountains, Utah

The Warriors of Qiugang: A Chinese Village Fights Back by : Yale Environment 360

2011-07-26T11:01:00.000-07:00

The Warriors of Qiugang: A Chinese Village Fights Back by : Yale Environment 360
- Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

Like many villages in China’s industrial heartland, Qiugang — a hamlet of nearly 1,900 people in Anhui province — has long suffered from runaway pollution from nearby factories. In Qiugang’s case, three major enterprises with little or no pollution controls churned out chemicals, pesticides, and dyes, turning the local river black, killing fish and wildlife, and filling the air with foul fumes that burned residents’ eyes and throats and sickened children.

The pollution from the Jiucailuo Chemical plant became so egregious that in 2007, Qiugang’s residents — working with a fledgling environmental group, Green Anhui — began to try to do something about it. Their efforts soon attracted the attention of Chinese-American filmmaker Ruby Yang, who with cinematographer Guan Xin and longtime collaborator Thomas Lennon, spent the ensuing three years chronicling the struggle of Qiugang’s increasingly emboldened population to curb the pollution that was poisoning them in their homes, schools, and fields.

This exclusive e360 video report, “The Warriors of Qiugang” — co-produced by Yale Environment 360 — tells the story of how the villagers fought to transform their environment, and, in the process, found themselves transformed as well.

end of excerpt
The Warriors Of Qiugang_ A Chinese Village Fights Back
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How can any human being watch stories like this and not weep for what we are doing to the future? And this is one of many stories of corporate abuse of our environment at the expense of human health and the species that share in these ecosystems with us. However, this film is also inspiring in that it relays a fighting spirit amongst those who through necessity fought to preserve their lives and recover balance.

And as we see, this type of blatant moral abandonment is not endemic to one race or creed. It is a fallacy of our species as a whole as a result of a world too tied to monetary value as opposed to the intrinsic natural value of our Earth. We are but an extension of that Earth. We are all a part of a wonderful, beautiful, mystical, empowering all inclusive experience. One we have yet to fully realize. May we all reach deep inside of ourselves to find that place within us where what is important translates to the preservation of this beautiful world around us as we seek to fight the powerful forces that would see that day of knowing never come. That is my wish.

Malawi: Women Get Dirty To Stop Water Scarcity

2011-07-22T17:07:00.000-07:00

Malawi: Women Get Dirty To Stop Water Scarcity

Ethel James cannot wait for the gravity-fed water scheme in her area to be fixed so that she and the other women in her village will no longer have to wake up before dawn everyday to queue for water.

She is part of the team of local villagers repairing the existing water system, which consists of a pipeline connected to a reservoir. At various points in the village are taps connected to the pipeline, but there is no running water just yet.

The water supply system fell to disrepair in the mid-1990s after government could no longer maintain it.

With the assistance of Water Aid Malawi, an international charity that assists people in accessing safe drinking water and sanitation, the community has taken over ownership of the scheme that covers Kwilasha village in Machinga District, southern Malawi and 13 surrounding villages.

People have been organised into clubs, with women assuming leading roles. Women are also involved in the laying of pipes and the digging of trenches. Community members are replacing old pipes with new and larger ones and expanding the network to reach more people.

Every morning before James begins work on the repairs, she rises at 4am and walks an hour to the only functioning borehole in the neighbouring village. She returns home with just a bucket of water, which her five children use to get ready for school.

The nearest alternative source of water is a river just 10 minutes away, but at this time of the year it is dry. But even during the rainy season it is a river that James avoids because there is a possibility of encountering crocodiles here. They swim up from Malawi's main Shire River, which is linked to this tributary.

"So we just dig wells in the village, but that is also a problem because cholera becomes rampant since the water is unsafe. Now that it is the dry season, the wells no longer have water, so we rely on the borehole," says James. Until the mid-1990s, access to running water was not a problem in the district as it had 10 functional water schemes, which government constructed in 1980.

However, all the schemes collapsed in 1994 when government changed the ownership policy and wanted the communities to manage the schemes. Many villagers did not have the skills to repair the facilities and were unable to raise money to buy spare parts. So the schemes collapsed.

"Government heaped the responsibility of running the schemes in the laps of people who were ignorant on how to go about managing them," says villager Ndojime Zakaria who dug trenches for the scheme in 1980.

The government also decided to move away from building and maintaining gravity-fed water schemes to focus on drilling boreholes as a means of providing water.

However, water sector analysts in Malawi have faulted boreholes sunk in the decade after 1994. They say the intervention was often not based on hydrological expertise, but on the influence of politicians seeking patronage. Many were also accused of giving business to drilling companies in which they had interests. This resulted in an inequitable distribution of water points and the malfunctioning of most facilities.

The community suffered on both fronts: their gravity-fed scheme had collapsed and the borehole system had largely failed. This forced women to fetch water from unsafe sources or crocodile-infested rivers in the district.

"Without the scheme, the alternative water sources are either distant or dangerous because most rivers here pour into the main Shire River, which is home to thousands of crocodiles. Sometimes, these crocodiles follow the smaller rivers posing such a danger to women who go there to get water," says Steve Meja, the district water officer for Machinga.

But now Water Aid Malawi and the Machinga district council have since trained the community in leadership, project management, finance raising, catchment area conservation and sanitation. It is expected that once the repair to this water system is completed, it will reach Kwilasha village and 13 other surrounding villages. Its reach will spread to about 45,000 people, which is three times more than it used to serve in the 1990s.

James says that repairing the water system will make a difference to the lives of the women in her village. "Women suffer most when there is a water shortage. Now we’re learning every skill so that we (can) maintain the scheme ourselves and ensure a reliable water supply. Our work does not stop at digging trenches; we also join men in laying pipes and fixing the facilities," says James.

Monalisa Nkhonjera, the programme officer responsible for communication at Water Aid Malawi, says the involvement of women in "rough and dirty" jobs, such as fixing pipes, enables them to rely on themselves to maintain the scheme.

End of excerpt.
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An inspirational story of action and love borne from necessity. When people join together to bring about a better situation and do so with determination and focus anything is possible. For all of the women who grow our food and bear the burdens of this world but still fight particularly regarding environmental abuses, thank you.

Climate Change/Biodistress: The Test Of Humanity

2011-07-14T18:55:00.000-07:00

East Africa: "It's Because Of The Drought"
Excerpt:

"Changing climate

East Africans are no strangers to drought conditions. Traditionally, the rains here have failed around once a decade, giving communities time to build up emergency stocks and to restore the condition of their livestock on the good years. But for the past decade, droughts have been coming more regularly.

The people here reckon the rains fail one year in every two now; consecutive failings, like this one, have the potential to totally destroy the herds upon which they rely.

With their prime assets gone, they lose both their source of food, and their sole source of income. Their nomadic lifestyle prevents them from growing crops; the animals they graze are their only means to survive. Now it appears that climate change is robbing them of that livelihood.

A study by the US Geological Survey, published earlier this year, linked the increased frequency of drought in East Africa with global warming, suggesting that there is more than bad luck behind the latest wave of hunger sweeping the region.

Faced with a changing climate increasing numbers of pastoralists are leaving the land, settling in permanent communities on the edge of towns like Wajir. A way of life that has persisted for thousands of years is slowly dying out.

Those who leave will find little in the way of work in the towns. That pastoralists are willing to opt for grinding urban poverty over the only work they have ever known is a testament to how bad the situation has become.

For those who remain, the next few months will be critical."

Horn of Africa in throse of worst drought in 60 years

Somalia Food Crisis Reaching Unimaginable Proportions

Great Famine Of 2011: Tragedy Looms In The Horn Of Africa

The persistent and severe drought in Somalia and Kenya has led to people walking for almost two weeks in search of food and water and a place to stay. Refugee camps are full and the situation is serious. Only now is the international community seeing the humanitarian disaster unfolding here due not only to the severe drought caused by successive yearly failures of the rains, but a war raging on that has used religious intolerance as an excuse for Al Shabaab to turn away their own people. It is unconscienable to do this, especially to children. My hope is that aid can reach them in time to save more lives as we are now seeing more graves being dug on the outskirts of the camps. As climate change and its effects worsen in these areas of the world, we as a species will have to reassess our priorities from placing religious intolerance and politics above humanity in order for us to survive.

I keep trying to have hope that the right thing will be done here and in all places where such harsh conditions exist. For this is a primer to a world of climate change/biodistress and it is one in which what we see now is exactly what has been predicted by climate scientists for years. Should these lands be rendered uninhabitable where would these millions of people go? How would they be provided for? We already know the answer to this and it is a totally inhumane, unconscienable and unacceptable answer.

In a world of biodistress there is no way we can continue to use the resources we are at the pace we are using them. We simply cannot replenish what we are taking in time enough to deal with the fallout. For example, what if this were the Southeast US and the same conditions existed for the same time period with such drought occuring every two years instead of just say every 10 and the land was declared uninhabitable? Where would all of those people go? This is the one facet of climate negotiations and summits that has always been left out. Planning for the millions of people who will have to leave their homes in search of food, water and shelter. This is now our reality. And it isn't just happening in Somalia.

Field News From Doctors without Borders

The only organization I trust with donations.

Comment: The Clean Water Act: A legacy worth saving

2011-07-01T17:03:00.000-07:00

In 1972 I was 13 years old and becoming much more cognizant of the fact that the Earth I had lived on up to that point was changing and not for the better. And this disturbed and concerned me greatly even at that young age as I felt a special connection to the environment as I still do. It is innate in me and as much a part of my existence as breathing. The trees, the air and especially the water at that time all told a story to me about who I was, where I came from and where I hoped to go as I became an adult. From the time I was a young girl my mother instilled in me respect for the Earth and taught me that what you put into her you get out. Unfortunately, I lost my mother to cancer at the age of 17 not nearly having the amount of time with her that I needed but the lessons she taught me about life, respecting others and respecting this planet in that short time have always stayed with me.

And at that time in history, those lessons were more important than ever to be learned. Just three years prior in July of 1969, the Cuyahoga River in Ohio became so contaminated with industrial waste and pollution that it literally caught on fire. Rivers from the Hudson to the Potomac to the Mississippi were little more than open sewers with untreated waste and industrial byproducts being dumped with little regulation. Public health alerts and fishkills were commonplace. Rivers burning, pictures of raw sewerage flowing in rivers, oil fires and fish floating dead in rivers was more than enough for the public to demand action and accountability for what had been done to our waterways by an out of control corporate assault for profit. Of course, the polluters fought against any type of regulation of their crimes against nature citing as usual that it would be financially cumbersome to act responsibly. But on October 18, 1972, the voices of the people were heard with the passage of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, commonly known as the Clean Water Act. The main goal of this act was to ensure to "restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of our nation's waterways" and to make them cleaner by 1985. Other provisions were subsequently added to assure that once these goals were met that they would be adequately maintained.

Almost forty years after its passage there is much to be proud of regarding this act. It has been a success. Billions have been saved in dollars and in destruction and pollution to our waterways. More than one billion pounds per year of toxic pollutants have been removed from waterways. Point source pollution has been greatly reduced and the Cuyahoga is cleaner and actually making a profit. Of course, there are still great obstacles as we see this same irresponsible corporate mentality seeking to turn back the clock, but on the whole the Clean Water Act has been the one piece of legislation that has withstood the test of time... until now. The lifeblood of our country is now once again under attack by those in our Congress more beholding to the corporate entities that support them than the people they should be supporting.

A bill, H.R. 2018 also known as the "Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011," would null and void decades of progress that have made our waterways cleaner and safer. The bill supported both by Rep Nick Rahall and Rep. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia(coal country) seeks to undo two key provisions of the Clean Water Act that would undermine the EPA's ability to hold states accountable for water quality standards. In other words, corporate entities (coal companies) holding sway over state governments would be the final arbiter on water standards even if evidence proves that doing so would be a threat to human and aquatic health. Again, even if evidence proves that doing so would be a threat to human and aquatic health. How unconscienable. How irresponsible. How morally bereft.

To see this total apathy towards the source of all life and the disrespect for all who have sacrificed so much to ensure a cleaner planet is reprehensible. And I admit that now forty years after I first learned of the Clean Water Act passing at the age of 13 after being scared for the future I am again and this time moreso as this important issue has not gotten the media coverage now that it did then. This is why the Internet and social media are so crucial in getting this type of information out to the public. Our media has been co opted by these same corporate entities seeking to escape culpability for their crimes against nature just to save a buck even at the expense of our health and that of our children.

So are you incensed yet? Do you want to do someting to let them know that you will not go back to rivers in flames and rivers and streams from coast to coast flowing with industrial and human waste, coal excrement, nuclear waste and anything else those who buy policy in DC deem too expensive to take responsibility for? We need the same loud voices that we heard in the 1970s. We need that urgency. We need that caring. Those voices, the voices of our young selves that stood in the streets crying for environmental justice must now be heard again. Those who perceive themselves as masters of our fate must be sent a message that it is we who are the masters of our fate. Our children deserve better than that. They deserve clean water! Please , speak out for our rivers. Our lifeblood. The soul of America. Remember Cuyahoga and say, never again!

Benefits Of The Clean Water Act

My musical inspiration at 13.

Industry And Residents Square Off Over Water As Severe Drought In Texas Continues

2011-06-26T14:04:00.000-07:00

Industry And Residents Square Off Over Water As Severe Drought In Texas Continues

With nearly 65 percent of Texas experiencing exceptional drought, water is becoming increasingly precious—and scarce—in a state that has to divide the resource between the growing appetites of farmers, city residents, and energy corporations.
A severe drought continues to wreak havoc in Texas and shows no sign of letting up, pitting stakeholders against each other as the dry spell threatens reservoirs and rivers.

The dry period began in October 2010, and, since then, only 2 inches of rain have fallen in southeastern Texas, Businessweek reported. Now, 65 percent of the state is categorized as having exceptional drought, and 88 percent is experiencing extreme drought conditions or worse, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

Though Texas is no stranger to dry spells, this is the driest 7-month period in Texas history since record keeping began in the late 1800s. The worst drought is still considered to be the 10-year period from 1947-1957, with lake levels hitting an all time low in 1952. However, falling water levels could surpass even that record if no rains come. Currently, some lakes are dropping 35,000 acre-feet a week, The Texas Tribune reported.

City Residents vs. Farmers and Ranchers
With supplies running so low, city residents and businesses that depend on reservoir lakes for both their drinking water and livelihoods are worried that lakes will run dry if the agricultural industry downstream continues to consume large amounts, despite the drought. In Central Texas, Lake Buchanan and Lake Travis—which supply the city of Austin with water and support a thriving tourist industry—are only 59 percent full and continuing to drop, The Texas Tribune reported. Much of the water from the lakes is being used downstream by farmers who are trying to protect their rice, a water-intensive crop, from the effects of the drought.

The Lower Colorado River Authority, which manages the lakes and sells the water to both Austin and the rice farmers, allows farmers to buy the water at a cheaper price than the city because it retains the right to shut off supply in times of drought. However, while farmers have not had supplies cut, or even reduced, this year, Austin residents have been asked to conserve water, creating tensions between the two groups, according toThe Texas Tribune.

The drought is also dealing a heavy blow to cattle ranchers, who are sending large portions of their herds to slaughter because vegetation is so scarce.

“Because we’re not raising the amount of grass that we usually do, we’re having to destock these ranches,” rancher Pete Bonds told Reuters. “We are having to cut the numbers down and sell cows that we don’t want to. And since it is dry in a huge area, most of these cows are going to go to slaughter.” These include young female cows, called heifers, that are used to breed—putting a difficult barrier between the herd and its future.

Even if rains alleviate the current drought, the impacts will be lasting. Bonds told Reuters that it will take years for ranchers to recoup their losses, so many are giving up and selling their land to developers.

Farmers vs. Energy Executives
Texas energy corporations have resorted to buying water from farmers so they can support booming shale gas operations. The water is needed for hydraulic fracturing or “fracking,” the process of injecting water, chemicals, and sand at high pressure into sedimentary rock formations to free up the oil and natural gas trapped inside.

In 2009, there were 358 natural gas drilling rigs in Texas alone, and that number had increased to 709 rigs by 2010, according to the Natural Gas Supply Association. Each rig can drill multiple wells in a year and each well typically uses upwards of 19,000 cubic meters (5 million gallons) of water for “fracking.”

The Eagle Ford Shale formation, however, which angles across the state from the southwest to the northeast and is the location of many new shale gas wells, has an unusual geology that requires more water per well than in other locations. A single well in the Eagle Ford Shale can require up to 49,000 cubic meters (13 million gallons), Businessweek reported. To obtain this amount during the drought, companies have offered farmers as much as $US 0.70 per barrel of water—equivalent to 164 liters (42 gallons).

So far, farmers have been reluctant to sell too much water, especially when they are running low on supplies to quench their own thirsty fields.

Additionally, because of the severe drought in Texas, water supplies have become a big issue for opponents of a coal-fired power plant proposed for Matagorda County. On June 16, the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) delayed a vote to decide whether to sell more than 30 million cubic meters (8 billion gallons) of water per year to the owners of the planned White Stallion generating station.

More at the link.
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You can find drought updates here

So, industry doesn't give a damn if people have no food or water. Just give it to them to "frack" to also pollute what little there is. This is the critical mass we were warned about regarding our water resources. Depending on energy sources that rely on huge amounts of water in areas prone to drought and now more severe droughts is insanity.

Excerpt from article:

"Populations in Texas cities continue to explode, and, in the energy sector, water use is expected to increase to 10 times the current amount by 2020, Bloomberg reported, setting the stage for further debates over who gets to use what water—and when".
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Hmm, the Texas Water War? Because you know these companies looking to frack and use it for coal aren't going to relent. That leaves farmers taking great losses with prices increasing and the Colorado River no longer flows to the Gulf. Add to that if the Keystone XL pipeline is approved and constructed over the Ogalalla Aquifer. This is what happens when you take water for granted.

Texas needs solar and leadership, not prayers for rain Rick Perry.

East Africa, Central Texas. Not so different now.

China evacuates 500,000 as flooding breaks worst drought in 50 years

2011-06-26T12:47:00.000-07:00

China Evacuates 500,000 From Severe Flooding

Water levels on 40 rivers, including the Yangtze, above safety limits as authorities warn of dykes and dams under pressure.

And what do you think all of this climate upheaval is doing to water resources and agriculture? Do you not see it at the markets already? The Biodistress-agriculture-prices link is essential to see in order to prepare for the future. And yet we keep emitting more and more CO2 and GHGS into the already oversaturated atmosphere as warming evaporates the oceans. We are affecting the hydrologic cycle and stretching the limits of the Earth's natural processes. Make no mistake about it, the science on this is correct and you need to demand that your leaders in government listen to that science. Lives are at stake.

Severe Rain Pounds North Nigeria City

2011-06-26T12:22:00.000-07:00

Floods kill 24 as rains pound North Nigeria city

Twenty-four people died overnight when unusually heavy rains flooded a neighbourhood in Nigeria's largest northern city of Kano, a local government chief said on Thursday.

Dozens of others were injured, 300 displaced and about 100 houses destroyed in the densely populated Fagge neighbourhood of Kano when rains pounded and inundated the city while residents were asleep.

"For now we have confirmed the deaths of 24 people from the floods that occurred Tuesday night through Wednesday following torrential rain in the city," Fagge local government administrator, Abdulmalik Ismail Rogo told AFP.

Rogo said local elders had told him the "area has never witnessed such torrential rains in the past 30 years."

"Some of the victims were buried alive when their (house) roofs collapsed on them, while others were washed away by the floods and deposited along a major sewer in the area," he said.

Fagge is a low-income neighbourhood of Kano, one of the country's largest cities with a population of around 12 million people.

The country's emergency services unit said its team was assessing the flood, but had so far recorded six deaths -- most of them children aged between two and 14 years. It said 276 people were affected.

A Red Cross emergency coordinator said his volunteers had also registered six deaths and 150 people were wounded.

Nigeria experienced severe flooding last year that affected around half a million people in two-thirds of its 36 states and killed scores of others, according to the emergency agency. The agency, NEMA, has also predicted unprecedented heavy rainfall and severe flooding this rainy season that has just begun.

West Africa has seen increasing floodings in recent years due mainly to climate change, with 2.2 million people affected in 2010 alone and more than 500 killed, according to the African Centre of Meteorological Application for Development (ACMAD).

