Hope in a Changing Climate - trailer

Hope in a Changing Climate places the restoration of ecosystems at the centre of global discussions on climate change, poverty and sustainable agriculture.

 

This documentary entitled Hope in a Changing Climate highlights that fertile, life-sustaining environments can come out of degraded ecosystems. It shows projects in China, Ethiopa and Rwanda where large areas of decimated ecosystems that were able to be restored through the efforts of local people, enabling them to break free from poverty.

Cash for Grass Program in Sacramento!

Sacramento council votes to launch ‘cash for grass’ program to save water
By Ryan Lillis
Sacramento Bee
Mar. 4, 2014

The city of Sacramento wants to pay you to rip out your water-guzzling lawn.

The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to launch a “cash for grass” program that will provide rebates to homeowners who replace their grass lawns with drought-tolerant landscaping. Demand for the rebates is expected to be high; city utilities officials said they already had a waiting list for the program before the spending plan was approved.

“I think this will really help our residents make a difference in saving water,” said Councilman Kevin McCarty, who proposed the program. “I think it’s time that as a city, we help incentivize action in conservation.”

The rebate plan has not been finalized, but could involve homeowners receiving 50 cents per square foot of lawn, up to 1,000 feet. The city has set aside $100,000 for the program and plans to start issuing rebates in April.

Sacramento has launched intense water conservation efforts in recent weeks, as the region and Northern California grapple with a historic drought that has led to low levels in area reservoirs and rivers.

In January, the council voted to enact a mandatory 20 percent reduction on citywide water usage and to beef up enforcement of residents watering lawns during the week, a violation of winter watering rules.

Utilities officials told the council that the city is off to a good start in its water conservation. Total water use in Sacramento was down 12 percent in January, compared with the average total of the past two years. That’s a reduction of 8 million gallons per day.

Residents have also responded to calls by the city to report water waste.

The city received 110 calls through the first two months of last year from residents reporting illegal water use. Over the same time this year, residents made 2,200 of those calls.

That has led to a sharp increase in the number of warnings the city has issued to homeowners, from 14 last year to 205 this year. Only a handful of fines have been issued.

Recent rainfall has helped, but has not erased the region’s drought concerns.

“I want to emphasize that the drought does persist,” said Dave Brent, city utilities director. “There really is no end in sight.”

Utilities officials said the city would continue its water conservation plans. Billboards will begin appearing around the city and on buses next week urging residents to take shorter showers and “brush every other tooth.”

Brent said the city would also ask for money for the lawn program in next year’s budget.

“If you need more, come back,” said Councilman Steve Hansen.

Roseville has the oldest “cash for grass” program in the region. Lisa Brown, a water conservation administrator in Roseville, said the city has granted about 500 rebates since 2008. More than 350,000 square feet of grass lawn has been replaced over that time, she said.

Roseville pays $1 per square foot for its program. Demand was so high this year that the city has already run out of money and will have to wait until the next fiscal year to begin issuing rebates again, Brown said.

Chris Brown, a water consultant and the former executive director of California Urban Water Conservation Council, applauded Sacramento’s rebate plan.

“It’s time for Sacramento to be a leader in the Central Valley,” he said.

http://www.sacbee.com/2014/03/04/6209303/sacramento-council-votes-to-launch.html

CAN PLANTS THINK?

This is a very creative, informative and cute video.  This short video shares information about  how plants problem solve, communicate with other plant life, and work together in groups to survive. Hope you enjoy it! 
 

CARING FOR MATURE TREES DURING A DROUGHT

CARING FOR MATURE TREES DURING A DROUGHT

A mature tree is defined as a tree with trunk whose diameter measures more than 16 inches around at the height of your chest.

HOW MUCH WATER DOES MY LARGE TREE NEED?
Mature trees vary widely in their need for water, depending on size, age, species, and if there is irrigated lawn around it. Mature trees that are accustomed to regular lawn watering will continue to require some water during this time of drought.

Check the moisture of the soil (6 - 8 inches down) around the tree's dripline (area under the outermost leaves of the tree - see diagram). If the soil is dry and crumbly, apply water slowly so it seeps deeply into the soil.

HOW SHOULD I WATER MY MATURE TREE?
Watering slowly is important. An easy way to cut back on watering, but still ensure your tree is getting enough, is to place an inch high can (tuna fish or cat food can) beneath your tree, turn on your sprinklers and then turn off the water when the can is filled. Quitting tree watering “cold turkey” will be hard on your tree.

Don't rely on a clock or a calendar, water the tree when the soil moisture is low.

