Josh Harkinson at Mother Jones writes:
What's Your Water Footprint?
Nice jeans. Too bad they cost the planet 2,866 gallons of precious H2O.
Even as the greenest among us cut our showers short and let our toilets go yellow, we may be blissfully unaware that our household water use accounts for only 6 percent of the water that we consume. The other 94 percent comes from the products we buy, everything from almonds and tomatoes to blue jeans and microchips. (See "Big Gulp.") The average person in the developed world drinks a gallon of water each day but "eats" another 800 gallons. And as Americans, our water consumption per capita is twice the world's average. Each one of us uses enough water annually to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool—four times what someone in Yemen uses.
In an effort to get consumers, companies, and entire countries to recognize the true costs of their water use, a few environmental groups are promoting the concept of our "water footprint." The idea "very much brings the water problem to the people," explains its creator, Arjen Hoekstra, scientific director of the Netherlands-based Water Footprint Network. Just as calculating carbon footprints has encouraged—and shocked—many Americans into seriously considering their personal environmental impacts, Hoekstra hopes that water footprinting will reveal the gushing faucet behind every purchase we make. "And then it shows that maybe people can do something about it."
We've got a long way to go. In the past 50 years, the world's water use has tripled. More than a third of the western United States sits atop groundwater that is being consumed faster than it's replenished. Half of the world's wetlands are gone, killed off in part by irrigation and dams, which have destroyed habitats along 60 percent of the planet's largest river systems. Since 1970, the population of freshwater species has been halved; one-fifth of all freshwater fish vanished in the past century—an extinction rate nearly 50 times that of mammals. And consuming more water has concentrated pesticides and fertilizers in what's left over: It's unsafe to swim or fish in nearly 40 percent of US rivers and streams, and polluted water sickens nearly 3.5 million Americans a year. |
You can calculate your personal water footprint here.
= = =
The diary rescue begins below and continues in the jump.
= = =
Haole in Hawaii posted a Hawaii Photo Diary, which included a snap of the small Asian mongoose, an imported and annoying predator.
ValerieTarico looked into who is behind the claim Too Poor to Get the Groceries Home?: "After the [Seattle] city council voted to require a twenty cent per bag fee for disposable grocery bags, CAMP, the Central Area Motivation Program joined the chemical industry in opposition. A fee, they said, would adversely impact poor people, even if they are provided with reusable bags for free. It’s just too much to ask that poor people remember a bag when they shop, and so they will get charged for them. That’s the reasoning—from a ‘Motivation’ program, which is now lending credibility to a $1.3 million dollar referendum propaganda campaign by a plastics trade group—all aimed to ensure that those fees don’t happen. Why all the money? Well, right now the average Seattle resident uses over 500 disposable bags per year, and a similar fee in Ireland reduced disposable grocery bag use by 90%, with approximately one billion fewer bags consumed per year."
= = =
The Overnight News Digest is posted. Included is the story, Uribe tours South America to explain US bases in Colombia.
billlaurelMD updated us on News from the Arctic: "It's interesting, though likely not all that vital to the final result at the end of this melt season, that the melt rate has suddenly slowed. As usual, the weather over the next 6 weeks will determine how things play out for the balance of the melt season, which typically ends at mid-September, about the time the sun is nearly setting to commence the long Arctic winter. Last diary, I put up a graphic of predictions for the minimum sea ice extent from those with some expertise in sea ice forecasting; we'll see where we wind up in 6 weeks plus or minus a week or so and will see how those predictions fared."
terryhallinan took another swing at the organic movement, saying it is Cruel To Animals: "Kreider Farms, a dairy and egg-producing ‘factory farm’ in Lancaster County,Pennsylvania, has contracted to build a state-of-the-art low aerobic nutrient and waste processing system. Now the happy cows and chickens will have their ‘other output’ recycled into fertilizer and fuel instead of fouling the land, air and water like organic farmers do things."
When LongTom claimed that Cash for Clunkers Eats It, he caught a barrage of angry comments: "This seems like a ‘popular’ program, but it's a stupid government giveaway to people who don't deserve it. It's patently unfair to people who actually have made environmentally-based car purchases over the years. It rewards bad behavior. And politically, it's stupid. It's really only popular with the small number of people taking advantage of it, and car dealers. Try using them as an electoral base."
kittycago pointed out that Clunkers in the Senate to vote NO to success: "So far the program with the biggest blue collar bang for the buck is the ‘cash for clunkers’ program. Manufacturing is at a serious low and the battle cry for stimulus was Americans needs jobs. Even Biden gave a short answer campaiging on what America needed J-O-B-S he spelled and he was right. Now being faced with the horrible outcome of success for Main Street for the Obama administration and hence average Americans the old conservative arguments have been dragged out of the pantry of lies to keep the trickle in a downward flow. Watch the blue dogs run from Obama in the senate because they must play both sides and they are not from the rust belt states. Forget ‘United we Stand’ in the Senate. It is dog eat dog and no dog is hungrier than the blue dogs. McCaskill is joining with McCain?"
davej also wondered about the Conservative Hating On Cash For Clunkers: "Government can work, and the ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program proved it. So, naturally, conservatives have to hate on it."