More at the link
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Increased flooding in West Africa and increased droughts in East Africa. This indeed is being exacerbated by climate change. This is damn important and yet it gets no play in the MSM. Wonder why? Because the media is owned by the fossil fuel industry. You aren't supposed to connect those dots or see the reality. You will see it here. Pakistan, Australia, Columbia, Sri Lanka, Bolivia, Peru, Brazil, Thailand, Germany, Poland, the U.S...and other areas around the world all experiencing these same monsoon type rains/floods along with severe droughts more frequently. But remember, don't connect the dots.

East Africa: Severe drought due to climate change killing animals and a way of life

2011-06-26T11:57:00.000-07:00

East Africa: "It's The Drought"

Climate change is causing devastating droughts across East Africa - leading to an end of the pastoral way of life.

Many tribes across East Africa are having to leave their pastoral way of life for urban poverty because of severe droughts [Andrew Wander/Save the Children]

Whether you ask about the carcasses of livestock baked white in the sun, the gaggle of people crowding around the district commissioner's door, or the wards of malnourished children lying listlessly in hospital beds, the explanation given is always the same.

"It's because of the drought", they say.

The failure of rains across arid parts of East Africa has brought misery to millions of people, affecting almost every aspect of life.

In this dry, dusty part of the world, every drop that falls helps people scrape a living from the land. If the rains don't come for a season people go hungry. If they fail twice in a row, as they have in Kenya's impoverished north eastern province, they begin to starve.

At the hospital in Wajir town, the paediatric ward is full of young mothers clutching the tiny, wasted forms of their children.

Doctors estimate admissions for severe malnutrition in children have risen by at least 25 per cent in recent months, and fear that the dozens of referrals they have seen could be the tip of a large and deadly iceberg.

"Some parents are reluctant to bring their children to the hospital because it is such a long journey, or they don't recognise the symptoms of malnutrition. Some think they can cure the problem by praying - they don't realise the children need treatment. Children could be dying because of this and we wouldn't know about it," says Dr Moses Menza, the chief medical officer at the hospital.

He is talking at the bedside of two-year old Bashara, the daughter of nomadic cattle grazers who wander the desert four hours to the west of Wajir town. There is no need for Menza to explain what is wrong with her; her sunken features and twig-like limbs tell their own desperate tale.

Bashara is here with her grandmother, Amina Mohamed; her parents left her in the village and drove their animals to more fertile ground as the drought began to bite. She should have been safer there than out on the plains, but when the livestock began to die, the villagers found themselves with nothing to feed their families.

As always, it was growing children like Bashara who were hit hardest.

"The animals are the way we earn money and how we get food," Amina says, as she waves the flies off the starving child's tiny face. "Now they have died we have nothing to eat and nothing to sell. We have no milk any more, so we cannot feed the children."

Save the Children has treated thousands of drought-affected children for malnutrition in Kenya alone, and believes that across the region, in neighbouring Somalia and Ethiopia, more than millions of children could be at risk over the next three months.

"When these people lose their livestock, they lose their source of food, their livelihood and their savings in a single stroke," said Matt Croucher, Save the Children's regional emergency manager for East Africa.

"We can only imagine the desperation such families feel at not being able to give their children enough to eat and drink to stay healthy. They need help now, before this crisis turns into a catastrophe."

Changing climate

East Africans are no strangers to drought conditions. Traditionally, the rains here have failed around once a decade, giving communities time to build up emergency stocks and to restore the condition of their livestock on the good years. But for the past decade, droughts have been coming more regularly.

The people here reckon the rains fail one year in every two now; consecutive failings, like this one, have the potential to totally destroy the herds upon which they rely.

With their prime assets gone, they lose both their source of food, and their sole source of income. Their nomadic lifestyle prevents them from growing crops; the animals they graze are their only means to survive. Now it appears that climate change is robbing them of that livelihood.

A study by the US Geological Survey, published earlier this year, linked the increased frequency of drought in East Africa with global warming, suggesting that there is more than bad luck behind the latest wave of hunger sweeping the region.

Faced with a changing climate increasing numbers of pastoralists are leaving the land, settling in permanent communities on the edge of towns like Wajir. A way of life that has persisted for thousands of years is slowly dying out.

Those who leave will find little in the way of work in the towns. That pastoralists are willing to opt for grinding urban poverty over the only work they have ever known is a testament to how bad the situation has become.

For those who remain, the next few months will be critical.

More at the link.

_____
The failing rains...This is the main concern behind climate change in East Africa. The rains are successively failing with temperatures increasing. Malnutrition then increases as does water scarcity and disease. In the past even though this area was susceptible to drought, it was not as sustained/severe as this and at least farmers got enough rains even small to grow grass and crops. This is now changing and is important because if this keeps up this land will be unsustainable for life.This is also the crux behind migration due to climate changes and being prepared. Governments on the whole have done an entirely inadequate job of placing the attention on this that needs be. In fact many governments in these countries are actually selling off more land to foreign countries to be cleared to grow biofuel crops and crops used as animal feed, thus decreasing land needed for food and forests and increasing the exceleration of climate change. This is for sure a viscious cycle with many lives at stake.

Drought linked to warming of Indian Ocean due to human behavior

"Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011" seeks to gut the Clean Water Act

2011-06-26T11:45:00.000-07:00

Leave The Clean Water Act Alone

When the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972, the need was desperately apparent. Rivers were catching on fire. Pollution choked waterways. Most rivers and streams weren't safe to swim in. For some reason, Rep. Nick Rahall is supporting an effort by the coal industry and other major polluters to turn the page back to those days.

Enforcement of the Clean Water Act has kept billions of pounds of toxic chemicals and other pollutants out of America's waterways.

A bill quietly working its way through Congress, H.B. 2018, the "Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011," would undo decades of progress and render the Clean Water Act all but useless.

The bill -- supported by both Rahall and Rep. Shelley Moore Capito -- strikes at two vital provisions of the Clean Water Act. First, it would strip the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of the ability to make states improve deficient water quality standards. The EPA could no longer withdraw approval of state programs, limit financial assistance or object to specific permits because of inadequate water quality standards enforced by the state.

An analysis of the legislation by the EPA says, the bill would prohibit the agency from revising water quality standards without buy-in from the state "even in the face of significant scientific information demonstrating threats to human health or aquatic life."

Second, the bill essentially allows a state to overrule a determination by EPA scientists that a dredge and fill permit could harm municipal water supplies, fishing, wildlife or recreation areas.

This bill would turn the Clean Water Act on its head, giving states the right to allow less stringent protection of the nation's waterways.

Together, these two provisions would lead to a race to the bottom in places like West Virginia where industry holds substantial sway over state regulatory agencies. The entire point of the Clean Water Act is to ensure a nationwide clean water standard because the waters of this nation are a shared resource.

more at the link
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Rahall Congressional Website

Moore-Capito Congressional Website

Waterways don't end at state borders. Passage of this would be lethal for the health of people in this country, particularly in areas where coal mining is going on. Their offices need to be bombarded.

This is a short segment from a 1972 documentary entitled, 'The Gifts' which was narrated by actor Lorne Greene. This is what they wish to bring us back to. I don't care if you are a Republican or a Democrat you cannot look at this and tell me you support this. Where has our collective morality as a nation gone? Where our environment is concerned there should be no such thing as partisan politics. I will be posting a commentary about this on the blog as you all know how close to my heart this is and also sending it on to them as well. I have seen the strides the Clean Water Act has made. I am not about to sacrifice the present and future health of our children and environment to these selfish raiths for one more day. They must know how so very wrong this is.

Congressional Bill Eases Restrictions On Pesticide Spraying Near Waterways

2011-06-26T11:28:00.000-07:00

Congressional Bill Eases Restrictions On Pesticide Spraying Near Waterways
Pesticide spraying near streams to expand under Congressional bill
source: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2011/06/house-bill-senate-agriculture-committee-p...

A bill allowing pesticide manufacturers and users to avoid the Clean Water Act permitting process passed in the Senate Agriculture Committee today.

If passed in the Senate, bill H.R. 872 lets farmers spray pesticides near public waters without having to meet Clean Water Act permitting requirements.

A 2007 EPA rule allowing all pesticides listed in the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) to be exempted from Clean Water Act permitting requirements was reversed by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2009.

The amendment, on its way to the Senate floor, reinstates the exemptions, effectively skirting the legal battles over whether pesticide residue is a chemical waste that can be regulated as a pollutant under the Act.

Growers, ranchers and others have highlighted the regulation as an example of unnecessary federal bureaucracy, while environmentalists supported it as a hedge against over-use of chemicals that may be perilous to aquatic life and to drinking water.

“The Committee sided with the pesticide industry and against our health and the health of our waters by eliminating all Clean Water Act protections of our rivers, lakes and streams against pesticide pollution,” said Natural Resources Defense Council staff attorney Mae Wu.

FIFRA is a federal pesticide law used by the Environment Protection Agency to evaluate whether the pesticide a manufacturer wants to sell is safe. A manufacturer cannot sell or use a pesticide until the EPA registers it. Manufacturers, such DOW, Monsanto and DuPont, have to prove their pesticide will not cause “unreasonable adverse effects on the environment.” The EPA takes these results into account before giving the OK. The Clean Water Act is more specific, requiring a pesticide user intending to spray into or near a body of water to apply for a permit. The permit requires the pesticide user to consider alternatives before spraying.

The Clean Water Act aims to minimize pesticide use, whereas FIFRA allows companies to use the maximum amount of a pesticide that would not cause unreasonable and adverse effects. Under FIFRA, if the EPA OKs a pesticide, and that pesticide is used near water, no Clean Water Act permit has to be issued.

“FIFRA is weak when holding companies accountable,” said Mae Wu. “With the Clean Water Act, if you violate a permit, spray pesticides near water and unintentionally kill a species , then you can be sued.”

Wu said if H.R. 872 passes, “companies can do whatever they want” and no longer will have to answer to Clean Water Act requirements. Monsanto and DuPont officials were not immediately available for comment. Bob Stallman, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, said in a press release in March that H.R. 872 would eliminate “another regulatory hoop” for people who apply legally registered pesticides.

More at the link
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With this entry and one other you will see what is now taking place in our bought and sold US Congress. A concerted attack on the Clean Water Act to strip away all restrictions for corporations to pollute our waterways. This is an egregious admittance that our government no longer works for the people and their best interests and health, nor does it care for the health of our water resources.

This will only change when we demand it. I am adding the names of the committee members here and ask you to please contact them if you care about what toxic substances are being released into your waterways. Reports state that this year's Gulf of Mexico dead zone will be the largest. We are not the only species affected by these laws.

Debbie Stabenow, Michigan
Chairwoman

Pat Roberts, Kansas
Ranking Member
Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont

Richard G. Lugar, Indiana

Tom Harkin, Iowa

Thad Cochran, Mississippi

Kent Conrad, North Dakota

Mitch McConnell, Kentucky

Max Baucus, Montana

Saxby Chambliss, Georgia

E. Benjamin Nelson, Nebraska

Mike Johanns, Nebraska

Sherrod Brown, Ohio

John Boozman, Arkansas*

Robert Casey, Jr., Pennsylvania

Charles Grassley, Iowa

Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota

John Thune, South Dakota

Michael Bennet, Colorado

John Hoeven, North Dakota*

Kirsten Gillibrand, New York

Agriculture Committee Site

I'm writing to the members of the committee.

Italy's public says no to water privatization and nuclear power

2011-06-13T18:50:00.000-07:00

Italy's People Say No To Water Privatization

A huge victory for water rights and the environment. The people globally are speaking out. This is so good!

World Oceans Day: Celebrating the source of all life on Earth

2011-06-08T12:52:00.001-07:00

Today is World Oceans Day which is a day of celebrating the oceans of our planet and reflection on our mistreatment of them. Without oceans all life on Earth would cease. They drive our climate and weather and the web of life from the tiniest plankton to the largest whale, each species with a distinct part to play in our web of life.

They are mystical, beautiful, peaceful and colorful, but now also polluted, overfished, toxified, overdrilled, over saturated with Co2, depleted of oxygen, overheated and used as trash cans by humans who do not truly appreciate nor understand the wonder of it all.

So today if you can, try to give a thought to the oceans and their majesty and reflect on what you have done to allow the continued killing of them and just what will be left for future generations to enjoy, explore and survive.

The oceans are our lifeline. And we have forgotten.

Water is Life.

Island Nations Looking To Maintain Sovereignty If Lands Become Uninhabitable Due To Sea Level Rise

2011-05-29T20:29:00.000-07:00

Island Nations Looking To Maintain Sovereignty If Lands Become Uninhabitable Due To Sea Level Rise

Global sea level rise has put a handful of nations at risk of extinction -- small island states in the Pacific and Indian oceans. But this week, a collection of international lawyers and politicians have begun work to ensure that doesn't happen.

They can't prevent what many scientists see as the physical inevitability: a rise in ocean levels of 1 to 2 meters (3 to 6 feet) by 2100, even if all greenhouse gas emitting into the atmosphere were to cease tomorrow. Rather, they are exploring ways to use existing formal and informal rules that would allow many nations to continue as legal entities entitled to ocean fishing and mineral exploration rights, even if their entire populations were forced to relocate elsewhere.

The tiny nations of the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati and more are among those at most risk in the Pacific. These atoll nations are among the lowest-lying in the world, and should their archipelagos not completely submerge, it's likely that rising sea levels and extreme saltwater flooding will permanently damage freshwater supplies and destroy agriculture, making them uninhabitable. The Maldives and Seychelles in the Indian Ocean face the same risks.

But at a three-day discussion on their legal options at Columbia University, wrapping up today, scholars are pointing out ways that these states can still maintain an identity and international legal authority, even as they lose all their habitable territory.

"It's important to maintain a government that can defend its interests in the international arena," advised international law expert Jenny Grote Stoutenburg of the University of California, Berkeley.

Creating a new field of law

Conceived last year by the government of the Marshall Islands, this week's three-day seminar on "Legal Implications of Rising Seas and a Changing Climate" is the first to gather experts together to develop a formal body of knowledge that can guide the most vulnerable nations, should their worst fears become reality.

Hosted by Columbia Law School, the event drew hundreds of international law experts, maritime lawyers, government officials and diplomats from distant island states and representatives from the United States, Australia, South Korea and more. The United Nations has yet to take up the sensitive topic, but the large number of U.N. officials participating in the talks suggested that the world body eventually will.

"There's been a certain amount of academic discourse on some of these issues, and certainly at the U.N. climate negotiations there is some talk of them, but the General Assembly hasn't taken any action on these questions," noted Michael Gerrard, head of the Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School.

The questions are serious ones, and at the same time intellectually interesting.

What happens to the people forced to relocate, and what is their citizenship status? Do their governments survive, and if so, do they retain their full seats at the United Nations, even though they have no habitable land to control? And do they still control the fisheries and mineral rights to the surrounding seas they now enjoy, or do those become international waters?

end of excerpt
____________

It is good to finally see this being addressed. What will happen to those who will need to move due to such events as sea level rise, erosion, subsidence, salt intrusion that destroys agriculture, etc., making their land uninhabitable? How would they be assimilated into society? We have already seen instances in the Pacific where people of island nations were refused entry to Australia. In a world of overpopulation and scarcer resouces, millions of people needing to move in the future due to the effects of this will be a huge crisis.

This is crucial because it is about nations that go under water still being able to retain their international sovereignty in the face of losing the land their nation was represented by. Questions will arise regarding citizenship status, laws, culture of the land, resources they used for their livelihoods and their very identity. This opens up legal questions we have have never had to consider on such a huge scale. One of those questions for me is compensation. Would those who say, farmed agricultural lands now submerged be entitled to compensation for lands lost to the seas through climate change? If so, from whom? Rich nations that contributed to the effects? So I suppose the question really is, if a country sinks under the ocean, is it still considered a country? Is a country defined by its land, or its people?

The Inuit people of the Arctic are losing their home as well (also to expanded exploration and proposed oil drilling), andi t is all they have known for centuries. Where would they go and how would they survive in a world they have never known and cannot make a living in? This is so huge and we have been so remiss in not even considering the world that will result from this. We really need to be planning for the future instead of funding useless "wars", and I do fear many will be lost.

It will be an uncertain future for those affected by the worst of this. It comes down to our responsibility to our fellow man. Can we look beyond the politics of it to see the humanity in it? I hope, but have my doubts. There are already climate refugees in places that are going dry and the MSM says nothing.

This crisis is the test of the true moral courage and humanity of the human species.

China Facing Worst Drought In Half A Century

2011-05-25T14:01:00.000-07:00

China Facing Worst Drought In Half A Century

Central China’s worst drought in more than 50 years is drying reservoirs and stalling rice planting, and threatens crippling power shortages as hydroelectric output slows, state media said yesterday.

Rainfall levels from January to last month in the drainage basin of the Yangtze, China’s longest and most economically important river, have been 40 percent lower than average levels of the past 50 years, the China Daily said.

The national flood and drought control authority has ordered the Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest hydroelectric project, to increase its discharge of water by 10 percent to 20 percent for the next two weeks.

The measure is aimed at sending badly needed water to the Yangtze’s middle and lower reaches for drinking and irrigation.

Watermarks in more than 1,300 reservoirs in Hubei Province, where the dam is located, have dropped below allowable discharge levels for irrigation, the paper quoted Hubei Reservoir Management Director Yuan Junguang (袁俊光) as saying.

Rainfall in some areas is as much as 80 percent lower than usual, while the provinces of Anhui, Jiangsu, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi and Zhejiang along with Shanghai municipality are mired in their worst droughts since 1954.

“Without adequate water, we lost the spring planting season for rice,” Hubei farmer Zhou Xingtao was quoted as saying.

The paper said many other farmers in Hubei have lost their existing crops or given up on planting summer rice, fearing the emergency water supplies will be inadequate to sustain their fields, with more hot and dry weather forecast.

The agricultural impact is likely to further alarm officials already trying to tame high prices of key items such as food.

China — and the Yangtze river region in particular — is prone to the alternating threats of crippling drought followed by devastating flooding.

Just last summer, sustained torrential rainfall across the region caused widespread flooding and even some concern over whether the giant Three Gorges Dam would be able to contain the deluge.

More than 3,000 people were reported killed in the flooding and related landslides.

Nearly every year, some part of China suffers its worst drought in decades, and meteorological officials have said previously the extreme weather may be because of climate change.

The State Grid, China’s state-owned power distributor, reportedly said this week that 10 of its provincial-level power grids were suffering severe shortages because of the drought’s impact on hydroelectric generation, including grids in Shanghai and the heavily populated southwestern Chongqing region.

China could face a summer electricity shortage of 30 gigawatts — the most severe power shortfall since 2004, the company said. (end of excerpt.)

Just take stock of all of the places globally affected now by biodistress resulting in erratic rainfall patterns and storms causing destruction of agriculture that is helping to bring prices up. And connect that to the movements of companies like Monsanto salivating for biodistress to worsen so they can make a killing on pushing GM wheat and chemicals and their biopirated seeds to "save the world." I am not one to believe off hand that everything is a conspiracy, but this has all the earmarks of one. This is one big reason why oil and big ag lobbies are against any sort of move to address climate change. They stand to make BIG money from other peoples' misery with terminator seeds and imputs that will simply perpetuate the very climate change we should be addressing in a monoculture world, and in the process they will own the available potable water as well. And this also illustrates the futility of dams in places where such droughts are possible/common. We need solar power! We need to conserve water! We need food sovereignty!

When the water ends: Africa's climate conflicts

2011-05-14T13:27:00.000-07:00

When the water ends:Africa's climate conflicts

This is now reaching a point where climate related conflicts are also occurring amongst tribes. Water evaporation, decreasing water levels, drought, desertification, all leading to lack of crops, death of livestock and fish and the pastoralist culture being drastically affected by the changing climate. This will lead to climate refugees and already is, but many times it is the men who leave, leaving behind the women and children in order to look for a better place while the women are left trying to deal with the consequences.

Africa, Asia and the Middle East are cited as areas where water scarcity will only be getting much worse as the effects become more pronounced. It really does make all of these wars seem so meaningless when we could be using our resources to better mankind instead, no? Also remember, in these areas of Africa culture and tradition are big parts of their lives, with many not understanding what climate change is all about. People will not be able to help themselves if education is not part of this equation and they continue to live in countries with political corruption that allows the privitzation of what little resources they already have. These include landgrabs taking place by multinationals in collusion with other governments and organizations to grow biofuel and megadams which many times move water away from where it is needed most.