WHAT IF MY CITY HAS BANNED OUTDOOR IRRIGATION?
The best way to be proactive and conserve water is to position a soaker hose in a spiral pattern starting a few feet away from the trunk and moving out to the dripline. (If possible remove the grass in this area and cover the hose with mulch.) Monitor the hose for run off and keep track of how long it takes to the water to penetrate 6 - 8 inches down so that you can repeat this technique when the soil becomes dry.

WHAT IF I'M WORRIED ABOUT THE HEALTH OF MY MATURE TREE?
Hire a Certified Arborist who is knowledgeable about the needs of trees and educated and equipped to provide proper diagnostic and treatment services. Follow our guidelines to find and hire an ISA Certified Arborist.

(Great tip sheet from Sacramento Tree Foundation)

Rain Garden: Slowing Pollution at Its Source

In spring 2012, the City of Elk Grove, a community just south of Sacramento, California, opened a rain garden that is a magnet for wildlife, prevents pollution from running off into local streams, and an important tool to teach others about how use similar earth-friendly techniques in their own yard. Paul Mewton, Chief of Planning, Cosumnes Community Services District, and Greg Gearheart, State Water Resources Control Board, discuss this innovative park and how land use in the Central Valley still impacts our coast and ocean.

Elk Grove Rain Garden Fact Sheet: http://www.elkgrovecity.org/rain-garden/printables/rain-garden-fact-sheet.pdf

California State Water Resources Control Board: http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/

Cosumnes Community Services District: http://www.yourcsd.com/

Thank You Ocean: Water Pollution: http://www.thankyouocean.org/threats/water-pollution/

Want to calculate how much water you can capture?

I have a post from April 10, 2010 about how to install rain barrels and harvest the water and another April 12, 2010 about how to build a rain barrel.. A reader posted this link, which I never saw until now. It is very cool to get an idea how much water can be harvested if you have the set-up to do it.  Thank you Raindrops Cisterns!

Statistics generated in reference to NOAA calculations for average rainfall per year.

This is the link where they have the calculator - just put in your zip code and the square footage of your roof and you get the gallon figure!!!  Wow!!!

http://rdcisterns.com/rainwater-harvesting-calculator

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This is what I got:

Rainwater Harvesting Calculator

How much rainfall can I harvest in a year?

You could harvest up to 23,976 gallons of rainwater per year!

= 11,988 Toilet Flushes = 599 Laundry Loads

Results based on NOAA calculations of average annual rainfall for California, 1971-2000

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Calculating the appropriate size

Rule number one!
Shoot for 1000 gallons and go from there. 1000 gallons on a 1000 to 3000 square foot house is a nice starting point and will supplement your existing water use quite nicely. Supplementing is the key word. It is not always practical to depend 100% on rainwater, but it is always practical to supplement potable water with rainwater.

Formulas:

square footage of roof area   X .6   =  gallons per 1 inch of rain.

gallons per 1 inch of rain   X .average inches rain per month   =  amount available for collection

Example

Square footage of roof area (length x width) 1800 sq. ft

1800 x .6 = 1080 gallons

Average inches rain per month in most of Florida is 3 inches – this does not include June, July, August and September which are about double that.

1080 gallons x 3 = 3240 gallons collected

Let us assume 2 people live in this home. With each person using 69 gallons of water per day (this is average), that is 138 gallons per day or 966 gallons per week and 3864 gallons per month.

Considering the frequency of rain, a 1000 gallon to 2000 gallon storage capacity would be a good fit for this home.

Here’s how it breaks down:

Daily indoor per capita water use in the typical single family home is 69.3 gallons.

Use	Gal per Capita	% Total Daily Use
Showers	11.6	16.8%
Clothes Washers	15.0	21.7%
Dishwashers	1.0	1.4%
Toilets	18.5	26.7%
Baths	1.2	1.7%
Leaks	9.5	13.7%
Faucets	10.9	15.7%
Other Domestic Uses	1.6	2.2%

By installing more efficient water fixtures and regularly checking for leaks, households can reduce daily per capita water use by about 35% to about 45.2 gallons per day Here is how it breaks down for households using conservation measures:

Use	Gal Per Capita	% Total Daily Use
Showers	8.8	19.5%
Clothes Washers	10.0	22.1%
Dishwashers	0.7	1.5%
Toilets	8.2	18.0%
Baths	1.2	2.7%
Leaks	4.0	8.8%
Faucets	10.8	23.9%
Other Domestic Uses	1.6	3.4%

Considering the above figures, with efficient fixtures and a collection system capable of supplementing your water needs, you can make a significant impact on the environment and your pocketbook too!

What is rainwater harvesting?