Benito reported on an IEA Economist, Who Says that Peak Oil is Effectively Here: "Not in so many words of course, but that's the gist of an Independent interview with Dr Fatih Birol, the chief economist at the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA). ... The most important information: The IEA estimates that the decline in oil production in existing fields is now running at 6.7 per cent a year compared to the 3.7 per cent decline it had estimated in 2007, which it now acknowledges to be wrong. This decline rate works out to drop in oil production from declining fields by roughly 50% in approximately 11 years. The only thing that can offset this decline are new discoveries."
rperks found that a Mountaintop Mining Boycott Sparks Backlash in Tennessee: "If the out-of-state mining companies boycotting Tennessee for not allowing its mountains to be blown up expected sympathy for their lame-brained stunt, they got a wake-up call this morning in the form of blistering editorials in two of Tennessee's leading newspapers. The Chattanooga Times-Free Press minces no words by labeling mountaintop removal coal mining ‘an irreligious and immoral assault on some of the most beautiful and valuable mountains and valleys in this country.’"
alaskalive and his daughter Megan had some bad luck the first day out, but then had a great time Salmon Fishing at Beautiful Bird Creek, Alaska: " ‘Should we just put on rain Coats and go fishing in the rain" asked Megan? ‘Yes, let's do it!’ We began to get into clothes which were suitable for fishing in the rain. Once we got down to the river, we were surprised to see many people sprinkling the banks of the river... fishing in the rain! It seems we were not the only ones with fishing fever. The banks of the river were very muddy and slippery for the most part. However, one could walk close to the water's edge and find good footing in the rocks. Megan slipped in the mud and fell on her behind... she was totally muddy at this point. Wet, cold and muddy...we only fished for a little while and gave up hoping for a clear sunny day on Saturday."
Kaid at NRDC weighed with another in the Village Green series, this time onHow to Fix Local Transit & Road Planning: "Our nation's metro regions need stronger tools to address transportation and land use issues, where things have broken down badly in most places. I haven't turned to the issue of metropolitan regionalism in a while (last time was in April), but some thoughts by Bill Hudnut inspire me to do so again today. One of Bill's bios lists him, accurately, as a man of many facets: ‘Former four-term (GOP) mayor of Indianapolis and congressman, author, public speaker, TV commentator, think tank fellow, elected official, and clergyman.’ I've had the good fortune of working with Bill occasionally and highly value his experience and judgment. He's right on the money this time as he argues for reform of metro-level transportation planning."
RandySF reported a prediction that El Niño Could Be Strongest Since 1997-98: "A few weeks ago, I posted a diary about indications that a new El Niño was on thew way. Today, according to the Independent, el Niño is not only here, but could be the strongest since 1997-98, the year Coastal California seemed to almost wash into the ocean."
Neighbor2 inquired about what constitutes The Worst Feature of Waxman Markey Bill?: "Identifying the bill's worst shortcomings is important, so activists can try to have them changed in the Senate version or use them to argue for defeat of the bill if they aren't. The worst feature of the bill is not that it strips the EPA's newly won authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. (This is pretty bad.) It's not the way permits are handed out free to carbon emitters. It's that this cap will also establish a floor below which U.S. greenhouse emissions won't fall.
Stranded Wind envisioned the legislative situation as a kind of Climate Change Casino: "There is some case to be made for some sort of trading system as this could be used to engineer a flow of funds from existing, entrenched polluters to clean running innovators, but our government needs revenues rather than another poorly understood synthetic market, and there are other means that could accomplish the changes envisioned with cap and trade that don’t enable further shenanigans from Wall Street."
beach babe in fl popped in with another in the series Macca's Meatless Monday ... Sexy Salad: "During the months of June, July and August I live on salads, popsicles and cool drinks. Here in Florida it is really too hat to do much cooking so I concentrate on main dish salads which require cooking usually no more than one ingredient."
Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse guest-hosted the long-running series initiated by Carnacki with Eco Energized at DK!: "My happy story is how the environmental community at Daily Kos is so energized with passion and determination to make a difference in the upcoming legislative reforms. Even the birds are singing ...because environmental laws are not written each year. The last time Congress enacted major eco legislation was in the 1970s and 1980s. So we can't let this opportunity pass by. Obama has made it clear that he wants us to play a key role in these legislative reforms via bottom-up politics. The White House sent a clear message to eco-advocate Bill McKibben: WE need to build the movement that gives Obama the room to do what needs to be done. Obama can't do what needs to be done within the current political forces. Obama needs us to pressure DC to take the action needed for environmental change and reform. The Daily Kos community is building that structure needed to meet these challenges."