Dr. Vandana Shiva and Maude Barlow On The Rights Of Mother Earth

2011-04-23T13:51:00.000-07:00

This week the United Nations General Assembly discussed international standards that grant nature equal rights to humans. Similar protocols have been adopted by over a dozen U.S. municipalities, as well as Bolivia and Ecuador. Renowned environmentalists Maude Barlow and Vandana Shiva join us. Says Shiva, "Most civilizations of the world, for most of human history, have seen the world in terms of relatedness and connection,” says Shiva. "And if there’s one thing the rights of Mother Earth is waking us to, is: we are all connected." [includes rush transcript]

Dr. Vandana Shiva and Maude Barlow on the Rights of Mother Earth

______________
Dr. Shiva is correct. We have to stop this "environmental apartheid" we practice and finally realize that we are connected to nature and work with her in order to preserve this planet and us. That is especially true regarding water, which is slowly replacing oil as a tool for war and a weapon of oppression. Once you sever your relationship with the resource it no longer is respected and becomes only a "commodity" to be used for profit that serves no good purpose. Current events are dictating to us that unless we reconnect and work harder to stand up for the true things of worth in this world we will lose it all. Recognizing the rights of Mother Earth is a first step to the goal of this realization.

Environment at risk as parched Jordan taps water

2011-04-06T13:55:00.000-07:00

Environment at risk as parched Jordan taps water

Excerpt:

"In its desperate efforts to battle chronic water shortages, Jordan, one of the world's 10 driest countries, is mulling "unconventional" and "environmentally unfriendly" plans, experts say. The challenge is huge for this tiny country where desert covers 92 percent of the territory and the population of 6.3 million is growing.

Critics say the government's efforts to manage the country's limited water resources and generate new ones are being hindered by a strategy which at best is chaotic. Jordan is tapping into the ancient southern Disi aquifer, despite concerns about high levels of radiation, while studies are underway to build a controversial canal from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea. "Unconventional projects, like Disi for example, are environmentally unfriendly," water expert Dureid Mahasneh, a former Jordan Valley Authority chief, told AFP. The 990-million-dollar project seeks to extract 100 million cubic metres (3.5 billion cubic feet) of water a year from the 300,000-year-old Disi aquifer, 325 kilometres (200 miles) south of Amman, officials say. The plan is to provide the capital Amman with water for 50 years, said water ministry official Bassam Saleh, who is in charge of the project that was launched in 2008 and is due to be completed in 2012.

A 2008 study by Duke University, in the United States, shows that Disi's water has 20times more radiation than is considered safe, with radium content that could trigger cancers. "Our research shows that the Disi aquifer is heavily contaminated with radium," according to the study done by the Durham, North Carolina team which tested 37 pumping wells in the aquifer. Mahasneh said "Disi water should not be touched." "How can you go for a non-renewable water resource that is contaminated with radiation and needs treatment?" But the government has brushed aside such concerns. "We know there is radiation in Disi because it is underground water but we will treat it by diluting it with an equal amount of water from other sources," said Saleh. Jordan University professor Elias Salameh agreed. "The radioactivity can be treated, and it is not a complicated matter."

Munqeth Mehyar, of the Jordanian-Israeli-Palestinian non-governmental group Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME), warned against abusing the water resource. "If we overpump the Disi water, we will suffer from problems like sinkholes for example. And there are no studies that tell you for sure how long the aquifer water would last," he said. Jordan has also agreed in principle to build, along with its Palestinian and Israeli neighbours, a four-billion-dollar pipeline from the Red Sea to refill the rapidly shrinking Dead Sea. But the world's lowest and saltiest body of water lies below the Red Sea and the pipeline must cross higher land in order to reach it -- a project that will entail a major pumping effort. A desalination plant would also be built to remove the salt and provide 200 million cubic metres of potable water to Jordan each year.

"This project is worrisome. It will cause indescribable damage," Mehyar warned. A feasibility study is being carried out by the World Bank but environmentalists fear that an influx of seawater could undermine the Dead Sea's fragile ecosystem. The degradation of the Dead Sea began in the 1960s when Israel, Jordan and Syria began to divert water from the Jordan River -- the Dead Sea's main supplier. Over the years 95 percent of the river's flow has been diverted by the three neighbours for agricultural and industrial use, with Israel alone diverts more than 60 percent of it, according to FoEME. The impact on the Dead Sea has been compounded by a drop in groundwater levels as rain water from surrounding mountains dissolved salt deposits that had previously plugged access to underground caverns. Industrial and tourist operations around the shores of the lake exacerbate the situation.

____

This is where you see the extent of water scarcity when every option open to you is at a chokepoint. Mismanagement, agricultural waste, human waste, overpopulation, biodistress. All made by humans. This is about us and our will to truly want to change this situation globally.

And it is now a hard choice for Jordan with radiation, polluted waterways and a project that may well cause more environmental harm than good. This is the price we will pay for human arrogance, and in this case there is no definitive solution that will truly benefit the people as a whole. It is truly sad.

Ancient Petra Meets Modern Amman In Water Battle

Commemoration of World Water Day-March 22nd-Water for Cities

2011-03-21T17:20:00.000-07:00

World Water Day-2011

This year's theme for World Water Day is Water For Cities. More people are moving to urban areas, the majority of this migration taking place in the developing world. This is in part due to expansion of corporate landgrabs, deforestation, overpopulation and effects of biodistress that push people into urban areas looking for a way to survive as agriculture which is the main way of life is impacted greatly.

Three quarters of our population is predicted to be living in cities by 2050 which will put a tremendous strain on infrastructure, water quality, water access and sanitation, which then leads to an increase in waterborne diseases.

Access to clean water is the moral challenge of our time and our right. So please, tomorrow take time to reflect upon the importance of clean water, water access and sanitation for those in our world lacking it. We take so much for granted here in America regarding water and the ability to have sanitation that leads to better health.

This site lists events globally and I will be posting about events in this thread as well as listing organizations working to provide clean water and sanitation and how you can help, as well as other entries about the importance of this most beautiful life giving resource.

Please feel free also to add poems, videos, comments, etc. about water here and make a pledge that for this and the next generation we will work to see all with clean water that revives our bodies and souls. This is one way that can lead people out of poverty and into a world of health and peace.

Thank you

First Tidal Wave Energy Farm To Be Built In Islay, Scotland

2011-03-18T18:45:00.001-07:00

First Tidal Wave Energy Farm To Be Built In Islay, Scotland

Excerpt:

"THE world's first tidal power project is to be built in the Sound of Islay, after approval was given by the Scottish Government.
The £40 million scheme will be able to generate electricity for more than 5,000 homes - double the number on Islay.

The ten-turbine, 10MW facility, being developed by ScottishPower Renewables, will further develop emerging tidal energy technology
ADVERTISEMENTand is seen as a forerunner for much larger projects in the Pentland Firth.

Plans are under way to generate 1,600MW of marine energy in the firth, off Caithness, following the world's first commercial wave and tidal leasing round announced last year.

The approval of the Islay scheme was announced yesterday by finance secretary John Swinney, who determined the application as it is in energy minister Jim Mather's Argyll and Bute constituency.

Mr Swinney said it was the world's only project of its kind with consent.

He added: "With around a quarter of Europe's potential tidal energy resource and a tenth of the wave capacity, Scotland's seas have unrivalled potential to generate green energy, create new, low-carbon jobs, and bring billions of pounds of investment to Scotland."

Other Scottish firms in the supply chain are set to benefit from £4m worth of contracts in making the turbines to be used in the development, including manufacture of a prototype at BiFab in Arnish, near Stornoway.

The site in the Sound of Islay, between the island and Jura, was chosen for its strong and predictable tidal flow, while being naturally protected from storms."
_________________
The sun, wind and water produce enough energy all around us to provide for our needs for many years to come. Instead, we seek to desimate our natural environment for false choices through drilling her, poking her and sucking her lifeblood out. This to me is insanity and is one reason why the human species will never be at peace on Earth as we have not made peace with her. Ventures such as tidal energy seek to live in harmony with the water and allow her life energy to be used for good. In watching the tragedy and nuclear disaster in Japan unfolding one cannot help but be struck with such a sense of dumbfoundedness in wondering why countries continue to insist on nuclear energy when it is so dangerous to all life on Earth and when there are cleaner, healthier and more sustainable ways to create energy. Kudos to Scotland for seeing the potential of the water, the sun and the wind and for being a country that truly understands what it means to work for a sustainable future.

Reefs At Risk Revisited: Forward By Al Gore

2011-03-09T13:54:00.000-08:00

Reefs At Risk Revisited

Excerpt:

"This report provides a detailed assessment of the status of and threats to the world’s coral reefs. It evaluates threats to coral reefs from a wide range of human activities, and includes an assessment of climate-related threats to reefs. It also contains a global assessment of the vulnerability of nations and territories to coral reef degradation."

Vice President Gore's forward:

"As anyone who has spent time around the ocean knows–whether diving, conducting research, or fishing–coral reefs are among the world’s greatest sources of beauty and wonder. Home to over 4,000 species of fish and 800 types of coral, reefs offer an amazing panorama of underwater life.

Coral reefs supply a wide range of important benefits to communities around the world. From the fisherman in Indonesia or Tanzania who relies on local fish to feed his family, to the scientist in Panama who investigates the medicinal potential of reef- related compounds, reefs provide jobs, livelihoods, food, shelter, and protection for coastal communities and the shorelines along which they live.

Unfortunately, reefs today are facing multiple threats from many directions. 2010 was one of the warmest years on record, causing widespread damage to coral reefs. Warmer oceans lead to coral bleaching, which is becoming increasingly frequent around the globe–leaving reefs, fish, and the communities who depend on these resources at great risk. No one yet knows what the long-term impacts of this bleaching will be. But, if the ocean’s waters keep warming, the outlook is grim.

Against this backdrop, the World Resources Institute has produced Reefs at Risk Revisited, a groundbreaking new analysis of threats to the world’s coral reefs. This report builds on WRI’s seminal 1998 report, Reefs at Risk, which served as a call to action for policymakers, scientists, nongovernmental organizations, and industry to confront one of the most pressing, though poorly understood, environmental issues. That report played a critical role in raising awareness and driving action, inspiring countless regional projects, stimulating greater funding, and providing motivation for new policies to protect marine areas and mitigate risks.

However, much has changed since 1998–including an increase in the world’s population, and with it greater consumption, trade, and tourism. Rising economies in the developing world have led to more industrialization, more agricultural development, more commerce, and more and more greenhouse gas emissions. All of these factors have contributed to the need to update and refine the earlier report.

The latest report builds on the original Reefs at Risk in two important ways. First, the map-based assessment uses the latest global data and satellite imagery, drawing on a reef map that is 64 times more detailed than in the 1998 report. The second major new component is our greater understanding of the effects of climate change on coral reefs. As harmful as overfishing, coastal development, and other local threats are to reefs, the warming planet is quickly becoming the chief threat to the health of coral reefs around the world. Every day, we dump 90 million tons of carbon pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet–roughly one-third of it goes into the ocean, increasing ocean acidification.

Coral reefs are harbingers of change. Like the proverbial “canary in the coal mine,” the degradation of coral reefs is a clear sign that our dangerous overreliance on fossil fuels is already changing Earth’s climate. Coral reefs are currently experiencing higher ocean temperatures and acidity than at any other time in at least the last 400,000 years. If we continue down this path, all corals will likely be threatened by mid-century, with 75 percent facing high to critical threat levels.

Reefs at Risk Revisited reveals a new reality about coral reefs and the increasing stresses they are under. It should serve as a wake-up call for policymakers and citizens around the world. By nature, coral reefs have proven to be resilient and can bounce back from the effects of a particular threat. But, if we fail to address the multiple threats they face, we will likely see these precious ecosystems unravel, and with them the numerous benefits that people around the globe derive from these ecological wonders. We simply cannot afford to let that happen."

____
There are those who are also trying to save coral reefs around the world but the picture is not as positive as it should be. Showing reality is what is needed to shake people to understanding how far reaching the effects of anthropogenic biodistress are in pushing the Earth's envelope. We need to show the truth while explaining that for the future we will need to do things differently in order to save what we have in the hope that we can salvage some of what we have worked to destroy through pollution, acidification and bleaching. The web of life depends on that as the oceans are indeed our lifeline.

I too am sad for so many things that our children and their children may not get to experience which is why it angers me to see the same lies constantly perpetuated just to salvage certain selfish agendas. We have allowed this conversation to become too bombarded with misinformation from denialists and oil company rep plants on the Internet, the media and elsewhere that is disingenuous and dangerous. We have to fight this because our children need to know what lies ahead in order to have the courage they will need to work towards restoring this planet's sustainability and biodiversity. The current state of our world illustrates a failure on the part of humanity that is absolutely unacceptable, but hopefully reversible.

How much of a wake up call do we need?

What does the Arab world do when their water runs out?

2011-02-21T18:14:00.000-08:00

What does the Arab world do when their water runs out?

Excerpt:

"Water usage in north Africa and the Middle East is unsustainable and shortages are likely to lead to further instability – unless governments take action to solve the impending crisis

• Failure to act on crop shortages fuelling political instability

John Vidal The Observer, Sunday 20 February 2011
Poverty, repression, decades of injustice and mass unemployment have all been cited as causes of the political convulsions in the Middle East and north Africa these last weeks. But a less recognised reason for the turmoil in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen, Jordan and now Iran has been rising food prices, directly linked to a growing regional water crisis.

The diverse states that make up the Arab world, stretching from the Atlantic coast to Iraq, have some of the world's greatest oil reserves, but this disguises the fact that they mostly occupy hyper-arid places. Rivers are few, water demand is increasing as populations grow, underground reserves are shrinking and nearly all depend on imported staple foods that are now trading at record prices.

For a region that expects populations to double to more than 600 million within 40 years, and climate change to raise temperatures, these structural problems are political dynamite and already destabilising countries, say the World Bank, the UN and many independent studies.

In recent reports they separately warn that the riots and demonstrations after the three major food-price rises of the last five years in north Africa and the Middle East might be just a taste of greater troubles to come unless countries start to share their natural resources, and reduce their profligate energy and water use.

"In the future the main geopolitical resource in the Middle East will be water rather than oil. The situation is alarming," said Swiss foreign minister Micheline Calmy-Rey last week, as she launched a Swiss and Swedish government-funded report for the EU.

The Blue Peace report examined long-term prospects for seven countries, including Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, the Palestinian territories and Israel. Five already suffer major structural shortages, it said, and the amount of water being taken from dwindling sources across the region cannot continue much longer.

"Unless there is a technological breakthrough or a miraculous discovery, the Middle East will not escape a serious [water] shortage," said Sundeep Waslekar, a researcher from the Strategic Foresight Group who wrote the report.

Autocratic, oil-rich rulers have been able to control their people by controlling nature and have kept the lid on political turmoil at home by heavily subsidising "virtual" or "embedded" water in the form of staple grains imported from the US and elsewhere.

But, says Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East programme at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic Studies, existing political relationships are liable to break down when, as now, the price of food hits record levels and the demand for water and energy soars.

"Water is a fundamental part of the social contract in Middle Eastern countries. Along with subsidised food and fuel, governments provide cheap or even free water to ensure the consent of the governed. But when subsidised commodities have been cut, instability has often followed.

"Water's own role in prompting unrest has so far been relatively limited, but that is unlikely to hold. Future water scarcity will be much more permanent than past shortages, and the techniques governments have used in responding to past disturbances may not be enough," he says.

"The problem will only get worse. Arab countries depend on other countries for their food security – they're as sensitive to floods in Australia and big freezes in Canada as on the yield in Algeria or Egypt itself," says political analyst and Middle East author Vicken Cheterian.

"In 2008/9, Arab countries' food imports cost $30bn. Then, rising prices caused waves of rioting and left the unemployed and impoverished millions in Arab countries even more exposed. The paradox of Arab economies is that they depend on oil prices, while increased energy prices make their food more expensive," says Cheterian.

The region's most food- and water-insecure country is Yemen, the poorest in the Arab world, which gets less than 200 cubic metres of water per person a year – well below the international water poverty line of 1,000m3 – and must import 80-90% o f its food.

According to Mahmoud Shidiwah, chair of the Yemeni water and environment protection agency, 19 of the country's 21 main aquifers are no longer being replenished and the government has considered moving Sana'a, the capital city, with around two million people, which is expected to run dry within six years.

"Water shortages have increased political tensions between groups. We have a very big problem," he says."
_________________________

The point here is that water scarcity is an underlying cause of much of the unrest in this area of the world, only it is not getting the attention and press it needs in order to be dealt with. Governments would rather privitize it and much of it is polluted beyond the ability to be used. Even desalination in this area is proving costly. I am amazed that the word "conservation" never gets mentioned in addressing this crisis, and that is part of the problem. I would hope that the available sources would be shared equitably, but as we now see Turkey and Israel are the water bosses of the Middle East, and they control a large part of the water being used ( much of it now diverted for dams.) Also, we see many dams being built in Africa with hydropower becoming a source of energy that cannot be sustained in a land where drought and population growth are already straining agriculture along with the effects of biodistress (climate change.)

We need to address population and water usage in line with polluton of this resource that is now unsustainable. We also need to bring energy sources to these areas that do not consume huge amounts of water that should be used for growing food and addressing the needs of people in these areas. I have always contended that there was a MAD scenario to the water crisis in that no country would ever do anything to harm the source of another as it would come back on them. However, from what I have seen recently regarding unwillingness of upstream countries to share equitably with downstream countries, this crisis is becoming more and more contentious not only in the Middle East but in Asia and Africa.

Mideast News/Water Wars

The information here is a bit dated (1994) but the predictions to 2025 are coming true. Countries in this region have all stated that the one resource they will wage war over is water. And with this area already being arid now contending with longer replenishment rates due to climate change affecting the hydrologic cycle along with wasteful irrigation and drought where there is little potable water and higher populations, we will only see more protests along these lines as well as protesting higher food prices, unemployment and political corruption. Water is the 400 lb. gorilla in the room.

Survival of our species depends on taking this SERIOUSLY.
And this is not about politics or religion. This is about humanity.

Please pass this on-Sick children in the Gulf

2011-02-21T18:07:00.000-08:00

We must be the media since this has been totally blacked out. BP has killed the Gulf, and now the residents there are feeling the effects of Corexit and the oil which has not all disappeared contrary to what you may have read.

This is criminal. Please pass this on.

Droughts, Floods and Food

2011-02-08T11:25:00.001-08:00

Droughts, Floods and Food

A well written piece by Paul Krugman appeared in the NY Times yesterday where he gives a truthful view on the current protests we are seeing in relation to food prices and world weather events and the effects of climate change. I have been reporting and writing about sustainable agriculture here for a couple of years now primarily in regards to the effects of climate, speculation, world policy regarding loans and food grown for export, types of sustainable agricultural practices, seed patents and the effects of monoculture GMOs on the world's economy, health, environment and food sovereignty.

It is no overstatement to state that we are in a climate/food crisis. Recent events in Australia, Russia, China, Africa and Latin America for example have not only been a part of rising prices but also in giving us a glimpse of what life will be like in a warming world. Agriculture, its cultivation, its very existence is under threat by an ongoing assault of erratic and intensifiying weather/climate events, pesticides, expansive and destructive industrial agricultural policies and practices that see more land going to growing non food items, lack of food access and the effects of GMOs and the transgenic contamination they bring which has already affected not only the traditional corn varieties of Mexico's culture and livelihood, but crops around the world which works against what we must now be doing to save our agriculture.

As we look to the future our ability to provide for our needs is being made much harder by our own actions. As we see our population approaching a projected 9 billion within the next several decades we must begin to seriously understand the role our actions play in the world we see before us, and the world we will leave successive generations. The ability to feed ourselves and plant seeds that preserve our global biodiversity is being attacked by those who would profit from both their ownership and their demise.