Rainwater harvesting is the collection, storage and distribution of rainwater from the roof for use inside and outside the home, farm or business. Also known as cisterns.

Why we harvest rainwater.

1. Increasing water usage as population continues to grow.
2. Climate change.
3. Storm water run off damages the environment.
4. Increasing the storm water infrastructure cost taxpayers millions.
5. Increase property value.
6. Save potable water for drinking.

The Benefits are endless.

1. Start harvesting water now! Rainwater reduces water usage in every home. Installing a system you will start saving water immediately.
2. Rainwater is naturally pure and fresh. It is not recycled water!
3. Research supports rainwater can meet all household requirements.
4. Significant cost savings for the community and each household. When you consider the total cost to the community, it makes sense to install a system to catch rainwater that falls for free from the sky and utilize it in and around the home.
5. Lower overall water usage. People that collect and use their own rainwater become more aware of their water use and further reduce their overall water use.
6. Lower energy consumption and green house gas emissions. There are significant cost to treat and pump mains water throughout the community. Widespread installation of collection systems result in reduced energy consumption and less greenhouse gas emissions. Rainwater is an ideal water source for 95% of our requirements.
7. Protect local waterways, bays, estuaries and reduce storm water infrastructure cost. Harvesting reduces both the volume and velocity of storm water run off.

http://rdcisterns.com/rainwater-harvesting-calculator

USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map "2012"

The 2012 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map is the standard by which gardeners and growers can determine which plants are most likely to thrive at a location. The map is based on the average annual minimum winter temperature, divided into 10-degree F zones.

For the first time, the map is available as an interactive GIS-based map, for which a broadband Internet connection is recommended, and as static images for those with slower Internet access. Users may also simply type in a ZIP Code and find the hardiness zone for that area.

No posters of the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map have been printed. But state, regional, and national images of the map can be downloaded and printed in a variety of sizes and resolutions.

This is the link, so you can put in your zip code and see an enlarged picture of your state map. http://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb/

Monsanto Nation: Taking Down Goliath

By Ronnie Cummins
Organic Consumers Association, July 27, 2011

"If you put a label on genetically engineered food you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it." - Norman Braksick, president of Asgrow Seed Co., a subsidiary of Monsanto, quoted in the Kansas City Star, March 7, 1994.



After two decades of biotech bullying and force-feeding unlabeled and hazardous genetically engineered (GE) foods to animals and humans, it's time to move beyond defensive measures and go on the offensive.  With organic farming, climate stability, and public health under the gun of the gene engineers and their partners in crime, it's time to do more than complain. With over 1/3 of U.S. cropland already contaminated with Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), with mounting scientific evidence that GMOs cause cancer, birth defects, and serious food allergies  and with new biotech mutants like alfalfa, lawn grass, ethanol-ready corn, 2,4 D-resistant crops, and genetically engineered trees and animals in the pipeline, time is running out.

Living in Monsanto Nation there can be no such thing as "coexistence." It is impossible to coexist with a reckless industry that endangers public health, bribes public officials, corrupts scientists, manipulates the media, destroys biodiversity, kills the soil, pollutes the environment, tortures and poisons animals, destabilizes the climate, and economically enslaves the world's 1.5 billion seed-saving small farmers. It's time to take down the Biotech Behemoth, before the living web of biodiversity is terminated.

But, to bring down Goliath and build an organic future, we need to be strategic, as well as bold. We must take the time to carefully analyze our strengths and weaknesses and critique our previous efforts. Then we must prepare to concentrate our forces where our adversary is weak, like a chess master, moving the field of battle from Monsanto's currently impregnable territory into more favorable terrain. Given the near-dictatorial control of Monsanto, the Farm Bureau, and the Grocery Manufacturers Association over the Congress, the White House, regulatory agencies, and state legislators, we have no choice in the present moment but to revert to "asymmetrical" guerrilla tactics, to seek out the Achilles heel or fundamental weakness of the biotech industry.

Consumers' Right to Know: Monsanto's Achilles Heel

The Achilles heel of Monsanto and the biotech industry is consumers' right to know. If GE-tainted foods are labeled in supermarkets and natural food stores, a massive rejection of chemical and GMO foods will take place, transforming the marketplace and supercharging the organic and local foods revolution. The biotech industry has been aware of their tremendous vulnerability in the United States ever since Monsanto forced their controversial recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone on the market in February 1994.  In the wake of nationwide "Frankenfood" protests and milk dumps, industry made sure that no federal labeling or safety testing would be required. As the biotechnocrats understand full well, mandatory GE food labels will cripple the industry: consumers will not buy gene-altered foods, farmers will not plant them, restaurants and food processors will avoid them, and grocery stores will not sell them. How can we be certain about this? By looking at the experience of the European Union, the largest agricultural market in the world. In the EU, there are almost no genetically engineered crops under cultivation or GE consumer food products on supermarket shelves. And why is this? Not because GE crops are automatically banned in Europe. But rather because under EU law, all foods containing genetically engineered ingredients must be labeled.