In this century there will be no greater challenge to our species than working to preserve the planet that provides our food, our water, and our lives. What Mr. Krugman states here is not to be taken lightly. Climate change is indeed upon us, and its reach goes far beyond the political differences that have kept this urgent crisis from being faced as it must be now. The protests in Egypt and around the world are warning signs as well as hopeful signs. If we do not deal with the root causes of this crisis including and most importantly climate change, the world of our making will not be one we will be able to inhabit. This does come down to the very seeds we plant in our soils, and in our consciences.

The Perfect Genetic Storm: Synthetic DNA and the Gulf Blue Plague

2011-01-25T15:29:00.000-08:00

The Perfect Genetic Storm: Synthetic DNA and the Gulf Blue Plague

Excerpt:

The latest development in the Gulf is how an incomprehensible bacterium is remarkably eating up the methane gas. It appears that engineered designer genes have also been used to remove the gas just as they have been used to consume the oil. The common denominator is that neither of these microbes are natural microorganisms. This should come as no surprise.

Microbiologist David Valentine at the University of California at Santa Barbara stated,

“Within a matter of months, the bacteria completely removed that methane. The bacteria kicked on more effectively than we expected.”

It sounds to me that this created synthetic genome microbe far exceeded the engineering and programming expectations.

According to a Fox Business report,

“This discovery offered a rare glimpse into the remarkable abilities of an obscure family of microbes in the depths of the Gulf”.

I agree. It is scientifically incomprehensible that any natural microorganism could do this and synthetically engineered microbes are definitely obscure by comparison.

University of Georgia microbiologist Samantha Joye, who has been independently analyzing methane from the Gulf of Mexico, also agrees with me. She said,

“It would take a superhuman microbe to do what they are claiming.”

So it has, Samantha. It was specifically engineered and its “superhuman” genetics were created synthetically.

In a January 7, 2011 article, the UK Register wrote how the scientists were particularly

“surprised at the speed with which the bacteria consumed their enormous meal”.

They also brought up the fact that earlier studies elsewhere in the world suggested methane levels around Deepwater Horizon would be well above normal for years ahead. It’s remarkable what highly engineered designer genes can do.

On January 6, 2011, the Christian Science Monitor reported how the study’s leaders boldly stated that rates of methane decomposition after the Gulf oil spill

“were faster than had ever been recorded in any other place on the planet.”

That’s because these are not natural microbes. You can’t compare apples to grapefruit.

TRACE ELEMENTS ADDED TO THE GULF

In the same CS Monitor report, University of Georgia microbiologist Samantha Joye stated how

“[The Gulf] is not well stocked with trace elements the bacteria need to survive – among them, copper, which bacteria specifically use to deal with the methane. Shortages of copper, as well as other trace elements, likely would have slammed the brakes on the exponential growth in bacterial populations needed to get rid of the methane in fewer than four months.”

The same applies to hydrocarbon-eating bacteria that consume oil, except that iron is needed more than the other trace elements. Since copper and iron are not prevalent mineral elements normally found in the Gulf of Mexico, the synthetic bacterium eating both the oil and the methane would not be able to do so at the remarkable speed they have without such essential earth elements. The only possible way these synthetic bacterium could have done this is by adding the required elements to the Gulf. Spraying a highly dissolved or colloidal mixture of trace elements onto and into the Gulf of Mexico would be absolutely required to accomplish this.

In our October 21, 2010 research article The Gulf BLUE PLAGUE (BP): It’s Not Wise To Fool Mother Nature, we had revealed the abnormally high amounts of elements found in the Gulf and that it was being sprayed along with or separately from the oil dispersants. In August 2010, rain water samples were tested by the Coastal Heritage Society of Louisiana where rain coming directly from the Gulf had unusually high concentrations of iron, copper, nickel, aluminum, manganese, and arsenic.

Without a doubt, the synthetically created bacterium introduced into the Gulf of Mexico to consume the oil and gasses were – and continue to be – fed these essential trace elements. Otherwise, they could not have thrived or reproduced at the accelerated rate they have. The continued spraying in the Gulf by aircraft and by boat is not Corexit or other oil dispersal chemicals. Consider the current spraying to have the same effect of adding liquid fertilizer to your crops.

SYNTHETIC MICROBES MUTATING NATURAL MICROORGANISMS

In early December, 2010 the research vessel WeatherBird II, owned by the University of Southern Florida (USF), went back to the Gulf of Mexico for follow-up water and core samples. As reported by Naomi Klein on January 13, 2011 in Hunting the Ocean for BP’s Missing Millions of Barrels of Oil,

“…these veteran scientists have seen things that they describe as unprecedented …evidence of bizarre sickness in the phytoplankton and bacterial communities…”

This “bizarre sickness” in the indigenous Gulf microorganisms is the direct result of the synthetic microbes that are still creating genetic sicknesses by mutating the DNA of the natural microbes. We had alerted our readers to this in DNA Mutations Confirmed in Gulf of Mexico on September 28, 2010 when we stated,

“DNA mutations are occurring within the Gulf of Mexico at a microscopic cellular level. The obvious effect this has on marine life as well as humans is a Pandora Box of unknowns.”

Tampa Bay Online gave further insight to this in an interview with Dr. John Paul, an oceanography biology professor at USF, regarding the oil plume they had discovered 40 miles off the Florida Panhandle:

It was found to be toxic to microscopic sea organisms, causing mutations to their DNA. If this plankton at the base of the marine food chain is contaminated, it could affect the whole ecosystem of the Gulf.

“The problem with mutant DNA is that it can be passed on and we don’t how this will affect fish or other marine life,” he says, adding that the effects could last for decades.

In Naomi Klein’s article, she describes how Paul introduced healthy bacteria and phytoplankton to Gulf water samples and what happened shocked him. The responses of the organisms “were genotoxic or mutagenic”. According to Paul, what was so “scary” about these results is that such genetic damage was “heritable,” meaning the mutations can be passed on.

Genotoxins pass on genetic changes to successors who have never been exposed to the original gene. Healthy microorganisms are then genetically changed and will pass on their DNA mutations to their descendants. This is a genetic chain-reaction as each mutated microbe interacts with and affects other microorganisms, especially with regards to the food chain:

“…the phytoplankton, the bacteria, and the [microorganisms] that graze on them – the zooplankton – seem to be the most potentially impacted.” – Dr. David Hollander, USF Marine Geochemist: December 6, 2010: Video interview on WeatherBird II.

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"DNA mutations are occurring within the Gulf of Mexico at a microscopic cellular level. The obvious effect this has on marine life as well as humans is a Pandora Box of unknowns.”

Geoengineering the Gulf with mutant bacteria they have not told the public about. Is this why this disappeared so fast from media coverage? Because based on this it is safe to assume this was done deliberately to conduct this experiment. Is this now why BP will continue to make deals to drill in the Arctic and elsewhere, because they can now spill to their heart's content in skirting environmental laws and spending to adhere to safety regulations because they can unleash this genetically mutated synthetic bacteria to eat it all up without revealing the effects it has on our oceans, marinelife and humans? The effects of this are incomprehensible.

Where will the climate refugees go?

2011-01-11T11:52:00.000-08:00

King Tide (Trailer) from Juriaan on Vimeo.

This is not something that we can continue to talk about as happening in the future as if planning for it can be put off. The world has already seen close to half a million people affected by climate change in ways that have made them have to move from their homes and homelands due to sea level rise, drought, and water scarcity which has also effected agriculture. With events becoming more severe and pronouced as the fires In Russia, the flooding in Pakistan and now Australia and severe droughts as we now see in much of Asia, Africa and the Middle East, what does happen when a land is so devastated by continuing climate change that its inhabitants can no longer live there? Where do they go?How does it effect their culture?

This particular video is from a documentary called King Tide and deals with the people of Tuvalu, a small island nation that is already seeing the effects of rising sea levels. In climate conference after climate conference however, the effects of climate change on water have been continually ignored. This even though much of these effects revolve around water and the hydrologic cycle being interfered with by the human actions of fossil fuel use, deforestation, unsustainable agricultural practices (irrigation), dams, water waste, privitization and pollution resulting in sea level rise, glacier melt affecting water scarcity, floods, drought, stronger storms, erratic rainfall, etc.

I don't think it can be stressed enough based on what we are now seeing taking place globally that planning for the future regarding climate refugees is of paramount importance. We can no longer afford to act as though this is going to go away. It isn't. The socio-economic impacts alone of millions of refugees with no place to call home and no where that wants them aside from the inability to provide for them in a world where potable water and available land is shrinking are huge and cannot wait until the floods completely wash out a country or drought dries it into desert. Lives will be lost. This goes beyond politics. This truly is the moral challenge of our generation.

Floods worsen in Australia:

This year will be a challenge for water

2011-01-01T15:41:00.000-08:00

We have seen unsettling changes in the hydrologic cycle and in the world of water in general this past year which have affected economy, health, and agriculture as well as water access. Climate events were the big news in 2010 with droughts, floods, glacier melt and stronger storms (both rain and snow) leading us to the reality that we indeed have entered a period of consequences regarding our climate.

The BP Gulf Oil Ecocide that is now virtually forgotten is still working its evil on the Gulf, with an 80 mile stretch all the way to the bottom of oil with no life present. The Arctic also saw its second lowest ice extent this past November and the melting is affecting ocean currents in line with a La Nina weather event.

Floods are now taking place in the North of Australia that cover an area as big as France and Germany combined that have stranded 200,000 people, with people saying it is now a catastrophe of "biblical" proportions. Pakistan, India, China, Latin America, the Southwest and Northeast US, all examples recently of climate events where the reality of what we are doing to affect the hydrologic cycle is becoming more evident and that is also related to oversaturation of land and oceans with CO2. The proliferation of dams globally is also a factor that we must now also consider regarding our concerns about water access and availability.

As climate change bears down on us water will be affected drastically regarding both access and quality in relation as well to pollution, privitization, politics and outdated infrastructure (which led to Ireland's current water woes.) Yet, governments of the world (Cancun the most recent example with water left out again) are woefully unprepared for the effects bearing down on us as we continue to push out 90 million tons of Co2 along with other GHGs daily which exacerbates the release of methane from permafrost, which then effects the atmosphere, glaciers, all the way to ocean currents which effect our climate in both extremes. And that does not even take into consideration climate refugees which are already beginning to leave lands due to sea level rise, drought, dying of crops, livestock, etc.

How are events like these not in the consciousness of all sentient beings? How can we say Happy New Year unless we are truly resigned to changing the factors that lead us to disasters like these?

In the coming year we must become more involved in seeking water justice, food security and climate justice for all peoples of the world. We can no longer leave it just in the hands of governments in collusion with corporations seeking to profit off the misery of others. The challenges we now face regarding our global water resources are challenges that if not addressed now will bring nothing but hardship for those feeling the effects of climate change the worst, and those who are the prey of interests using land and water for profit at the expense of our planet's sustainability and the cultural/economic sovereignty of those nations.

Therefore, in reviewing the year gone by and looking ahead we must all become part of the Water Justice Movement in whatever way we can. Whether it is in protest, in writing, in educating, in conserving, it is incumbant upon us all to become part of the solution. Seventy percent of our planet is now is some stage of environmental stress. The signs are evident, the message is clear. We can no longer afford to close our eyes, ears and hearts to the work at hand.

In this year I will be working to provide potable water to those in need through organizations that make a difference, as well as standing up for indigenous people of the world in regards to their land and water, writing my book in earnest and doing all I can to conserve. Whatever you do however small you may think it is, just remember that many raindrops together make a flood, only this flood should be one that turns the tide for true water justice, food sovereignty, climate balance and peace.

This year, let's make it happen.

Thank you for all of the support on this blog.

Best wishes,
Jan

The Belo Monte Dam: Destroying The Amazon

2010-12-05T19:43:00.000-08:00

Belo Monte Dam: Amazon Watch

Help preserve their culture.

How unconscienable is this! The Brazilian government is now moving ahead on a project that will result in the construction of the third largest dam in the world in one of the most diverse and ecologically rich areas of the world: the Amazon. It is to be constructed on the Xingu River which is home to the Paquacamba and Arara indigenous peoples.

It will divert 80% of the river from its original course, thus leaving swaths of indigenous land in drought while flooding over 100,000 acres of rainforest and displacing 20- 40,000 people. Once again we see shortsightedness at a time when we need to see the big picture. Hydroelectricity in areas such as this in an age of global warming and drought is a short term solution that will only bring long term consequences to environment, economy, culture, and also the climate balance of the planet.

Solar energy is the one renewable energy source that is most viable here that will also preserve the environment, water resources and culture of the indigenous peoples who call this area their home. This action will then in turn spawn multiple dam projects all the way up the Amazon that will only displace more people when it is not necessary.

It is heartbreaking to see what is being done to the last vestiges of ecological richness that we must preserve for the future. There is still time however to tell the Brazilian government you oppose this. I will post a link below where you can do this.

Thanks.

There are other ways!

Stop The Belo Monte Dam

Earth: What I am thankful for today and everyday

2010-11-25T14:12:00.001-08:00

I have devoted my life to caring about the biodiversity and health of our planet and will continue to do so until the day I die. This Earth, this beautiful amazing orb in a vast universe, the source of all life, is what I am most thankful for today and every day.

I am thankful for its mighty water that is its lifeblood and ours
I am thankful for its soil that preserves and sustains the miracle of our sustenance
I am thankful for the sun that warms us body and soul
I am thankful for the wind that reminds us of its fury and power
I am thankful for all creatures who live in harmony with man
I am thankful for the seed, the most miraculous wonder on Earth.
From one tiny seed we can cultivate life for millions.

May we as humans truly see how much we have to be thankful for every day and come together now to understand that in order to show that thankfulness and to be one with this living Earth, we must treat her with kindness and respect.

Overpumping Drawing Down World's Groundwater Reserves

2010-11-20T20:20:00.000-08:00

Overpumping Drawing Down World's Groundwater Reserves

This is why it is so crucial to have investment in water infrastructure, drip irrigation, rainwater catchement, strict penalties regarding private companies depleting gorundwater resources for profit such as as Coca Cola in India. And also, a climate treaty that takes into account water issues and climate change issues that are intertwined such as glacier melt, floods, and sea level rise as well as drought. What is even more important is educating people as to the hydrologic cycle and how we as humans are now changing its course which must spur conservation. This is the moral crisis of the 21st century.

Blog Action Day: The Global Water Crisis Looms Large Over Our Planet

2010-10-15T11:53:00.000-07:00

It is a tragic scenario we see playing out on our only home. With new predictions from scientists that Arctic glaciers may be gone within 30-40 years and other glaciers around the world melting three times faster than worse case scenarios what are we going to do to preserve the dwindling freshwater resources we are certain to see strained in the next fifteen to twenty years even more than they are now? These glaciers are the water source for over two billion people on our planet and they are shrinking faster every year not only through glacier melt but a melting will to do the right thing and to face this crisis head on.

One-third of the world’s population is now in need of potable water which was a scenario not predicted to happen until around 2025 and which is now predicted to get worse unless things change drastically. There are 2.6 billion people on our planet without even basic sanitation! What does that say about our moral conscience and our priorities? We are nearly twenty years ahead of predictions on the effects of this crisis and yet we are woefully unprepared for the consequences. There is no other way to state this: unless we work to solve this global water crisis now in an equitable way, many of the poor and malnourished in our world where this crisis is most dire will die.

We are reaching the breaking point in many areas of our world due to waste, pollution, mismanagement, lack of water infrastructure, dams, inadequate water infrastructure and privitization which is an inhumane abridgement of global human rights. And now, the ever encroaching spectre of climate change threatens our very relationship to the planet we call home in ways we could not have imagined just thirty years ago. So what accounts for the lack of will in taking this on fully? Apart from political/ideological rancor, I believe it is basic misunderstanding by people (especially in America) that water is an infinite resource that we can continue to use without any concern for tomorrow.

It isn't. And we can't.

Therefore, areas where the poor are looking for a way to not only lift themselves out of poverty but also have a chance at survival must be shown ways to conserve water such as rain catchement, rain agriculture, and effective conservation. This also then ties into people in these areas having information about the climate crisis and its effects and how they can best deal with those effects. The Yellow River basin in China which feeds literally millions of people is just one example of resources exhausted to the point where they can no longer sustain life. Where would those millions of people go?

Just what are we doing?

Is it really that hard to bring better agricultural techniques to farmers in these countries? Is it really that hard to teach them how to deal with the effects of climate change? Is it really that hard to actually do as we say must be done?

* rain water agriculture- cheap, efficient, and saves water.

* rain water catchment (off houses and roads)- cheap, efficient, and saves water. And of course, the health and safety of those using it must also be taken into consideration.

* less water intensive crops farmed sustainably that yield more to give farmers more for their planting.

* pressure bought to bear on governments to shore up water infrastructure and work to eliminate corruption and mismanagement.

* planting trees in the most deforested areas to bring water to the source and provide sustinence.

* also providing information and services for women and men in third world countries regarding birth control and health and basic sanitation.

* and one very important goal, to include water and this crisis in any global climate negotiations!

These are just some ways to begin which are all possible, but like with anything else those involved in it must also feel hope for the future.

As to how that should happen, we need a "Global Water Marshall Plan" (reference to the Honorable Al Gore's term from his book Earth In The Balance) in our world where that truly holds polluters accountable and where we also work to bring water saving energy sources to areas that are parched, drought stricken and in need of water to grow food and live. This brings me to the subject of dam projects which are increasing exponentially in many developing countries in an effort to provide energy, only all they are doing in the process in many instances is taking away water sources from those who need it most to live and displacing millions of people from their homes and cultural centers.

Renewable energy (solar, wind, geothermal) and sustainable agriculture could go hand in hand in saving many people from starvation and death in these areas, but dams are not always the answer nor are they "green." Instead of simply jumping to this as a solution in order to make governments and contractors profit, we need to assess more accurately the true needs of the areas in question and work with the people of these areas taking their imput into account. There is too much emphasis on profit and not enough emphasis on caring about life.

The climate/water crisis will change our relationship to the planet and action must begin now or the need for water globally will far exceed capacity to provide it. By doing the moral thing we could actually decrease global demand by half. And part of this is in declaring water a GLOBAL human right which we are getting closer to as seen just recently in Geneva. That is crucial to equitable access and keeping scarce resources out of the hands of greedy corporations looking to make a profit off the hardship of others.

NO ONE in this world should have to die due to a lack of clean potable water!

However, before we can accomplish this we must admit to our human frailty, take responsibility for it, and work together as a global community in understanding that when our water resources are polluted, toxified, misused and used in violation of the rights of others that is in direct antithesis to our purpose on this planet. As I look out on the future of water even with the crisis we see before us, I do see countless people who revere it, cherish it, respect it and work diligently to preserve it. In this age we live in now where those forces making profit from doing the opposite become stronger, we must stand firm against them. We are being given a choice and we are at a crossroads as a species.

I think the choice is clear, and it is a choice we all have to make.

Water is sacred

Water is the lifeblood of our Earth

Water is life!

October 15: Blog Action day: Water

2010-10-14T18:36:00.000-07:00

October 15, this Friday is Blog Action Day when thousands of voices across the Internet speak out for one important issue affecting us all. This year the issue is water, and it could not be a more important and crucial issue. From climate change, pollution, to privitization water is quickly becoming a resource we will have less of if we continue to ignore this defining issue of our future and that will leave us without a future.

This blog will be participating in this and I hope if you have one you will sign up as well.

Water shortages to hit 1/3 of U.S. counties by mid century

2010-08-21T17:32:00.000-07:00

Water Scarcity Facing 1/3 of U.S. Counties

One out of three U.S. counties is facing a greater risk of water shortages by mid-century due to global warming, finds a new report by Tetra Tech for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

For 412 of these counties the risk of water shortages will be "extremely high," according to the report, a 14-fold increase from previous estimates.

In the Great Plains and Southwest United States, water sustainability is at extreme risk finds the report, which is based on publicly available water use data from across the United States.

"This analysis shows climate change will take a serious toll on water supplies throughout the country in the coming decades, with over one out of three U.S. counties facing greater risks of water shortages," said Dan Lashof, director of the Climate Center at NRDC. "Water shortages can strangle economic development and agricultural production and affected communities."

"As a result," he said, "cities and states will bear real and significant costs if Congress fails to take the steps necessary to slow down and reverse the warming trend."

Counties shown in dark red are at greatest risk of water shortage by 2050. (Map courtesy Tetra Tech)

The report, issued Tuesday, finds that 14 states face an extreme or high risk to water sustainability, or are likely to see limitations on water availability as demand exceeds supply by 2050.

These areas include parts of Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.

Sujoy Roy, principal engineer and lead report author, Tetra Tech, said, "The goal of the analysis is to identify regions where potential stresses, and the need to do something about them, may be the greatest."

"We used publicly available data on current water withdrawals for different sectors of the economy, such as irrigation, cooling for power generation, and municipal supply, and estimated future demands using business-as-usual scenarios of growth," Roy explained.

"We then compared these future withdrawals to a measure of renewable water supply in 2050, based on a set of 16 global climate model projections of temperature and precipitation, to identify regions that may be stressed by water availability," Roy said. "These future stresses are related to changes in precipitation as well as the likelihood of increased demand in some regions."

The report also is based on climate projections from a set of models used in recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change work to evaluate withdrawals related to renewable water supply.

Water withdrawal will grow by 25 percent in many areas of the United States, including the arid Arizona-New Mexico area, the populated areas in the South Atlantic region, Florida, the Mississippi River basin, and Washington, D.C. and surrounding regions, the analysis projects.

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Hmm, do you think it might be a good move to stop building golf courses in the desert? We already see the signs of this with the Colorado River no longer flowing to the Gulf, and with drought hitting California Georgia and other Southwestern states. Conservation is a word that cannot be stressed enough. It isn't just poor countries that can feel the effects of water waste combined with climate change. Our water future is of our own making.

2010-08-10T14:45:00.000-07:00

Hydroelectric Dams Pose Threat To Tribal Peoples, Report Warns

Giant hydroelectric dams being built or planned in remote areas of Brazil, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Peru and Guyana will devastate tribal communities by forcing people off their land or destroying hunting and fishing grounds, according to a report by Survival International today.

The first global assessment of the impact of the dams on tribes suggests more than 300,000 indigenous people could be pushed towards economic ruin and, in the case of some isolated Brazilian groups, to extinction.

The dams are intended to provide much-needed,low-carbon electricity for burgeoning cities, but the report says tribal people living in their vicinity will gain little or nothing. Most of the power generated will be taken by large industries, it concludes.

At least 200,000 people from eight tribes are threatened and a further 200,000 people will be adversely affected by the Gibe III dam on the Omo river in Ethiopia. Ten thousand people in Sarawak, Malaysia, have been displaced by the Bakun dam,which is expected to open next year, and a series of Latin American dams could force many thousands of people off their land.

The authors say enthusiasm for large dams is resurfacing, driven by a powerful international lobby presenting them as a significant solution to climate change. Lyndsay Duffield, said: "The lessons learned [about the human impact of large dams]last century are being ignored, and tribal peoples worldwide are again being sidelined, their rights violated and their lands destroyed."

The report says the World Bank is one of the biggest funders of destructive dams, despite worldwide criticism in the 1990s for supporting such projects. Its portfolio now stands at $11bn, with funding up more than 50% on 1997.

The UN now subsidises dam building via the clean development mechanism (CDM), which allows rich countries to offset their greenhouse gas emissions by investing in clean energy in poor countries. The watchdog group CDM Watch says more than a third of all CDM-registered projects in 2008 were for hydropower, making them the most common type of project vying for carbon credits.

Concern is growing over the role of China, now the world's largest builder and funder of big dams. The Three Gorges Corporation, firm behind the controversial Three Gorges dam, which has displaced more than a million people from around the Yangtze river in the last 20 years, has been contracted to build a dam on the land of the Penan tribe in Sarawak. China's biggest state bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, may fund Gibe III in Ethiopia, to be Africa's tallest. The Chinese government has financed the majority of dams built in China, which account for about half the global total of large dams.

The report says tribes have borne the brunt of the development over the last 30 years. In India, at least 40% of people displaced by dams and other developmentprojects are tribal, though they make up just 8% of the country's population. Almost all of the large dams built or proposed in the Philippines have been on the land of the country's indigenous people.

The report accuses banks and dam builders of consistently underestimating the number of tribal people affected. "There is an endemic tendency within the dam industry to significantly underestimate the number of people to be affected by their projects," it says.

"The World Bank's review of big dam projects over 10 years found that the number of people actually evicted was nearly 50% higher than the planning estimates."

Survival International called for all hydroelectric dams on tribal peoples' land to be halted unless the tribes have given full consent. "In the case of isolated or uncontacted tribes, where consultation is not possible, there should be no development of hydroelectric dams on their territories," it said.
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Greed has killed humanity. And hydropower is the new "scheme" for companies to back through banks to gain "carbon credits" in order for them to keep doing business as usual as they push indigenous peoples off their land. How ironic. . Hydropower is not renewable, especially in lands where drought is prevalent, agriculture and fish stocks suffer through diversion or flooding, culture and history is destroyed, and environmental degradation is a part of it. Mega dams are also detrimental to the stability of the Earth's crust, and dam building is a source of CO2 emissions, with waste built up in dams contributing to climate change/ global warming, (or pick the term of your choice) through methane emissions. Insanity.
_______

Hydropower- Not As Clean As You Think

The sun shines over our rivers every day, let's use it!

International Rivers

You have a voice. Speak out for our rivers and the indigenous people of our world!

UN vote declares right to clean water and sanitation a human right: U.S. abstains

2010-08-04T16:47:00.000-07:00

The United Nations General Assembly declared today that clean drinking water and sanitation are human rights.

Rights to water have been included in conventions on the rights of women, children and those with disabilities, but never as a general human right.

Of the 192 member states: 122 voted in favor of the non-binding resolution, zero against and 41 abstained, including the United States.

John F. Sammis, Deputy Representative to the Economic and Social Council, explained in a statement that the U.S. felt the resolution potentially undermines work being done by the Switzerland-based Human Rights Council to situate a right to water within the body of international law.

According to Sammis’ statement: “The United States regrets that this resolution diverts us from the serious international efforts underway to promote greater coordination and cooperation on water and sanitation issues. This resolution attempts to take a short-cut around the serious work of formulating, articulating and upholding universal rights. It was not drafted in a transparent, inclusive manner, and the legal implications of a declared right to water have not yet been carefully and fully considered in this body or in Geneva.”

The U.S. mission to the U.N. declined to elaborate on the statement.

In 2008 the High Commissioner for Human Rights appointed an independent expert, Portuguese lawyer Catarina de Albuquerque, to investigate and clarify international human rights obligations pertaining to the rights to water and sanitation and to document best practices. Submitted last year, De Albuquerque’s first report focused on sanitation.
_________________________________________________
"John F. Sammis, Deputy Representative to the Economic and Social Council, explained in a statement that the U.S. felt the resolution potentially undermines work being done by the Switzerland-based Human Rights Council to situate a right to water within the body of international law."

*****
Well gee, what a coincidence. Nestle's global headquarters are in Switzerland too. This is shameful to me. One vote does not negate another. Voting yes to this would simply verify that the U.S. stands up for clean water and sanitation as a human right. This constant obfuscation regarding interference with other work is just a cop out.

I would say it is a combination of self importance and arrogance mixed in with greed and selfishness that doesn't make for a very good recipe for human survival as it stands now. As far as water is concerned, it is the new commodity for rich countries, governments, militaries, and corporations to exploit. There is now a water market, and a water exchange coming into being much like the carbon exchange, which inflates value for profit at the expense of those who need it. The poor of this world are being bombarded by this corporate mentality that does not know what morals are. All they know is personal gain while making false choices.

I think that ultimately the decisions they make will come back to them personally, which they are blind to as well living in their little money bubbles. That is the one piece of this puzzle they are missing or refuse to see... that they too are part of the very world they are exploiting and sooner or later it will reach them. Perhaps that is then truly what needs to be seen on a global scale in order to see a real change in this world.

The bottomline is that WATER is the substance of life and it is being polluted, toxified, wasted, HYDROFRACKED, PRIVITIZED and now evaporated by climate change in the form of desertification, water evaporation, sea level rise, and glacier melt (along with erratic and changing rainfall patterns that are causing massive floods) at a pace that will see an exponential rise in unliveable, water scarce and drought stricken areas by 2030. That in turn will cause a mass migration of refugees looking for water to live. Which in turn will increase terrorist activity ( as we now see in Pakistan) and conflict which we see between India and Pakistan (as the Indus Water Treaty breaks down) China and India, African states, Israel and Palestine, Turkey and Iraq and as a matter of fact the whole MIddle East and perhaps to come the U.S. and Canada, and as predicted, a mass migration from Mexico to the U.S giving a whole new spin to the immigration "problem."

Protecting our most precious resource is now our primary moral imperative.

BP ecocide: cap on gusher removed, oil flows freely

2010-07-10T16:04:00.000-07:00

Cap On Gusher Removed, Oil Flows Freely

Robotic submarines removed the cap from the gushing well in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday, beginning a period of at least two days when oil will flow freely into the sea.

It's the first step in placing a tighter dome that is supposed to funnel more oil to collection ships on the surface a mile above. If all goes according to plan, the tandem of the tighter cap and the surface ships could keep all the oil from polluting the fragile Gulf as soon as Monday.

BP spokesman Mark Proegler said the old cap was removed at 12:37 p.m. CDT on Saturday.

"Over the next four to seven days, depending on how things go, we should get that sealing cap on. That's our plan," said Kent Wells, a BP senior vice president.

It would be only a temporary solution to the catastrophe unleashed by a drilling rig explosion nearly 12 weeks ago. It won't plug the busted well and it remains uncertain that it will succeed.

The oil is flowing mostly unabated into the water for about 48 hours — long enough for as much as 5 million gallons to gush out — until the new cap is installed.

The hope for a permanent solution remains with two relief wells intended to plug it completely far beneath the seafloor.

Engineers now begin removing a bolted flange below the dome. The flange has to be taken off so another piece of equipment called a flange spool can go over the drill pipe, where the sealing cap will be connected.

The work could spill over into Sunday, Wells said, depending on how hard it is to pull off the flange. BP has a backup plan in case that doesn't work: A piece of machinery will pry the top and the bottom of the flange apart.

On Friday, National Incident Commander Thad Allen had said the cap could be in place by Monday. That's still possible, given the timeline BP submitted to the federal government, but officials say it could take up to a week of tests before it's clear whether the new cap is working.

The cap now in use was installed June 4, but because it had to be fitted over a jagged cut in the well pipe, it allows some crude to escape. The new cap — dubbed "Top Hat Number 10" — follows 80 days of failures to contain or plug the leak.
______

My question is, why the wait of two days or more to replace the cap thus allowing millions more gallons of oil to flow freely into the sea? Why not have the new cap ready to place on once the old one is taken off?

There has been much I have been reading on this, and I can say with sureness that the amount of methane mixed with other chemicals and toxic Corexit have made the Gulf Of Mexico a toxic stew that over time and even now will be lethal to live near. All the way up the food chain from micro organisms to whales, this toxic soup has affected the web of life. Yet, no moral outrage from this government or the people en masse.

How BP is even being allowed to take this cap off without replacing it the same day is ludicrous. It seems however, that words are not having effect anymore, so perhaps song is where we need to go:

I'm beginning to think this wasn't an accident.

Millions Face Starvation As Niger Prays In Vain For Rain

2010-07-10T15:35:00.000-07:00

Millions Face Starvation As Niger Prays In Vain For Rain

To the north of Niger, the creeping Sahara; to the south, oil rich and agriculturally lush Nigeria – this nation straddles the Sahel – dry, hot and cruel. It has suffered catastrophic droughts – 1974, 1984 and 2005. And now, another.

Five times the size of the United Kingdom, Niger is one of the poorest nations on earth with child mortality worse than Afghanistan. The absence of regular rainfall throughout 2009 has led to poor harvests, lack of grazing for animals and food reserves exhausted.

Hungry people have started adding "bitter" berries to their diet – this is survival food, normally unpalatable but when starving, the unpalatable becomes welcome – essential.

The tipping point, according to one expert is about a week away – 15 July. That is when the rainy season is expected. But the starving livestock may nibble away whatever green-shoots push through.

Ten leading aid agencies launched a joint appeal yesterday, warning that up to 10 million people across the eastern Sahel, faced acute hunger. The United Nations agrees, it says that the situation is of a magnitude not previously seen. Niger is at the centre of this crisis, with half of its population – 7 million people – going hungry.

The statistics, generally, for this West African country, are overwhelming – less than a third of the people are literate: boys spend on average five years in school; girls, just three. Two-thirds of the people of Niger live beneath the poverty line, 85 per cent on less than $2 – or £1 – a day.

But set that against these great ironies: Niger has uranium aplenty and sells it to France's burgeoning nuclear power industry. The fruits of this trade are hard to see. And there is oil, as in northern neighbour Libya. The partners are the Chinese who will begin production soon. Again, there is little hope the benefits of geological
benevolence will bless these beleaguered people. Half of Niger's government budget derives from donor aid. The proceeds of its natural resources will benefit Paris and Beijing before Niamey.

Heading east, into the badlands, we pass acres of planted millet and the occasional pool of orange, muddy water from the recent short, sharp rains. Two glaring truths are evident: the curative, durable work can and is being done; but the vicissitudes of climate makes it all a gamble at the edge of survival.

The "swollen-tummy" syndrome may not have taken root everywhere yet but with real fears that the harvest of 2010 will be a frighteningly small affair. And by then, for thousands, it will be too late.

At a health centre in Goumbi Kano, established by the charity Care International, one of those taking part in the appeal, and part-funded by the Niger government, I meet two women who had walked 8km, with their malnourished babies, to see Dr Moustaphe Chaibou.

Hasana and Maimouna, and babies Farida and Saredja, have been regulars for six weeks.

"I have no milk. When the baby cries, I give her millet," Hasana says.

The babies are showing signs of improvement. They get their regular prescription of a "plumpy nut" product, antibiotics and anti-malarial drugs. Still frighteningly underweight for their age, the 17 -month old was still a babe in arms, the 10-month old like a newborn – both about 20 per cent under the expected weight for their ages.

They left their village after prayers at 5.30am and arrived at opening time, around 8am. Then they headed back before the noon heat.

I asked the doctor what would happen if the rains failed: "Catastrophe, désolé," he said in perfect French.

The drought of 2009 made the September harvest poor – what it yielded was cornered by speculators – poor people had very little to see them through and it is now gone. The "biscuit-barrel" grain stores are empty and have been for weeks.

It has already been a long, hungry wait ameliorated by aid workers, the World Food Fund and other UN agencies. But they have got their sums, by all accounts, badly wrong. They budgeted for 1.7 million hungry souls but find themselves $97 million short . The aid community say the numbers in need are closer to 7 million – and about 3 million are in desperate need now. The target, recently raised, was too low, the budget inadequate and still under-funded.

The people still have until September to wait for handouts and hope.

In 1973 the community of N-Guigmi hardly existed. It now has a population of about 15,000 – people who were driven there from a pastoral existence in the countryside by drought and famine to a town, and a new way of life.

It is a terrifying template for this country unless a lasting solution is found. Those souls gave up waiting and gave up hope.

We meet Ishan Ila Gamma, a widow with eight dependents, in Tajae Nomade village. "I used to have more than 30 animals," she says. "Now I only have one good one remaining. I have been forced to sell all the others at cheap prices. I was forced to go to the city, I beg and sell herbs."

Again, the people of Niger are playing the waiting game – waiting for rain and for an autumn harvest; waiting for the UN and the World Food Programme to get their sums right and attract the donations to pay for the food aid; or waiting for the world to add Niger to the desperate list of Ethiopia, Sudan, Eritrea.

cont.
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If I truly believed praying for rain would bring it to these people to see their crops grow, I would. This is truly a human catastrophe. Global warming is now gravely affecting these areas. Per scientists this will be the warmest year on record. Animals are already dying, and many of all species will follow the longer we continue to think this is just a political grandstanding game in this country. Drought is now affecting close to 40% of our world, and as global temperatures increase it will become more common as will starvation. If their rains do not come soon, as was said in this article it will be "catastrophe, désolé." And this is just the beginning. But there are things you can do...

Tree Nation In Niger

Tree Nation is a wonderful organization I am proud to be a part of that is dedicated to planting 8 million trees in the shape of a heart in the heart of Niger to provide mitigation and adaptation to climate change, fight poverty, hunger and deforestation, and bring water back to the roots of this land.

You can plant a tree in Niger from your modem and make a difference in the lives of many people. Solving this crisis will not come from politicians, it will come from us.

Moringa Oleifera is the answer!

Number of dams by country

I will try to find a more updated source, but as of 2008 Africa had 1269 dams. Could be one reason why so many countries there are now experiencing drought as well. Using solar power in Africa on a massive scale and breaching the dams that are unnecessary and were only built to make government officials and construction companies richer would also go very far in bringing back agricultural lands to Africa and mitigating global warming, hunger and poverty.

Just as a point of reference, according to this list China had 22,000 dams (yes, thousand) and Australia 486. Two more places where drought is pronounced and life threatening with failing crops. The correlation between excessive dam building that causes environmental devastation, exacerbation of CO 2 emissions, loss of fish stocks and agricultural land and diversion of water sources in my view cannot be denied.

Iraq's Marshes Reborn

2010-07-10T15:15:00.000-07:00

Iraq's Marshes Reborn

One of Saddam Hussein's greatest acts of ecological destruction – the draining of the Mesopotamian marshes – has been reversed as birds and rivers return to the region

Iraq's marshes drained by Saddam in the 90s to punish rebellious marsh inhabitants are now thriving once more. Photograph: Korsh Ararat, Omar Fadil and Mudhafar Salim/Nature Iraq

Saddam Hussein's draining of the Mesopotamian marshes of Iraq – recorded as the Garden of Eden in the Bible - was one of the most infamous outrages of his regime, leaving a vast area of once-teeming river delta a dry, salt-encrusted desert, emptied of insects, birds and the people who lived on them.

But nearly two decades later the area is buzzing and twittering with life again after local people and a new breed of Iraqi conservationists have restored much of what was once the world's third largest wetland to some of its former glory.

The story of this once almost impossible restoration is told in an exhibition of photographs that has opened in the UK. They show the huge expanses of reeds and open water – now at least half the size of the Florida Everglades – where plants, insects and fish have returned, creating a vast feeding area for migrating and breeding birds, including the majestic Sacred Ibis, the endemic Basrah Reed Warbler and the Iraq Babbler, along with most of the world's population of Marbled Teal ducks, bee-eaters and many more.

"We call them stop-over sites, refuelling sites," said Richard Porter, Middle East advisor for the conservation group Birdlife International, who has helped train biologists and other experts for the local Birdlife partner Nature Iraq. "They are as important as the breeding and over-wintering grounds for species; if you have got to make a journey from central Africa to norther Europe and Asia, and you've got nothing to feed on, you're stuffed."

The Mesopotamian marshes originally made up an area more than three times the size of Norfolk, where the exhibition is showing, in Holt. It sprawled across thousands of square kilometres of floodplain where the Euphrates and Tigris rivers divided into a network of tributaries meandering and pulsating south to the Arabian sea. They were home to more than 80 bird species, otters and long-fingered bats, and hundreds of thousands of Marsh Arabs who grew rice and dates, raised water buffalo, fished and built boats and homes from reeds.

In the early 1990s, this way of life came to an abrupt end when Hussein ordered the marshes to be drained to punish the local population for an uprising after his failed invasion of Kuwait, a problem exacerbated by the continued construction of dams upstream.

He ordered the area to be hemmed in by constructing around 4,000km of earthen walls that towered up to 7m above the unbroken flat landscape. The wetlands retreated to as little as 5-10% of their original size, according to a 2001 United Nations Environment Agency report.

After Hussein was toppled by American forces in 2003, Azzam Alwash returned from his adopted home in the US to the area, where he had lived for part of his childhood, and learned to hunt ducks with his father while they inspected the irrigation ditches. Alwash found the local people who had stayed had already begun to break up the walls with shovels or earth diggers, and they have continued to do so. They have destroyed up to 98% of the embankments, he told the Guardian, "not because they are tree-huggers or bird-lovers, but because it's a source of economic income to them, because they can harvest reeds and sell them. They can fish and feed a family or sell them to earn extra income."

Alwash, a civil engineer, set up Nature Iraq and has organised training for graduates who help with monitoring work. "We take guards with us with Kalashnikovs, but the most difficult part is the road between [the capital] Baghdad to the marsh," said Alwash. "Once I'm inside the marshes it's relatively safe."