European consumers have the freedom to choose or not to choose GE foods; while farmers, food processors, and retailers have (at least legally) the right to lace foods with GMOs, as long as these gene-altered are safety-tested and labeled. Of course the EU food industry understands that consumers, for the most part, do not want to consume GE foods. European farmers and food companies, even junk food purveyors like McDonald's and Wal-Mart, understand quite well the concept expressed by the Monsanto executive quoted above: "If you put a label on genetically engineered food you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it."

The biotech and food industry are acutely conscious of the fact that North American consumers, like their European counterparts, are wary and suspicious of GMO foods. Even without a PhD, consumers understand you don't want your food safety or environmental sustainability decisions to be made by out-of-control chemical companies like Monsanto, Dow, or DuPont - the same people who brought you toxic pesticides and industrial chemicals, Agent Orange, carcinogenic food additives, PCBs, and now global warming. Industry leaders are definitely aware of the fact that every poll over the last 20 years has shown that 85-95% of American consumers want mandatory labels on genetically engineered foods. Why do consumers want labels? So that we can avoid buying these mutant foods, gene-spliced with viruses, bacteria, antibiotic-resistant marker genes and foreign DNA. Gene-altered foods have absolutely no benefits for consumers or the environment, only hazards. This is why Monsanto and their friends in the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations have prevented consumer GMO truth-in-labeling laws from ever getting a public discussion, much less coming to a vote, in Congress.

Although Congressman Dennis Kucinich (Democrat, Ohio) perennially introduces a bill in Congress calling for mandatory labeling and safety testing for GE foods, don't hold your breath for Congress to take a stand for truth-in-labeling. Especially since the 2010 Supreme Court decision in the so-called "Citizens United" case gave big corporations, millionaires, and billionaires the right to spend unlimited amounts of money (and remain anonymous, as they do so) to buy media coverage and elections, our chances of passing federal GMO labeling laws against the wishes of Monsanto and Food Inc. are all but non-existent.

Perfectly dramatizing the "Revolving Door" between Monsanto and the Federal Government, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, formerly chief counsel for Monsanto, delivered one of the decisive votes in the Citizens United case, in effect giving Monsanto and other biotech bullies the right to buy the votes it needs in the U.S. Congress.

With biotech and industrial agriculture's big money controlling Congress, the White House, and the corporate mass media, we have little choice but to shift our focus and our campaigning to more favorable terrain: the state level and the marketplace.

Besides boycotting non-organic foods likely containing GMOs (even those marketed as "natural") and demanding that natural food stores adopt truth-in-labeling practices, we've got to push for mandatory GE food labeling laws in the legislatures of those few remaining states like Vermont where Monsanto and corporate agribusiness do not yet have total control. Of the 18 states where GE food labeling legislation has been introduced over the past two years, only in Vermont does our side seem to have the votes to push labeling through, as well as a Governor who will not cave in to Monsanto.

State Ballot Initiatives: Monsanto and Biotech's Greatest Weakness

Although passing a mandatory GE foods labeling law in Vermont is a distinct possibility, and something we should all support, the most promising strategy for restoring consumers' right to know lies in utilizing one of the most important remaining tools of direct citizen democracy, state ballot initiatives. A state ballot initiative is a means by which a petition signed by a certain minimum number of registered voters can bring about a public vote on a proposed statute or constitutional amendment, in this case a law requiring mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods.  Ballot initiatives are also called, depending on the state, "popular initiatives," "voter initiatives," "citizen initiatives" or just "initiatives."

Twenty-four states, mainly west of the Mississippi, allow ballot initiatives. Each state has its own requirements for how many signatures are required, how many days can be spent collecting the signatures, and when petitions must be turned in. States also vary on the average amount of money spent by initiative committees to support or oppose ballot measures.

The essential advantage of state ballot initiatives is that they enable the grassroots (in our case the 85-95% of consumers who want labels on GE-tainted foods) to bypass corrupt politicians, industry lobbyists, and special interest legislative practices. In addition, the very strategic point to keep in mind is that it will not be necessary to pass GMO labeling ballot initiatives in all 24 of these states. In fact, passage in just one large state, for example, California, where there is tremendous opposition to GE foods as well as a multi-billion dollar organic food industry, will likely have the same impact as a national labeling law.