About half the original marshland has been restored - even more had been reinstated, but there was a setback last year because of a drought. Nature Iraq has now drawn up a plan to cope with the diminishing water flows from dams upstream in Turkey by channelling irrigation water back into the rivers and building a barrage to retain meltwater from the mountains and create a "mechanical flood" of water to replicate the important pulses of freshwater that wash through the marshlands every spring.
end
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Iraq's Marshes and Corporate Control

This was an entry I wrote on the marshlands about four years ago, discussing lack of water in Iraq, corporate control of water in Iraq by Bechtel, and the hope that any restoration of this diverse and beautiful area would be left in the control of the people there and not the corporate beneficiaries of the invasion.
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Hanging Gardens of Babylon

But, can the marshlands compare to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Some dispute their existence but archeologists claim to have uncovered structure that lends to the story of their existence. Just the mechnism used to bring water from the Euphrates to irrigate the mountain gardens is incredible.

Oil still gushes out in the Gulf killing our water

2010-05-31T07:34:00.001-07:00

I cannot describe in words to you the pain my soul feels now. I am not even a resident of this area and cannot begin to understand what it is like to lose your livelihood. However, I am a citizen of this world, and a sentient being with a connection to the Earth and a deep appreciation for understanding how it is all connected to us. This hurts us all, and it will affect generations of humans and all species for decades to come. That is why I have been hesitating regarding writing much about this here of late, because it is so emotional for me. To think of the extent of damage environmentally that is now being wrecked upon this area of the world and the ripple effect it will have seems too much to bear.

I don't know how good some of you are at connecting dots in situations, but this is a blatant example of corporate/governmental good ole boy a** covering, and using a situation to its fullest advantage to make a profit. I am going to post an article here that I posted to Current.com regarding the dispersant Corexit that is being used by BP in order to illustrate this point. To say these people are not criminals that should be arrested for crimes against nature is to be one devoid of logic and morality. However, knowing the corrupt system we live in I fear it will have to be the people who take matters into their own hands. I truly do wonder though if we have the moral courage to do so now.

The US is addicted to oil, and we need an intervention. I surely thought this would be it. Yet, I still see people pulling into BP stations (shame on you) as if oblivious to the environmental holocaust being perpetrated by BP and their collusion in it by supporting them. And yes I know, oil on the whole is not good and we should be much more vocal about calling for CLEAN, AFFORDABLE, ALTERNATE ENERGY. SO WHY AREN'T WE? I did notice the SUN shining over the toxic oil sheened Gulf for all of these 42 days that this catastrophe has been allowed to continue that could power our lives. I did notice the WIND blowing in offshore breezes that holds the power we need to light our homes. The dichotomy was actually quite sad in seeing the oil soaked marinelife and wildlife struggling to live as well... just "collateral damage" to the bastards looking to now stall for time until AUGUST when their relief wells will supposedly be done, of course, without any guarantee they too will work to stop this bleeding of our Earth.

The Black Tide of the Gulf is our moral ineptitude and apathy laid out in front of us. It is everything we are, and it is also representative of everything we could be as a species if we finally use this disaster to understand our true place in this world. And it is not to be the arrogant all powerful masters we portend to be (and actually suck at.) It is to be a stewardship species that cherishes and respects the resources given to us as gifts and the species that live in sympatico with us. It is about respecting that most precious resource- Water. There will be no explaining ourselves should we fail in seeking justice for our planet and those who cannot speak for themselves. And perhaps for me, to think that after all that has happened that we as a species will not rise to the task is even more heartbreaking. I surely hope I am wrong. Please, let me be wrong.

BOYCOTT BP, CALL FOR CLEAN ENERGY NOW.

BP oil blog

Some good information here.

Corexit Is Killing The Gulf

A must read.

Phillipe Cousteau: "This is a nightmare"

Pass this on to counter the lies.

BP oil disaster live news

Gulf oil spill killing birds and sealife

2010-05-20T17:54:00.000-07:00

Gulf oil spill-pictures

Pictures of the extent of this ecocide as the oil continues to gush out of the well 31 days after the Deepwater Horizon blew... THIRTY ONE DAYS. Scientists estimate that it could well be 100,000 gallons not 5000 gallons per day escaping from this well, which surely explains how it has now created subsurface plumes and become a part of the current loop that will in time more than likely carry it up the East Coast to spread its cancer.

You cannot look at the photos of these animals and not be emotionally struck by them. Our very biodiversity and the ecosystems they and we depend on to live are now in great danger. And yet, all we get from BP are lies, coverups, and one failed attempt after another to plug this well and aggressively seek to save the wildlife and sealife that inhabits this once beautiful part of our country. And all we get from this government is a reshuffling of the incompetence that aided in it and feigned outrage as BP's stock price actually rises.

There is no way to recover the moral conscience lost in regards to this gash that now
bleeds our planet. It is an open wound that reveals to all the price paid when what is less important is given a false value over those things whose value is immeasurable.

I really don't know how much more I can watch of this unfolding. Water is what gives us life, and we are killing it... and my heart is aching. I do know this, however. I know that as someone like so many who cares for the sustainability of this planet and the future of our children, I will not rest until those responsible for this pay.

More to come.

Gulf oil spill

2010-05-15T20:02:00.000-07:00

The tragedy in the Gulf that is killing its water has been a preoccupation for me. I am going to put together a posting with various videos, links, pictures, and commentary on this. I cannot in words express my outrage and heartbreak regarding this environmental catastrophe that will most certainly now affect the lives of our children and other species for decades to come. It is now estimated that 70,000 gallons of oil are now continuing to spill daily. It is unfathomable to me how this is not bringing about a sudden change in our behavior and a much louder outcry to move away from this toxic, dangerous and destructive source of energy to alternative fuels and other energy sources that will not doom our survival. When I have put this posting together I will add it here.

Thanks for your patience.

Water Is Life: Earth Day Reflection

2010-04-20T18:45:00.000-07:00

This Thursday April 22, will be the fourtieth Earth Day I have lived through. But I have lived on this Earth approximately 18,697 days and there has not been one day where this Earth has failed to provide for all of my needs in every sense. And because of this, I pledged a long time ago to do my part as a citizen of this Earth to do all I can to preserve its beauty, mystery, and the systems that provide for our sustenance. That is what Earth Day is all about. It is about remembering all our Earth gives to us and paying homage to her and pledging to do all we can to do the same for her.

However, on this Earth Day as on many other days before I am filled with hope yet sadness at seeing how we humans on the whole do not understand this message. Climate change combined with pollution now threaten to place our Earth on a collision course with catastrophe as we push the limitations of the very systems that give us life. We have become detached from Earth even though we live here. The beauty of a sunrise, a clear mountain stream, a tree, and now even the soul satisfying practice of tilling our own soil have been depraved by those who care little for the essence of Earth beyond what they can sell it for.

So on this Earth Day as I have for almost every other of the approxomate 18,697 days I have lived here, I will pay homage to the magnificence of a planet unlike any other. A planet of unsurpassed beauty and potential.

And I will never give up in doing all I can to preserve this giver of all life.

And I will blog. And I will speak out. And I will take action. And I will fight.

For our Earth. Our home.

For without her, there is nothing else.

P.S. to Mother Earth: Thank you.

Happy Earth Day.

Water Is Life: Women and water: a new beginning

2010-04-15T09:18:00.000-07:00

2010 West African Women & Water Training Program from Unseen Pictures on Vimeo.

"We are living in a time when Women's voices must be heard, considered and respected at every level. Recognizing women's vital role in the environment...is essential for a future of security and peace."

Dr. Wangari Maathai
Nobel Laureate

In the previous instalment to this series, the struggles and dangers women face regarding collecting water and living in water stressed areas was illustrated. This entry deals with the solutions and one specific group, the Global Women's Water Initiative that is doing something wonderful to tackle this crisis and to provide the training, skills, networking and funding needed to generate water service projects across Africa.

Women not only play a vital role in the environment but also in the social and economic fabric of the globe. When women are given the tools to lead, change comes. The solutions to many of our world's most challenging crises rest on giving women those tools. Clean water leads to education, which leads to economic freedom, which leads to progress, health, food, and peace.

This uplifting video shows the beginning steps of what should spread like wildfire across our planet...turning stories of hopelessness and struggle into stories of hope and triumph.

World Water Day-March 22nd

2010-03-18T18:25:00.000-07:00

World Water Day

What will your contribution be?

Excerpt from link:

Water affects every aspect of our lives, yet nearly one billion people around the world don't have clean drinking water, and 2.6 billion still lack basic sanitation. World Water Day, celebrated annually on March 22, was established by the United Nations in 1992 and focuses attention on the world's water crisis, as well as the solutions to address it.

This year, a collaborative of US-based organizations have joined to raise awareness and call for stronger commitments from governments, the private sector, and US citizens for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) initiatives in low-income countries.

By deploying the solutions that already exist, we can save the lives of thousands of children each day, advance education and employment - especially among women and girls - and fuel economic growth around the world.

Learn more about the events planned in Washington DC and around the country for World Water Day 2010 and find out how you can take action to help make clean water and sanitation a reality for people around the globe.
)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
Here is a short listing of water organizations I know of. Of course, as with any charity organization do your own research before donating or getting involved. However, from my knowldege all of these sites are reputable.

Water Partners International
http://water.org

Charity Water
http://www.charitywater.org

Amman Imman
http://www.ammanimman.org

Water Aid
http://www.wateraid.org

One Drop Foundation
http://www.onedrop.org

Food And Water Watch
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org

Navdanya
http://www.navdanya.org

Blue Planet Run
http://blueplanetrun.org

What would you do to get clean water?

The Water Is Life Group on Current

http://current.com/groups/water-is-life/

I will be joining the world on this day to write Congress regarding this important issue. Instead of spending billions on wars for resources, we should be spending it on what is most important in truly bringing health: our infrastructure and our waterways!

I personally am also doing away with all drinks in plastic bottles for one full month, and placing the money I save in a jar. At the end of the month I will send my savings to a water organization to help them dig wells and give basic sanitation to people in countries that need it. It is reprehensible and immoral to the core to see so many people in our world in this century without the basic necessities of life.

Anyone else interested in taking the same challenge to do away with all drinks in plastic bottles for one month and send the savings on feel free to join in . I will also be posting a listing of different water organizations that are doing good work around the world to provide running water and sanitation to those most in need. Sanitation and clean water for all is the key to an environmentally, economically, and socially healthy world.

Each year we set aside only one day to acknowledge a part of our lives that we cannot live without. One day to bring awareness of our failure to preserve it and provide it. One day to show that we still would rather support money going to wars than going to clean water for all. The year we don't need a World Water Day will be a year of triumph indeed.

Taking The Pulse Of Global Freshwater Issues

2010-03-18T18:17:00.000-07:00

http://www.circleofblue.org

By 2030 people worldwide will withdraw more water than the planet can replenish.

March 22, 2010 marks World Water Day, a 24-hour observance held annually since 1993 to draw attention to the role that freshwater plays in the world. In recent years it has focused global concern on the dwindling supply of clean water.

With governments from Australia to India feeling the heat of dryness like never before, multinational corporations pledging to become better global water citizens, and a multitude of nonprofit organizations gaining position in the councils of influence worldwide, the global freshwater crisis is steadily becoming a top public priority.

In January, global business and elected leaders assembled in Davos at the World Economic Forum learned one more striking fact that underlies international concern. By 2030, WEF experts said, people will withdraw 30 percent more water than nature can replenish. Unless practices for using and conserving water shift dramatically, shortages will hit communities and businesses, especially agriculture, which uses 70 percent of the world’s fresh water.

Here is some of what we expect in what promises to be a busy year in the world of water:

Contents

■Awareness and action
■Business of water
■Bottled Battles
■GE: One company’s approach, inside and out
■Water Disclosure Project
■United Nations CEO Water Mandate
■Water and Global Health

Awareness and Action
A team of researchers and advocates that includes the Global Water Partnership, Global Public Policy Network on Water Management, Stockholm International Water Institute and the Stakeholder Forum, have been working with hundreds of smaller groups to rally support for water’s role in international climate change negotiations this year.

The work was prompted by the disappointing outcome of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December, when water was left out of the Copenhagen Accord. The non-binding agreement calls for modest action on global warming.

If the international climate treaty doesn’t better emphasize the water-climate intersection, people living in vulnerable coastal nations, such as the island of Maldives, and farmers facing volatile rainfall, such as those in Australia, will be unprepared to face major catastrophes, Stakeholder Forum Policy Coordinator Hannah Stoddart told Circle of Blue.

At the international level, Stoddart and her team work directly with UN officials, and also are coordinating an unofficial international water day in Bonn, Germany in June. They are arranging high-level round table discussions that will rally more support for water issues in the months leading up to the next climate change summit in December, in Mexico.

“The eventual goal is for a recognition on an international level that there are currently no operational international treaties addressing water issues specifically,” Stoddart said. “We’re at the beginning of quite a long journey.”

Garnering local support is an important component of making sure the issue gains global prominence, according to marketing experts who work on environmental issues.

“It’s so hard to make people realize that they have a connection to the issue, to the sources of the problem,” said Joel Finkelstein a senior vice president and head of the environment team for Fenton Communications, a U.S.-based firm.

Water offers an even bigger challenge in some ways, he added. It’s still extremely difficult to illustrate the consequences of our current water consumption in countries like the U.S., where citizens can turn on the tap without thinking twice.

But the consequences of water scarcity are more powerfully conveyed through emotional stories than statistical reports. And Finkelstein believes that social media promises new ways to humanize water and environmental issues.

continued.

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This is the test of our generation. As predictions state, by 2030 we will be drawing out more water than the Earth is able to replenish. Rivers worldwide are drying up and many no longer flow to their source. Glaciers are melting worldwide threatening water sources for millions of people which will in turn affect agricultural output. Privitization continues at a rapacious pace thus perpetuating disease, water scarcity, and an erosion of our freedom. We as humans have affected the hydrologic cycle through contributing to global warming and in also causing scarcity mainly due to mismanagement, wasteful agricultural irrigation practices, water pollution and toxification rendering water unusable and threatening marinelife, and privitization which keeps it in the hands of greedy water barons who refuse to acknowledge that water is a human right.

This is why on this World Water Day this coming Monday we must be resolved as every day to speaking out regarding declaring water a global human right. This action will go far in holding corporations accountable for their pollution and manipulations in commoditizing a resource that is a public trust and is essential to human life. And we must also reach people to make them understand the importance of water in their lives. It is true that especially in the US and other developed countries that people simply turn on a tap and the water comes out, so they don't think about what is going on a world away or how what they do affects that very hydrologic cycle.

We are entering a time in our history as a species where we are being tested as to the limits of our moral courage. We can explore and find new planets, send men to the moon, and yet we still cannot provide adequately for life on Earth. This speaks volumes about our true humanity and if we are to survive we must make the connection of how crucial it is to preserve the life we have here on Earth.

This will be the defining issue and crisis of this century. And people will be fighting over this precious resource as they have been for years as governments position themselves to control the one resource that gives them control of our lives. Are you willing to just allow them to take it? I'm not.

Water Is Life: Women-waterbearers of life

2010-02-11T08:35:00.000-08:00

Women all over the world are living in slavery. They are slaves to the backbreaking often dangerous job of providing water for their families daily. In countries whose governments are corrupt, the environment is devastated, and the water is not fresh and in many instances in scarce supply. In households where traditions preclude them from education, economic opportunity, and equality in any form. And they are the missing link in regards to the economic success they and many of these countries could have if only this tragedy were given the attention it deserves.

The typical day of a woman living in one of these countries begins at about 2AM every morning. She awakens to make a trek to a water source with her five gallon Gerry can in order to collect water for the family for the day. It won’t go far depending on the number of children she has, and she may even have to forfeit using any of it in order to provide for their needs first. She treks along rocky terrain with her can sometimes with others, sometimes alone, or with her daughter who doesn’t attend school in order to help with this task. The trek can be dangerous, with them taking a chance on being raped, robbed or worse. Once she reaches the water source she must stand in line waiting for her turn to fill her can of what is many times polluted water that may well give her children dysentery. But it is all they have.

Once she fills her can she must then make the backbreaking trek back to her village once again. Her trip can take her anywhere from six to nine hours a day not including her other chores in bringing up her children, providing for them, many times harvesting any crops grown, feeding them whatever they have, and providing spiritual guidance. This then takes time away from her and her daughter having opportunity in education or in pursuing any sort of life where they can contribute to advancing their own lot in life.

And this is their life, every day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, every year.

It is hard for many in this world of plenty to relate to the lives of women who must struggle for all they have and who are denied their identity and their dreams. For us, getting up in the morning and turning on our showers or our taps is something we don’t even think about because the water is always there. We don’t think of the water used for cooking or bathing, or washing, or doing other tasks that people in these countries wouldn’t ever have a chance to do. While we waste water on golf courses, in pools, and to build desert resorts, water is gold to those who live in countries where there isn’t even enough for the basic necessities of life.

Which is why in this age of climate change, global warming, population increases, and agricultural challenges, the plight of women in regards to water and how it relates to global poverty and injustice must be addressed in order for us to begin to see the solutions to the social ills that have plagued all of us for so long to bring us true freedom. It may be hard to think that a toilet or a water pipe could be the key to such freedom. Perhaps that is because it is so simple, so easy, so logical, and so morally right.

No one should go without the basic human right of water, and particularly no one should have to work so hard every day risking death to obtain it. My hope is that in this century, we can finally realize our true potential as humans, and finally recognize why we are here and see the day when no woman has to risk her life to have the basic necessities to live and not just survive.

This is why I am starting this weekly series on Current for the month of February in the Water Is Life Group. To give attention to those in our world who are too often forgotten.

To my sisters around the world who do so much for so many with so little.

This entry has been an introduction with an explanation of what women face in regards to the time spent collecting water. Next week I hope to present some stories of women who live this life, and to end it with showing what some groups are doing through sanitation and access to clean water that then gives them the chance to get the education and opportunity they need to lift themselves out of poverty and into hope.

Edit: This is still a work in progress, not forgotten.

Water is the lifeblood of Haiti now: how you can help

2010-01-16T10:27:00.000-08:00

Water in Haiti

On 12 January, Haiti was rocked by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake. In September 2009, Water.org announced its commitment to bring safe water and sanitation to 50,000 Haitians over the coming 36 months. We will implement a staged plan to respond to this natural disaster, building on this existing effort.

As part of that plan, our most immediate concern is helping to restore the ability of our local NGO partner and potential partners to respond to the crisis by repairing and expanding water and sanitation facilities for people in need.

Water.org’s strength is long-term water and sanitation projects. Sustainable access to such basic necessities will be the area of greatest need as Haiti recovers from the earthquake.

If you would like to donate to immediate relief efforts in Haiti, you’ll find a list of potential organizations to support at: CNN Impact Site. If you are interested in supporting Water.org’s efforts to restore and expand water and sanitation services in Haiti, we would gladly accept your donation: http://donate.water.org/haiti.

Our heart goes out to all of those affected by yesterday’s earthquake and we thank you for keeping the people of Haiti in your thoughts at this difficult time.

Q&A on Response to Haiti Earthquake
How is water affected during a disaster like this?
Underground water and sanitation pipelines and concrete water storage tanks are highly susceptible to damage from earthquakes and will likely need to be repaired or replaced.

What is the response plan to get people safe water?
The short term response typically includes bottled water and the use of high volume purification equipment. While this is expensive, it can be quickly deployed as a short-term solution. There are many relief agencies involved in these types of efforts. The response of organizations like Water.org involves the rehabilitation and expansion of sustainable water and sanitation infrastructure.

What is Water.org doing to help?
We will provide assistance to our local partners so that they can restore and expand water and sanitation infrastructure.

How is Water.org coordinating with other agencies?
Before the earthquake, Water.org was already coordinating with the Clinton Global Initiative, the United Nations, and other agencies. On the ground, Water.org will work with local NGO partner organizations, consistent with our approach over the past two decades.

How has this affected Water.org’s work in Haiti?
It had made the need for safe water and sanitation even more urgent and will likely mean our focus will initially be rehabilitation, and then expansion of water services.

Is Water.org’s staff safe?
Four of our staff members returned from Haiti on Saturday. We’re in touch with our local partner but do not currently know the status of its staff members.

Where can I get additional information and what can I do to help?
A. If you would like to donate to immediate relief efforts in Haiti, you’ll find more information at: CNN Impact Site. If you are interested in supporting efforts to restore and expand water and sanitation services in Haiti, you can donate at: http://donate.water.org/haiti.
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And for those who are rightfully skeptical, water.org is a reputable organziation that has been around for years and proven their dedication and passion for water issues. Water is now critical to the survival of the people of Haiti as well as many other developing countries. Without it there is no food or medical care.

Water is the lifeblood of humanity.

Please do all you can to help no matter how small.

Also, please be careful what organizations you send money to. My rule of thumb is to stick with organzations that are already trusted. Doctors Without Borders is without a doubt the most trusted organization I can think of to get your donations to where they are needed fast. I donated to them in this case as well.

Doctors Without Borders

Perspective: Sudan – Land of Water and Thirst; War and Peace

2010-01-13T13:05:00.000-08:00

By Dr. Paul J. Sullivan
Special to Circle of Blue

As we approach the January 2011 date for the referendum on the south, and as we see Darfur seemingly in an eerily, but uncertain, peaceful period, we need to look at the water situation in Sudan. Water will be a make or break issue for the peace process in Sudan and in deciding whether the Sudan will move forward in peace and prosperity or more poverty and war. It is a country that went through one of the most brutal civil wars in history. Millions were killed and displaced. Sudan is the country of Darfur, “The lost boys,” and lost generations. One of the driving forces behind the start of the last civil war between the south and the north was the Jonglei Canal. This is an idea that has been around for a very long time. It was to be a canal to bring the water through one of the largest wetlands in the world, The Sudd, more quickly to the north and to Egypt. But those earlier plans did not include much improvement in the lives of the people of the South and along the proposed canal. Dr. John Garang, one of the leaders of the southern rebels wrote his Ph.D. on the Jonglei Canal. The horrors of Darfur can be partly traced back to climate change, rain pattern changes, and water stress. Water is a very big issue in Sudan.

About 80 percent of the people in Sudan find their livelihoods in agriculture. Agriculture is about 40 percent of the country’s GDP and accounts for about 97 percent of the water use. Meanwhile 70 percent of agriculture in Sudan is rain fed. The rest of agriculture can find its water through small traditional spate irrigation and via khors, small mostly hand dug canals, or via huge irrigation projects, such as the Gezira project — which uses about 35 percent of Sudan’s water, and the many giant sugar irrigation schemes. Sudan has the largest area of irrigation in all of Sub-Saharan Africa, but even if this is poorly managed and maintained.

Water is not just income and jobs in Sudan. It is life, most particularly in the dry areas of the country: in Darfur and in the north while most of the wetlands are found in the south. This huge country has many climate and water zones. It has massive underground water reserves that are part of the largest source of freshwater in the world, the Great Nubian Sandstone aquifer. It also has the large Umm Rawaba and other aquifers. Sudan has the Nile, the Atbara and many other rivers coursing through it. The country is also blessed with the Nile River Basin, which is a watered, mostly underground area that can stretch to 80 percent of the country. As much as 80 to 85 percent of Sudan’s population used the Nile Basin waters. Most of the rains happen in the south. Much of the Nile water comes from other places, like Ethiopia, Uganda and more. The waters from the White Nile and The Atbara in the south and west rise and flood at different times from the Blue Nile and other sources in the east and central parts of the country — no real efforts have been developed to coordinate and better manage these flows and stocks.

Sudan not only faces down the threats from a potential new civil war, it also faces external tensions that could build over the sharing, use and abuse of the Nile across countries in the region. There is only one agreement between the many nations who share the Nile and that was established in 1959 between Sudan and Egypt. As the other countries along the Nile, including the most likely new Sudan in the south, want to develop, demand on the water of the Nile for electricity production, irrigation, industry and more will grow greater. Sudan also shares groundwater resources and sources with other countries. Though the ground water flows, the data on this is as scarce as good management of it.

Astonishingly little of its recharged groundwater and its surface water are used in this often water stressed country. What is used is often wasted with inefficient irrigation methods and even quite destructive rain fed farming methods, and livestock overgrazing. Meanwhile the extraordinarily destructive mechanized agricultural system that is causing huge deforestation, land and river bank erosion, salinization, and more negative effects. Water treatment is almost unheard of in the country, especially in the south. Water-borne diseases are rampant and pesticide poisoning via the water-food chains are likely quite common in some areas. The growth of the mesquite tree and water hyacinth has also wreaked havoc on the country’s water systems.

The precious water of Sudan is being degraded in many areas and wasted in others. Basin and catchment degradation are the norm in many parts of the country. The country is, on average, water rich, but it is management and maintenance poor.

Siltation near small and large dams is common. Suspended solids and stagnant water are common near the dams. Sudan needs the hydroelectricity — it is constantly in a severe energy crisis, but the dams could be more costly to the water and the environment than many may think.

Then there are the very difficult problems of what to do with the huge numbers of returning IDPs and the possible movement of southerners from the north to the south. Also, how are the north and the south to coordinate their water management and water uses? These are very big issues that need to be resolved, or at least managed better.
end of excerpt.

Sudan: Land of Water and Thirst; War and Peace
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An excellent article on the challenges awaiting Southern Sudan in its referendum. It will be interesting to see if this referendum goes off without fraud and what will then become of the water resources of the Nile. You can find more information on this story at the link for Current.com:

Current: Sudan: Land of Water and Thirst; War and Peace

Freshwater Crisis Not Included in Final Copenhagen Accord Despite Calls For Action

2010-01-13T12:55:00.001-08:00

By Andrew Maddocks
Circle of Blue

The current climate accord negotiated at the United Nations conference in Copenhagen is dangerously inadequate, asserted a team of international environmental organizations.

During a talk at the Bella Center, where the climate conference was held, the Global Water Partnership, Global Public Policy Network on Water Management, Stockholm International Water Institute, and the Stakeholder Forum teamed up to warn that stakeholders were about to make a dangerous mistake – not mentioning the freshwater crisis at all in the historic negotiating text.

As parties embraced a final climate change accord, water was included in one sentence within the latest draft of the treaty and then dropped entirely in the final text. Over the past few months, water-specific language has appeared and disappeared from drafts of the UN climate change adaptation text. In the last preliminary climate talks in Barcelona, water was eliminated from the negotiating texts.

Vulnerable People

Generations of people living in vulnerable coastal nations or farmers face volatile rainfall and could be left unprepared for decades if the treaty’s language isn’t carefully crafted into the next international climate treaty, said GPPN Secretariat Hannah Stoddart, one of the speakers at the “Bridging the Water and Climate Change Agendas” event. Presenters on the panel explored the disconnect between climate and water contingents in the build-up to COP15, and hoped to apply more pressure to integrate water into the treaty.

In Copenhagen, the GPPN and its allies tried to step up the pressure on leaders by putting water in powerful introductory videos and speeches about climate and water-related damage happening around the world.

Though representatives from the GPPN network — which includes partners from SIWI, the GWP and the World Wildlife Fund —had modest expectations for changes to the UN text, they were determined to stress the connections between water and climate change to the 33,000 accredited attendees at the conference, including more than 120 heads of state that attended the 13-day United Nations Conference on Climate Change, which ended on December 19.

Ainun Nishat, a senior climate change adviser for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, opened the panel discussion with a quick summary of the challenges facing Bangladesh — severe weather events, rising sea levels, shifting rainfall patterns and a fragile food supply.

“I feel very ashamed the international community has not done anything about that,” Nishat said.

Demands For Recognition
Nishat gave first-hand examples that supported the GPPN’s central agenda — urgent demand for action, regional and international guidance on water-related issues and a long-term strategy for adaptation by the United Nations.

The subsequent speakers moved through a series of warnings and guidance measures for climate leaders.

Managing water resources will be critical, Stoddart said. She added that effective management requires broad-based cooperation, which starts at the international treaty level. Identifying a disconnect between climate and water advocates, speakers at the event encouraged everyone at the climate conference to break out of their specialities and engage in interdisciplinary discussions and solutions.

Other organizations like the World Water Council suggested that the Copenhagen Accord and its successor climate pacts include an international fund for water.

Many of the panel members’ goals looked beyond Copenhagen.

John Matthews of the World Wildlife Fund supervises freshwater and climate adaptation issues, and has worked with water across cities, energy sectors and fisheries. The scale of potential problems, Matthews said, will require additional resources that are better integrated amongst regions to local institutions. He highlighted transboundary rivers, such as the Rio Grande, which crosses from the U.S. into Mexico, as a key area to bridge both organizations as well as water issues such as mitigation and adaptation to find comprehensive, exemplary solutions.

Treaty Language Neglected
After the prepared speeches, moderator Mike Muller, Special Advisor to the Global Water Partnership opened the floor for questions, which revealed urgent calls for amended treaty language, all of which were subsequently ignored in the final accord. Negotiators in the room anticipated that water might be left out because environmental ministers, rather than water administrators, usually handle these agreements.

But the sense of urgency and pressure for ongoing planning are strong. Environmental ministers from both South Africa and Uganda who attended the event said they would take these messages back to their private delegation meetings.

“We really have to understand water is a key element for the poor and vulnerable,” said Karin Lexen, a project director with the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI). “If you talk to a woman in Mali, the first thing she will probably ask for is water. That’s why we have a commitment to trying to do our best.”
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To say that I am disappointed with the outcome of Copenhagen would be a gross understatement. No real movement forward on GHG emission targets, and no movement forward whatsoever regarding global water scarcity and stress. And to be totally honest, while I believe water is central to any such treaty regarding climate change, I am skeptical as to the reasoning and motives behind certain entities (the WWF for one that also thinks GM soy in Argentina is "responsible") pushing for it, as water needs to be declared a global human right first. Without that action, any such treaty opens the door to more privitization which will only exacerbate the crisis.

It should only be included for the right reasons, and they do not include commoditizing water on the market or allowing water systems of developing countries to be taken over by the World Bank or multinationals with the intent of taking advantage of the crisis for profit. Without this declaration and absolute transparency, it should be looked at with great caution.

The COP 16 is supposedly set for Cancun, Mexico next summer. Let's see if it really is a Cop 16 and not another COP OUT. We can't afford to waste anymore time with political posturing.

Glacier Melt Across The World

2010-01-13T12:48:00.000-08:00

Remember, it is the rapidity of the melting that indicates other forcings besides just natural processes. Forcings those responsible for want you to discount so they can keep their profits. And while they divert you with emails, distractionary "debates," and fake You Tube "lawsuits," glacier melt continues to threaten over 2 billion people globally with water scarcity. We must keep our focus on what is really important.

The President's Dilemma- Feature Documentary on Kirabatu

2009-12-11T11:31:00.000-08:00

As the COP 15 Copenhagen climate summit is now under way I will try to bring information about the proceedings especially regarding water. Since language regarding water was taken out of the Barcelona talks write up it would appear that water issues are not being seriously considered in correlation to climate change as of yet. That is a huge mistake. I fear that this conference as others will be hijacked by corporate interests and politicians working in collusion to ignore the true urgency of the climate crisis in order to profit from it. However, as we see with this documentary to ignore the urgency of the effects of climate change is not only irresponsible but immoral.

More soon.

Time Warp: Water

2009-11-08T11:33:00.000-08:00

You've never seen water drops like this. Amazing

Water Experts React To Barcelona Negotiations

2009-11-08T11:20:00.000-08:00

Water Experts React To Barcelona Negotiations

Excerpt:

Water advocates and experts are convening in Barcelona to lobby climate negotiators to recognize intersections of water and climate, and for the inclusion of key water language in the working documents that will form the backbone for high-level meetings in Copenhagen in December. So far, they feel, their efforts have fallen on deaf ears.

The Global Public Policy Network, a group that includes the United Nations’ own water group and other water-related organizations, hosted a “water day” on Monday to coincide with the final build-up conference before the United Nations Copenhagen Climate Conference next month. Water experts say they are are deeply dismayed that all references to water have been stricken from the Non Paper 31—the draft text for Copenhagen. The organizations hope they can convince negotiators to re-instate mention of climate change impacts on water.

“Negotiators’ failure to recognize the role that water has in adapting to climate change could have severe implications for future levels of water security and ensuring more resilient systems for the future—in fact it risks undermining many of the objectives of the adaptation climate change discussions,” said Emily Benson, project manager for the Stakeholder Forum, in an email interview with Circle of Blue.

The forum, an international multi-stakeholder organization working on sustainable development, released a statement Tuesday about water “evaporating” from the climate change talks.

“The way that water is managed in and between countries will be a critical component for the success of any efforts to adapt to the impacts of climate change. It will also be a vital consideration for many mitigation activities, including hydropower, agriculture and forestry projects,” the statement said.

“Even with the best mitigation strategies, water-related effects of climate change will come,” said Anders Berntell, executive director of the Stockholm International Water Institute. “The challenge for many nations is, how to adapt. Climate change is in effect water change, since it will be through water that the changes will be realized first and foremost.”

Other experts not at the forum were also worried about the exclusion of water.

“What’s the agenda if they’re not going to mention water?” asked James Workman, author of “Heart of Dryness: How the Last Bushmen Can Help Us Endure the Coming Age of Permanent Drought.”

“I think that’s short-sighted of negotiators, especially when you look at all the links between water and energy. I can’t quite understand where it’s coming from to just pull water out of the negotiating text,” Workman said.

One climate expert, also not at the conference, was surprised that negotiators were failing to mention something as fundamental as water in the treaty, and speculated that the text may have impinged on some ulterior interest.

“That water and climate are connected is not controversial—it’s one of the conclusions of the IPCC. However, the IPCC is strictly prohibited from being policy prescriptive. Contributors can discuss but not endorse specific policy measures,” said Dr. Stephen Schneider, a biological science professor at Standford University.

The IPCC did, however, release a technical report last year on water and climate change. According to the report, “water resource issues have not been adequately addressed in climate change analyses and climate policy formulations.”

As an issue, climate is not faring well in the United States where a recent national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press showed a decline in concern about climate change. According to the poll, 35 percent of Americans “see global warming as a serious problem,” down from 45 percent in April 2008.

Yet data from a Circle of Blue GlobeScan international public opinion survey found that water problems—scarcity and pollution—are the most troubling issue for people world-wide. Climate change has always ranked below water, according to GlobeScan data.

The poll surveyed 1,000 people in each of 25 countries, and probed 500 in each of the following countries on specific questions: Canada, China, India, Mexico, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Ninety-one percent of respondents indicated they think water shortages are a serious or somewhat serious problem. Eighty-seven percent indicated they are worried about increasing global freshwater shortages.

The amount of people concerned about freshwater shortages has increased five percentage points since 2003, when the opinion polling was first done.

end of excerpt
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To not include water as part of these negotiations will prove the parties involved are not serious about addressing the climate crisis. Water policy is central to an effective treaty as sea level rise, drought, glacier melt, and wetlands loss are all key to protection from storms, agricultural diversity, and life itself.

Just what are they thinking?

Melting Glaciers Jolt Smokestack China

2009-11-08T11:11:00.000-08:00

Melting Glaciers Jolt Smokestack China

AS an expedition from Chinese state television worked its way across the remote Tibetan plateau earlier this year, the explorers were amazed by what they found.

The plateau has been called the world’s third largest ice store after the North and South Poles. Yet according to Chinese scientists, the “third pole” is warming up faster than anywhere else on earth.

The TV team found bare rock where glaciers had retreated. Lakes had dried up. Lush grassland had turned to desert. The livestock was dead, the farmers impoverished.

They brought back a visual lesson in global warming so stark that censors allowed the programme makers to broadcast a frank exposé. Their film attracted the attention of the Communist party’s leaders and has put climate change at the centre of a remarkably open debate in China ahead of a summit on the issue in Copenhagen next month.

It means that when President Barack Obama arrives in China next weekend he will find his hosts ready to talk about dozens of measures to slow the rate of global warming. He will not find them willing to agree to calls by rich countries for Beijing to accept a binding cap on carbon emissions — a condition that commentaries in the Chinese media have defined as politically unacceptable.

Any compromise might break an international deadlock and allow a treaty to be signed. However, even if that now looks unlikely to happen — and the United Nations official leading the talks accepts this — the fact is that China has woken up to the damage in an unprecedented way.

The speed and scale of change on the Tibetan plateau have made Chinese leaders react to something they understand — a potential threat to the future of China itself.

They are clearly seeking to mould opinion in favour of “greener” policies after decades of a highly polluting dash for economic growth that has poisoned China’s rivers and darkened its skies.

Last month, for example, researchers discovered that levels of black carbon in the ice core of the Tibetan plateau had soared since the 1990s because of smokestack industries and coal fires in millions of homes.

The plateau’s 36,000 glaciers, which once extended for 18,000 square miles, could vanish before mid-century if present rates of warming persist. More than 80% of them are in retreat. The overall area has shrunk by 4.5% in the past 20 years.

Most ominous of all, in the area that Chinese know as Sanjiangyuan, where three mighty rivers rise — the Yangtze, the Yellow and the Mekong — the headwaters run shallow and weak, threatening the water supplies for hundreds of millions of people.

“In the 1970s and 1980s, here was rich grassland and sheep grazed everywhere, but the weather has become hotter and drier,” a Tibetan herder, Sonarenqin, 39, told the TV crew.

“Five years ago my family had 300 sheep and 30 yaks. Now I have no sheep at all and merely a few yaks,” an 80-year-old Tibetan named Seluo added. “Our life has become so hard that we live on handouts.”

In the past 30 years the thawing of permafrost, a layer of soil that is usually frozen all the year round, has changed the landscape profoundly.

“There were 4,077 lakes and now 3,000 of them have disappeared,” said Xin Hongyuan, a geologist in Qinghai, which shares the huge expanse of plateau with the Tibet autonomous region and the provinces of Sichuan and Gansu.

“The snow is thawing and the snowline has risen from 4,600 metres to 5,300 metres. The Jianggendiru glacier, which is the main water supply of the Yangtze, has been degenerating fast since 1970, and when the glaciers shrink there will be a water crisis in the Yellow and Yangtze rivers.”

The Yellow river, for example, supplies water to a fifth of China’s 1.3 billion population and serves 50 big cities along its 3,395 miles.

In recent years it has sometimes slowed to a trickle. Once it virtually stopped flowing for 226 days, causing urban waterpipes to run dry and confronting downstream provinces with huge financial losses.

Qin Dahe, an eminent scientist and explorer, has been permitted to disclose alarming official assessments of the causes to Xinhua, the state news agency. “Owing to global warming, glaciers on the QinghaiTibet plateau are retreating extensively at a speed faster than in any other part of the world,” he said.

Temperatures on the plateau have risen by an average of 0.32C every 10 years since 1961, about six times as fast as in the rest of China. In Tibet, it is hotter than at any time in the past half century, while in the south and west of Tibet there is between 30% and 80% less rainfall.
end of excerpt.
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Just as a disclaimer: This is not a defense of China as their coal burning continues to contribute to the climate change we see... However, what will Obama say in China? He will tell them that they must agree to binding carbon emission caps even as they now work to do more to counter their emissions than the US is doing. While the U.S spends billions to build an Alberta Clipper pipeline to truck in dirty carbon laden tarsands crude from Canada, China is taking over the solar market. It is one thing to see the damage you have done and sincerely work to decrease what is contributing to it. Quite another to see it, know it, and yet continue to stall progress all while you are wagging fingers at others. Don't wonder now why the US cannot get global cooperation on necessary carbon emissions cuts. It's called walking the walk.

You Are Life; A Poem/ Blog Action day

2009-10-15T09:24:00.000-07:00

My life sprang from you

your essence giving me breath

drops falling on my head

promising grace and spiritual oneness

Your loving arms embracing me

as I swam in your energy

my body an instrument of your light

my soul an emulation of your love

From birth to death

your lifeblood was mine

I drank you in

I lived through you

My respect undying

You are life
You are hope
You are love
You are Earth
You are me...

You are water.

The Global Water Crisis: Where Is Our Moral Will?