If Vermont passes a state labeling law though its legislature in 2011, or California voters put a GMO labeling initiative on the ballot in 2012 and pass it, the biotech and food industry will face an intractable dilemma. Will they dare put labels on their branded food products in just one or two states, admitting these products contain genetically engineered ingredients, while still withholding label information in the other states? The answer is very likely no. Withholding important and controversial information in some states, while providing it to consumers in other states, would be a public relations disaster.

A clear precedent for this situation was established in California in 1986 when voters passed, over the strenuous opposition of industry, a ballot initiative called Proposition 65, which required consumer products with potential cancer-causing ingredient to bear warning labels. Rather than label their products sold in California as likely carcinogenic, most companies reformulated their product ingredients so as to avoid warning labels altogether, and they did this on a national scale, not just in California.

This same scenario will likely unfold if California voters pass a ballot initiative in 2012 requiring labels on food containing genetically engineered ingredients. Can you imagine Kellogg's selling Corn Flakes breakfast cereal in California with a label that admits it contains genetically engineered corn? Or labeling their corn flakes as GE in California, but not divulging this same fact to consumers in the other 49 states or Canada? Of course not.  How about Kraft Boca Burgers admitting that their soybean ingredients are genetically modified? How about the entire non-organic food industry (including many so-called "natural" brands) admitting that 75% of their products are GE-tainted?  Once food manufacturers and supermarkets are forced to come clean and label genetically engineered products, they will likely remove all GE ingredients, to avoid the "skull and crossbones" effect, just like the food industry in the EU has done. In the wake of this development American farmers will convert millions of acres of GE crops to non-GMO or organic varieties.

The biotechnocrats and their allies have indeed used their vast resources to buy off Congress, the White House, and most state legislatures with campaign contributions. Monsanto, DuPont, and other corporate giants have used their enormous clout to send their lawyers and scientists through the revolving door into jobs as government regulators. Biotech's financial power has polluted state and federal governments, along with trade associations, universities, research institutions, philanthropic organizations, and media outlets.

But there are two things Monsanto's money can't buy: Our trust, and our votes.

Polls Show Consumers Overwhelmingly Support GE Food Labels

Poll after poll has shown that most consumers want to know whether their food includes engineered ingredients.

The results of a recent MSNBC poll that posed the question, "Do you believe genetically modified foods should be labeled?" indicate that nearly all Americans believe that foods made with genetically modified organisms should indeed be labeled.

Of the more than 45,000 people who participated in the poll, over 96% answered "Yes. It's an ethical issue - consumers should be informed so they can make a choice."

It's not news that most Americans support labeling of GMO foods. Since genetically modified foods were first introduced in mid-1990s, scores of public opinion polls have shown that the vast majority of consumers want mandatory labeling of all genetically modified foods. These include recent polls by CBS News/New York Times, NPR/Thomson Reuters and the Consumers Union. Unfortunately, Congress and the White House have ignored these polls, accepting instead the claims of lobbyists and indentured scientists that genetically engineered foods are perfectly safe, and that uninformed and scientifically illiterate Americans must not be given the choice to buy or not to buy GMOs, because they will reject them.

Monsanto spent more than $1 million on the 2010 election cycle, splitting its contributions evenly between state and federal candidates. It spends much more on lobbying - more than $8 million in each of the last three years. Monsanto's money has bought it influence and allowed it to move its lawyers and scientists through the revolving door into roles within the regulatory agencies. The USDA, FDA and State Department are full of appointees with connections to Monsanto. Monsanto's efforts have successfully stifled attempts in Congress and state legislatures to pass GMO labeling legislation.

The Slingshot that Can Bring Down Goliath

The most important advantage or weapon in a ballot initiative (or in a grassroots legislative lobbying campaign) is to have the overwhelming support of the people, especially registered voters. As poll after poll has shown, 85-95% of Americans support mandatory GE food labels. No matter how much money Monsanto and their allies spend to defeat a ballot initiative, it is very difficult to turn back overwhelming public sentiment. Monsanto has become one of the most hated corporations on earth.

The second requirement for a successful ballot initiative is to have the active support of a massive grassroots movement, like the growing anti-GE food movement and OCA's Millions Against Monsanto campaign. This grassroots movement can gather petition signatures, mobilize public opinion, and get out the vote. No matter how much money Monsanto and their allies spend, it will be very difficult to defeat a volunteer grassroots army of organic consumers who enjoy the massive support of the public.