2009-10-15T05:38:00.000-07:00

The more I read about this crucial issue the more incensed I become about this global crisis that is totally unnecessary because we have all we need to mitigate it. I also feel disillusioned about a global community that for the most part is not treating this with the urgency it deserves. Do we have to see corpses of children who died as a result of our human behavior before we act? Do we have to actually suffer the consequences before we realize we waited too long? Even though we were warned and have what we need to fix it? If we completely waste the finite freshwater resources we have on this planet we will destroy our own species. The idea that we could actually continue to destroy ourselves by behavior we know is detrimental to our survival is to me truly illogical. We have lost touch with the importance of water, and by doing so have lost respect for it. And that is what in great part is leading us to catastrophe if we do not act boldly now to save it.

Case in point:

In An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore makes reference to the Aral Sea (also noted in the first chapter of his bestseller, Earth In The Balance.) The Aral Sea began shrinking in the 60's when the Soviet Union diverted the Ana Darya and Syr Darya rivers for irrigation, which was not even successful. Today the Aral Sea has shrunk 60% in surface area, and 80% in volume. It is polluted beyond recognition because of weapons testing, fertilizer runoff, and other industrial projects that have left it a bowl of toxic dust... And humans did this.

This is becoming a common tale around our world as our rapacious and wasteful behavior regarding this liquid of life is bringing us to the brink of global war over "blue gold." There is no doubt if you look across Kenya, Niger, Somalia, Sudan, and other parts of Africa, Asia, South and Central America, the Middle East (particularly Jordan, Syria, Iran, and including disputes over rights between Israel and the Palestinian territories) Mexico, and even between the U.S. and Canada and in our own country, that unless we become serious about facing this crisis which doesn't have to be a crisis, we will pass the point of no return. And regarding water we cannot and must not allow that to happen.

In my many entries on this issue, statistics regarding the current crisis, diseases suffered because of lack of sanitation or proper sanitation, desalinization, corporate privatization and its effects, and the need to declare water a human right globally without allowing it to become a commodity at the expense of the poor and sick have been discussed. I believe this issue goes to the core of who we are as human beings and so far I see that while many struggle to give hope, humanity as a whole is suffering in the moral will department and that baffles and saddens me. The climate crisis is also contributing to the shortage of water in Africa as droughts are becoming more severe and prolonged with disease, famine, and war the repercussions. And this is just the beginning of something that the world has been getting warnings about for over twenty years.

Again, much like the truth Mr. Gore and others have been trying to get out all of these years regarding our rapacious consumption of fossil fuels that is bringing us to the brink of Peak Oil, and the concentration of CO2 and other gases that are exacerbating the droughts and other effects we are now seeing by own hand, so too have the warnings about what we will reap regarding a global water shortage been viritually ignored by many governments and people who never believe it will reach the point where we will have to care. Well, we are there.

One other predominant issue in regards to water is that population is projected to increase within the next fifty years whereby two-thirds of the Earth's population will be living in towns and cities. That is absolutely staggering based on current population trends. The question then is: how do we control population growth (regarding informing people in underdeveloped countries about birth control and family planning) in these areas and provide sustainable solutions to the water crisis in the future if our moral will is already gone? Are efforts like desalinization truly then the answer? Or is it a bandaid rather than a solution? Desalinization is expensive and expends much in the way of greenhouse gases. Is it then a self defeating process only to once again be abused for profit? And what happens regarding the desalinization of ocean water that has a higher acidity level due to the consumption of higher amounts of CO2 and other gases that will be brought on by the very process we believe is saving us?

The point to this then is, why can't anyone see the answer staring us all in the face? THE ANSWER IS US. It is the same answer regarding this global water crisis as it is regarding the climate crisis. It will not be solved by desalinization or any other process if we continue to waste any resource we turn to. It has to start with us getting in the face of governments that refuse to give what people need to survive and collude to profit from their misery. It has to start with us standing up to corporations that would commoditize this resource that all must have as a human right. It has to start with us in our own lives becoming more responsible for what we use and how we use it. It has to come from our moral will to do our part in preserving the finite freshwater resources we have left on this Earth so that other drastic measures can be avoided.

The cost of us continuing to think otherwise is far too great. The answer is simple. If we won't take it upon ourselves to care for our planet, we betray it. If we don't do all we can globally to face this water crisis, we will cease to exist. Drastic you say? Perhaps to some. But then wars over oil have already done enough to bring us to the point of nuclear conflagration. Wars over water will most certainly be the point in my view that tips that scale the longer we wait to allow our humanity to shine through.

This post is part of Blog Action Day 2009 for Climate Change.

Blog Action Day

Guy Laliberte's Water For All, All For Water event from the ISS

2009-10-11T08:10:00.000-07:00

Water For All, All For Water

For those who missed the two hour global event, Water For All, All For Water, you can now watch the broadcast in its entirety at the link posted.

It is a beautiful event that makes the importance and spirituality of water so clear. Some of the featured guests are former Vice President, Nobel Laureate Al Gore, Dr. David Suzuki, Dr. Vandana Shiva, Dr. Wangari Mathaai, and Maude Barlow. Also U2 performs as well as other musical guests from around the world.

It truly puts water into perspective.

You can also pledge support to preserve water at the site as well.

Coca Cola's Lies About Sustainability Have Gone Too Far

2009-10-03T09:48:00.000-07:00

Coca Cola's Lies About Sustainability Have Gone Too Far

"They've gone from greenwashing to outright lying.

In 2007, facing growing opposition to its water management practices, particularly in India, Coca-Cola's CEO, Neville Isdell came up with a brilliant idea. The Coca-Cola company, he announced, will become water neutral, replenishing every drop of water they use, and therefore, as the suggestion went, Coca-Cola would have no impact of water resources around the world.

Voila! Problem solved, a company using 300 billion liters of water annually would have no impact on water resources. Sustainability doesn't get any better than that. The only problem was that Coca-Cola knew that water neutrality was impossible to achieve.

In a concept paper on water neutrality that Coca-Cola developed with others, it clearly stated that, "In a strict sense, the term 'water neutral' is troublesome and even may be misleading. It is often possible to reduce a water footprint, but it is generally impossible to bring it down to zero."

But minor details such as "misleading," "troublesome" and "impossible" did not stop Coca-Cola from using the term liberally and widely. And in India, where they have faced the most intense opposition (two bottling plants have been shut down), Coca-Cola went on a fast track, announcing that they will become water neutral by the end of 2009. It took a challenge by the India Resource Center and our allies during in December 2008 to get Coca-Cola to change its tune and to admit two months later that water neutrality is controversial and they will not use it.

"Please note that the terminology "water offset," like "water neutrality" is controversial ... Until a better terminology is identified and accepted by the broader water community, we are using the term offset." -- From Coca-Cola's "Achieving Water Balance through Community Partnership," February 2009.

But the marketing appeal of a concept like water neutrality, however impossible it may be to achieve, is simply to great for a publicity driven Coca-Cola to pass by. Sharing the opening plenary of the Clinton Global Initiative with Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Walmart two days ago, Muhtar Kent, Coca-Cola's new CEO, blurted out that Coca-Cola will become water neutral by 2020.

Wait a minute. Is there something new from the "broader water community" since February this year that has enabled water neutrality to be possible and not controversial? No, there isn't, and trust me, we would know if there was because we keep a close watch on Coca-Cola and its shenanigans. Muhtar Kent's blurt is truly indicative of how Coca-Cola has approached its "water stewardship" initiatives."

end of excerpt
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Here we go. Now companies like Coca Cola will want to make us believe that 'water neutrality' is actually something that can be achieved. Just how gullible do they think we are? And of course, they can promise to not use as much water, but that doesn't mean they won't still pollute the water. Offsets whether in carbon or water are simply corporate mechanisms devised to shirk moral responsibility and should be taken at face value.

India Resource Center: Campaign to Hold Coca Cola Accountable

First "clown" in space to show urgency of global water crisis

2009-10-03T09:36:00.001-07:00

Guy Laliberté presents The ONE DROP Foundation from One Drop Foundation on Vimeo.

Space's First Clown Reaches International Space Station

Billionaire Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte arrives at the International Space Station and -- true to form -- dons a clown nose. During his brief tourist trip to the ISS, Laliberte plans to coordinate from the ISS a 120-minute, 14-city show on Earth featuring former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, Peter Gabriel and U2.

Guy Laliberte, the billionaire founder of Cirque du Soleil, arrived at the International Space Station Oct. 1 and—to no one's surprise—slapped on a clown nose and began yukking it up with crew members of the space station. Laliberte is the seventh paying (reportedly $35 million) space tourist to travel to the station.

Laliberte blasted off into space early Sept. 30 aboard a Russian Soyuz craft along with Russian cosmonaut Maxim Surayev and American astronaut Jeffrey Williams. While Surayev and Williams are scheduled for a six-month tour of duty at the space station, Laliberte is returning to Earth Oct. 11.

"I'm adapting pretty good. I love that thing [the space station], but I ain't staying six months," Laliberte said in a video linkup between the space station and Russian Mission Control outside Moscow.

In addition to a weightless juggling show, Laliberte also said he plans to bring some levity to the usually somber space station operations, suggesting tickling the ISS' crew in their sleep and other hijinks.

But the big show is scheduled for Oct. 9, when Laliberte plans to coordinate from space a 14-city show on Earth featuring former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, Peter Gabriel and U2 seeking to raise awareness through "artistic illustration of the humanitarian struggles and solutions associated with water." Laliberte is founder of the One Drop Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to ensuring that everyone across the planet has access to water.

The event will take place simultaneously in Montreal; Moscow; Santa Monica, Calif.; New York City; Johannesburg; Mumbai; Marrakesh; Sydney; Osaka; Tampa, Fla.; Mexico City; Rio de Janeiro; Paris; and London and will be broadcast globally. In addition, the 120-minute show will be Webcast through the One Drop Foundation.

"The Earth will gaze up at the stars and resonate to the rhythms of artists and world-renowned figures who will demonstrate their commitment to water and pay tribute to this vitally important natural resource," states a press release from Laliberte."
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I truly hope this awakens people to the urgency of this crisis. Without water there is no life on Earth. Perhaps seeing it from the ISS will be a humbling act for those of us who take it for granted here. I usually look down on the rich who do this as it being an extravagance. However, in this case since it was for such a good cause I support it wholeheartedly.

Water In Crisis: Future Wars?

2009-10-03T09:31:00.001-07:00

I see the proliferation of talk regarding the water crisis now as I did the "awakening" so to speak regarding the climate crisis. We waited until the situation was so bad to even talk about it seriously. People have been warning us since the late eighties regarding water scarcity. I myself have been writing and talking about this for the last ten years. And yet, the amount of people without fresh potable water continues to rise. Can you imagine a world where 2/3 of the population is without potable water? This is the prediction for 2030 should current behaviors continue along with the effects of climate change, primarily in the form of drought.

And while this is indeed a serious prediction that has merit, I do also have to wonder just how much governments want this to get to a true crisis situation as the climate crisis, because it seems that using the climate crisis now to warn of conflict is good business for the war machine as well. Would governments actually use water scarcity to trim down the population of the world's poor? I just cannot understand why the human race can never join together in a common purpose to do what is right instead of allowing a crisis to deteriorate to the point where war has to even be an option!

I always believed that water unlike oil, is a resource that would actually bind people together in the end because of the MAD principle, meaning, that like nuclear war, countries would not wish to start wars over water because it would only wind up hurting their own people in the process. I don't know, perhaps I have too much faith in humanity even with all of my cynicism? However, there are solutions to this and the first and foremost one is changing our agricultural practices regarding wasteful irrigation, crop rotations, what crops are grown where and when; rebuilding and fixing infrastructure; stopping the proliferation of dams that siphon water from agriculture; reforestation; wasteful industrial practices and curtailing the use of water wasteful energy sources such as coal and nuclear that use large amounts of water; conservation which so many people seem to think is a dirty word; and the big one- declaring water a human right and standing up to privitization and commoditization of it globally. Desalination (which should be a last resort) should be used in the Middle East and is needed there. However, that does not mean they should get away with building more huge dams as well and using water as a political weapon.

Future wars over water can be averted if we look beyond to seeing the big picture and how not having it will effect us all equally.

Water shortage in southern Iraq threatens two million people

2009-08-28T10:08:00.000-07:00

Water shortage in southern Iraq threatens two million people

And what is Turkey's solution to this crisis for the Euphrates River? Why build more dams to divert even more water of course. There is no "democracy" in any place where people are deprived of the basic necessities of life. So much for our "occupation." It's bad enough we forced Monsanto seeds down their throats to ruin their agriculture, but now they don't even have enough water to water the seeds. Why is it everywhere we go we bring nothing but misery to the people who live there? The Middle East is already an arid water scarce area.

They cannot afford to have climate change along with multiple dams and wasteful practices adding to their crisis. Once again, the sun shines bright in the sky and all people can think of is using water for electricity that they need to grow food and survive because it makes contractors and politicians rich, and can also be used as a political weapon as the Ilisu Dam in Turkey is one against the Kurds.Restore the Marshlands, give the seeds back to the farmers, tear down the unncessary dams in Turkey destroying history and being used as political weapons, and invest in solar power in this area to save water. These dams have displaced thousands of people and denied water to those who need it to live. It isn't as though the solutions aren't there, but of course they are always the solutions that make someone money that only matter.It is time for the Middle East to come into the sun.

Excerpt from article:

Martin Chulov in Nasiriyah, Iraq guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 26 August 2009
Two million people face life without water
Link to this video

A water shortage described as the most critical since the earliest days of Iraq's civilisation is threatening to leave up to 2 million people in the south of the country without electricity and almost as many without drinking water.

An already meagre supply of electricity to Iraq's fourth-largest city of Nasiriyah has fallen by 50% during the last three weeks because of the rapidly falling levels of the Euphrates river, which has only two of four power-generating turbines left working. If, as predicted, the river falls by a further 20cm during the next fortnight, engineers say the remaining two turbines will also close down, forcing a total blackout in the city.

Down river, where the Euphrates spills out into the Shatt al-Arab waterway at the north-eastern corner of the Persian Gulf, the lack of fresh water has raised salinity levels so high that two towns, of about 3,000 people, on the northern edge of Basra have this week evacuated. "We can no longer drink this water," said one local woman from the village of al-Fal. "Our animals are all dead and many people here are diseased."

Iraqi officials have been attempting to grapple with the magnitude of the crisis for months, which, like much else in this fractured society, has many causes, both man-made and natural.
Two winters of significantly lower than normal rainfalls – half the annual average last year and one-third the year before – have followed six years of crippling instability, in which industry barely functioned and agriculture struggled to meet half of subsistence needs. "For thousands of years Iraq's agricultural lands were rich with planted wheat, rice and barley," said Salah Aziz, director of planning in Iraq's agricultural ministry, adding that land was "100% in use".

"This year less than 50% of the land is in use and most of the yields are marginal. This year we cannot begin to cover even 40% of Iraq's fruit and vegetable demand." During the last five chaotic years, many new dams and reservoirs have been built in Turkey, Syria and Iran, which share the Euphrates and its small tributaries. The effect has been to starve the Euphrates of its lifeblood, which throughout the ages has guaranteed bountiful water, even during drought. At the same time, irrigators have tried tilling marginal land in an attempt for quick yields and in all cases the projects have been abandoned.

"Not even during Saddam's time did we face the prospect of something so grave," said Nasiriyah's governor, Qusey al-Ebadi. Just east of the city, the Marsh Arabs are also on the edge of a crisis – unprecedented even during the three decades of reprisals they faced under the former dictator.

"The current level of the Euphrates cannot feed the small tributaries that give water to the marshlands," he continued. "The people there have started to dig wells for their own survival. There is no water to use for washing, because it is stagnant and contaminated. Many of the animals have contracted disease and died and people with animals are leaving their areas." Nowhere is Iraq's water shortage more stark than in what used to be the marshlands. Towards the Iranian border and south to the Gulf, rigid and yellowing reeds jut from a hard-baked landscape of cracked mud.

Skiffs that once plied the lowland waters lie dry and splintering and ducks wallow in fetid green ponds that pocket the maze of feeder streams. Steel cans of drinking water bought by desperate locals line dirt roads like over-sized letter boxes. The Euphrates, once broad and endlessly green, is now narrow and drab...

end of excerpt.
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It matters not what part of the world you live in, or whether you are French, American, Israeli, Palestinian, Iraqi, Pakistani, etc. you have the right to clean water, food, health, and to be secure in the place you choose to live. War has provided NONE of those things, particularly for this region of the world, and it is now primarily the fault of the US that these people now suffer as well as the fault of other countries looking to gain from their misery.

It surely makes someone like myself not even have the motivation to continue to try to talk to people to make them see that poltiics, religion, and more than anything else, GREED (that spans all religions, non religions, and politics) has now deteriorated our world to the point where humanity is becoming obsolete.

When climate change along with all of these factors runs the Fertile Crescent, one of the most historically rich areas of the world and the cradle of agriculture dry how many who ignored these warnings due to their own apathy and prejudices will then start to care? Well, you will be too late then.

Flow-For The Love Of Water

2009-08-28T10:01:00.000-07:00

This is part one of eight parts. Refer to the link here:

Flow-The Movie

to watch the other seven parts.

Please spread it around.

Thanks

Come visit my new Water Is Life Group on Current .com

2009-08-16T11:04:00.000-07:00

Water Is Life Group

I now also curate a Water Is Life Group on Current.com/TV. This is a group that will report on the global water crisis, pollution, privitization, and all other aspects of water, its history, it's meaning to society, and it spiritual properties that give us life.

Feel free to go visit and if you are so inclined, you can join the group and converse on this important topic with other members.

Any vehicle we can use to get out this truth is a vehicle we must now use, especially in regard to water and its conservation.

Hope to see you there,

Thanks
Jan

Bottled Water Sucks

2009-08-08T18:49:00.000-07:00

From the article:

I knew bottled water was a social ill but I didn't know how damaging it was until I saw an explosive and compelling new documentary called Tapped.

With style, verve and righteous anger, the film exposes the bottled water industry's role in suckering the public, harming our health, accelerating climate change, contributing to overall pollution, and increasing America's dependence on fossil fuels. All while gouging consumers with exorbitant and indefensible prices.

Claire Thompson summed up the problem well in her post on the movie at Grist:

"Not only is it [bottled water] a clear waste of resources (only 20 percent of plastic water bottles used in the United States are recycled, and far too many of the rest probably end up in the Pacific Garbage Patch), it's an incredible waste of money for consumers, who pay more than the price of gasoline for water that's marketed as "pure," but in reality is largely unregulated, full of harmful toxins like BPA, and far less safe for drinking than free tap water. (In fact, 40 percent of the time, bottled water is nothing but municipal tap water, freed from the government oversight that keeps it safe.)"
Watch the movie's powerful trailer.

The film's website lists where you can see the doc in the theater, and offers opportunities for hosting a screening of your own. (So far, it will be screened in a smattering of the coastal cities where you'd expect them to play.)
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It is time to stand up and fight these soulless corporate bastards who are out to steal your water. This film shows that spirit. A spirit we in America desperately need.

Water Is Life.

Egypt Blocks Nile Water Deal

2009-08-01T13:58:00.000-07:00

Egypt Blocks Nile Water Deal

Will this area be a place of 'water wars' as climate change and population increases continue to place strains on water resources? Tensions are already flaring as Egypt claims it needs to have the water it was allotted previously due to the fact that it is the Nile alone that supplies the majority of its water. Whereas other riparian states have other sources of water and receive more rain. Is this a valid claim? Does Egypt not hold any responsibility for the water it uses, its population increases, nor its consumption and irrigation practices? What of the future as we already see many areas getting less rainfall and water evaporation taking place due to changes in climate?

Also, there are many dams built in this area that already decrease available water resources to agricultural areas and which have displaced thousands of people. I find it illogical that based on the predictions of future climate changes for this area, drought, and water usage that is wasteful as well as the many dams being built that cause diversion of water resources and environmental devastation that Egypt or Sudan can continue to give these same excuses for much longer.

More about the Nile Basin Initiative:

Nile Basin Initiative

Rich Nations Vulnerable To Water Disasters

2009-07-31T13:28:00.000-07:00

Rich Nations Vulnerable To Water Disasters

Even after all that has happened and is happening globally regarding environmental factors and climate change, Americans are still under the impression that we are not vulnerable to that which now effects the developing world. I think this ignorance is what fuels much of the inaction regarding water issues and climate change in America. It needs to change. Now.