The third prerequisite for victory is to have the ability to raise significant sums of money. Not only do we have millions of organic consumers in the U.S. who are passionately opposed to GMOs, and willing to donate to a labeling campaign, but we also have a rapidly growing $30 billion organic food industry that depends upon keeping GMO contamination out of the organic sector. We probably won't be able to raise enough money to outspend Monsanto, the Farm Bureau, and the Grocery Manufacturers Association, but we can raise enough money to defend our popular position and maintain majority support.

Just like everything in U.S. politics, ballot initiatives have a price tag.

According to the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center:

• "The chances of victory are directly correlated with the amount of money raised and are almost always proportional to the amount of money the opposition spends."
• "People power is equally important to factor in. Particularly for Citizen-based ballot initiative efforts, it is imperative to have people on the ground across the state that are connected and invested in the initiative."

Biotechnology or BioDemocracy?

Restoring consumers' right to know and driving genetically engineered foods off supermarket shelves are not going to solve all of the life and death issues that are currently staring us in the face: the climate crisis, endless wars, economic depression, corporate control over government, and the health crisis. But cutting Monsanto and the biotechnocrats down to size and restoring consumer choice are a good first step to move us toward sustainability and a healthy food and farming system. Just as important, in political terms, by defeating the Biotech Bullies and indentured politicians, we can begin to restore the tattered self-confidence of the American body politic. A resounding victory by the organic community and OCA's Millions Against Monsanto campaign will prove to ourselves and the currently demoralized public that we can indeed take back control over the institutions and public policies that determine our daily lives. Now is the time to move forward.

Donate to support the campaign: http://www.organicconsumers.org/donations.cfm

 http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_23693.cfm

The Worldwide 'Thirst' For Clean Drinking Water

Listen to the Story

Fresh Air from WHYY

iStockphoto.com

"We use purified drinking water to flush our toilets and water our lawns. That doesn't make any sense," says Charles Fishman. "In an era of scarcity, we won't need to limit whether we have water to boil pasta or take a bath. But we will think differently about a whole portfolio of water. There will be different kinds of waters for different uses. And water itself will get smart."

The typical American uses 99 gallons of water a day for activities like washing clothes, bathing, toilet-flushing and cooking. But that amount doesn't even come close to the amount of water used on a daily basis by electrical power plants.

Each day, coal, nuclear and natural gas plants use about five times the amount of water used on a daily basis by all American households combined — including 250 gallons of water per American per day to generate our daily electricity usage.

"So your flat-screen TV has a little hidden water spigot running to it," says investigative reporter Charles Fishman. "[We use] 10 gallons of water an hour every hour of every day just to power our computers and our refrigerators and our washing machines at home."

The Big Thirst: The Secret Life
and Turbulent Future of Water
By Charles Fishman 

In a Fast Company cover story published in 2007, Fishman examined how the bottled water industry turned what was once a free natural resource into a multibillion-dollar business. He expands his investigation of the water industry in the new book The Big Thirst, which examines the future of a natural resource that, Fishman says, we can no longer take for granted.

"The last 100 years has been the golden age of water in the developed world: water that has been safe, unlimited and essentially free," he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "But that era is over. We will not, going forward, have water that has all three of those qualities at the same time: unlimited, unthinkingly inexpensive and safe."

Currently, one out of six gallons of water acquired, treated and pumped by water utilities in the U.S. leaks back into the ground before it can be used by a home or business. This, says Fishman, will change — but only if technology at water utility companies starts to improve.

"Water utility companies are run the same way they were 30 or 40 years ago," he says. "They don't understand what's going on in their own pipes. As technology allows us to see what's happening to the water in the water system — whether it's in a factory, university or whole ecosystem — we'll be able to manage that water much more smartly."

Viva Las Vegas
In The Big Thirst, Fishman examines different areas of the world already grappling with water shortages. He profiles parts of Delhi, India, where people line up twice a day with buckets for clean water, and Las Vegas — which, despite having all forms of water entertainment for visitors, is currently dealing with one of the biggest water shortages in the nation.

"Thirty years ago, Las Vegas was run much the way every other city in America was run — people watered their lawns whenever they wanted [and] they washed their cars whenever they wanted," Fishman says. "But then a woman [Patricia Mulroy] became the head of water [management] in Las Vegas, and she looked at the pace of growth of the city ... and she started working on rules that would, over time, change the culture in Las Vegas."

Las Vegas now pays residents $40,000 an acre to take out their lawns and replace them with rocks and native plants. That's much cheaper, Fishman says, than figuring out how to pump more water into the city, which takes 90 percent of its water from a lake plagued with drought issues. And, he says, by implementing stringent water usage rules — it's illegal in Las Vegas to spray a sidewalk with a sprinkler, for instance — the city has saved millions, both in dollars and in gallons.

"Las Vegas, over time, has come to recapture almost all of the water used anywhere [in the city] indoors," he says. "Although Las Vegas has what was, for a long time, the largest fountain on Earth and shark aquariums and lagoons that re-create the canals of Venice right on the strip, over the last 20 years, per-person water use in Vegas has fallen 100 gallons."

The city's public golf courses have also cut their water usage. Angel Park, which used to use almost 2 million gallons of water a night, has cut its water usage in half over the past 15 years.

"They have pulled out a third of the turf in the golf course," Fishman says. "You now tee off from a grassy green and your ball heads for a hole that is a grassy green, but in between [are] dessert ravines and arroyos landscaped as desert landscape. And that's all different than the desert used to be. ... They've gone from using more than 600 million gallons of water a year down to about 376 million gallons of water a year."

Charles Fishman is a senior writer at Fast
Company and the author of The Wal-Mart Effect.
He has twice received the UNCLA Gerald Loeb
Award for outstanding business writing. -Free Press

The Private Sector
But cities with water shortages aren't the only places looking to conserve water, Fishman says. Both IBM and GE have recently reconfigured their facilities to reduce their water use and save money, he says.

"Over 10 years, [IBM] reduced their water use by a third while they increased their chip production by a third," he says. "So they increased the efficiency of their water productivity by about 80 percent."

In the next 30 years, Fishman predicts, private companies will develop the technology to make water utility plants more efficient. But, he cautions, it's important to make sure water remains a public resource.

"You don't want to let companies end up in control of the resource itself," he says. "We need to be careful not to cede those rights ... while we also take advantage of the innovations. That's a question of making sure that we understand the economics and policies on a community-by-community basis. There's nothing wrong with companies innovating [solutions for] water as long as the water remains a public resource. And that's really important."

Interview Highlights

On the antiquated municipal water systems in the United States

"The average U.S. home pays an average of $34 a month. So our always-on, unlimited, almost universally reliably safe water costs us about $1 a day. Our water bill is less than half what our cable TV bill or our cell phone bill is. So cities are starved for financial resources and water utilities are often in terrible shape. In Philadelphia, there are 3,300 miles of water mains in the city, and they replace 20 miles a year. They're on 160-year replacement cycles. One of the officials from the Philadelphia water utility said to me, 'We want to make sure we get the 20 miles right.' That's not a question of money, it's a question of public resistance to digging up streets."

On taking the water system for granted

"One of the big problems of water is that the success of the golden age of water has created an invisible system. We don't even take [water] for granted because taking it for granted would suggest we pay attention to it. That hidden system is corroding, and as it corrodes, it even corrodes our support for public water. We think, 'Why should I pay more for water? I'll just go buy bottled water.' But, in fact, we don't actually spend that much money supporting the system. In the U.S., we spend $21 billion a year buying bottled water, and we spend $29 billion a year maintaining the entire water system — pipes, treatment plants, pumps. We spend almost as much on crushable plastic bottles of water as we do maintaining the water system."

On his own water habits

"We use a lot less bottled water in our house than we used to. We're always promoting bringing the refillable bottle of water to the soccer game or the dance lessons. There are still water bottles kicking around the minivan and the house. One of the smallest but most significant changes in my own habits is I almost never pour water down the drain now. When somebody leaves a half-empty bottle of water around the house or in the minivan, I pour them right in the dog bowl or in a plant in the house."

Excerpt: 'The Big Thirst'
The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water
By Charles Fishman
Hardcover, 400 pages - List price: $26.99  Free Press

Everyone is an expert on water.

We all know how it feels to be so grungy that nothing but a good shower will make us feel better. We know how it feels to be so thirsty that only water will really satisfy us. And we know exactly how the water will taste — really, how the water will feel — going down, in that first swallow.

We know how light shines through water in a drinking glass or a swimming pool. We know how to anticipate the arc of water from a drinking fountain, and the force of a wave at the beach, although we can be surprised by both.

We know the sharp smell of rain misted through the air after a summer downpour. Snowy air has its own smell, chilly early morning fog has its own smell, the humidity in Key West has its own smell. Water speaks a whole range of languages, specialized and universal, utilitarian and poetic and romantic. Sometimes they are all talking at once.

The feel of water is as familiar as the feel of our own skin. The playful, sparkling flow of a creek through our fingers, the thrill of planing a hand across the top of the water over the side of a speedboat. The trickle of a single bead of sweat down your nose during a run.

We know the shapes of shifting light that water makes on the bottom of a swimming pool (although we may not know they are called "caustics"). And we know the captivating power of a waterfall, how in the end you have to simply pull yourself away from watching the cascade, which manages to be always the same and always different, never boring.

And yet, for all our intimacy with water, we actually know almost nothing about it — about water itself. Water is as potent in our daily lives as gravity, but also as mysterious.

For most of us, even the most basic questions about water turn out to be stumpers.

Where did the water on Earth come from?

Is water still being created or added somehow?

How old is the water coming out of the kitchen faucet?

For that matter, how did the water get to the kitchen faucet?

And when we flush, where does the water in the toilet actually go?

The things we think we know about water — things we might have learned in school — often turn out to be myths.

We think of Earth as a watery planet, indeed, we call it the Blue Planet; but for all of water's power in shaping our world, Earth turns out to be surprisingly dry. A little water goes a long way.

We think of space as not just cold and dark and empty, but as barren of water. In fact, space is pretty wet. Cosmic water is quite common.

At the most personal level, there is a bit of bad news. Not only don't you need to drink eight glasses of water every day, you cannot in any way make your complexion more youthful by drinking water. Your body's water-balance mechanisms are tuned with the precision of a digital chemistry lab, and you cannot possibly "hydrate" your skin from the inside by drinking an extra bottle or two of Perrier. You just end up with pee sourced in France.

In short, we know nothing of the life of water — nothing of the life of the water inside us, around us, or beyond us. But it's a great story — captivating and urgent, surprising and funny and haunting. And if we're going to master our relationship to water in the next few decades — really, if we're going to remaster our relationship to water — we need to understand the life of water itself.

One of the great scientific students of water is Dr. Richard Wolfenden, alumni distinguished professor of biochemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Wolfenden, seventy-five, is a researcher who has spent much of his career studying how water shapes our body chemistry, inside our cells.

Proteins in our cells manage every element of human life, and the key to the effectiveness of proteins is the way their long chains are folded into intricate and precise shapes, like tiny molecular origami. Proteins only work — which is to say, everything about our bodies only works — if the folding is exactly correct.

That folding, it turns out, is engineered by water.

"Proteins know how to fold up because they have the rules written into their atoms," says Wolfenden. "And the rules are entirely a reflection of how eager that part of the molecule is to get away from water or to cling to water. To say that water is essential hardly covers it."

Asked if he is optimistic about our future relationship to water, Wolfenden is silent for a moment. Then he says, "I think our relationship to water is going to be one of the deciding things of the next century. I don't think water's in any trouble. But we might be."

No expression in common usage is as thoroughly wrongheaded as "dull as tap water." One thing water is not is dull.

Given our intimacy with water, our dependence on it, and water's apparent simplicity — "H2O" is surely the best-known molecular formula in human consciousness — the surprising thing is how many surprises the story of water contains, and how many flat-out mysteries. Often the two go hand in hand.

One of the great myths about water is that it is the most common substance on Earth. Indeed, you can Google search "the most common substance on Earth," and water pops up repeatedly. The Earth's surface is 71 percent covered in water, and water is the primary force shaping every element of the character of the planet — the geology, the weather, the range and variety of life, the planet's gleaming profile in space.

But unless you're playing a children's game in which you mean that water is, quite literally, the most common substance sitting on the surface of the Earth (as opposed to the most common substance making up Earth's composition), then the amount of water on the planet's surface is trivial in every way except its impact. The total water on the surface of Earth (the oceans, the ice caps, the atmospheric water) makes up 0.025 percent of the mass of the planet — 25/100,000ths of the stuff of Earth. If Earth were the size of a Honda Odyssey minivan, the amount of water on the planet would be in a single, half-liter bottle of Poland Spring in one of the van's thirteen cup holders.

Put another way, if the oceans on Earth were as deep, in relative terms, as the skin on a typical apple is thick, they would average ten kilometers deep instead of four kilometers, and all the land on Earth would be inundated except the planet's tallest mountains.

Once you actually pause and appreciate how fine the film of water enveloping Earth is, water's impact is even more dramatic.

The oldest rock discovered so far on Earth — in northern Quebec — is 4.28 billion years old. That's an old rock — it's getting close to the age of the solar system itself, estimated at about 4.6 billion years.

But turn on the faucet in the bathroom to brush your teeth, and the water pouring out is probably just a bit older than Canada's old rock. Scientists don't agree on the precise age of the water on Earth, but it's certainly 4.3 or 4.4 or 4.5 billion years old. It's one of the more astonishing things about water — all the water on Earth was delivered here when Earth was formed, or shortly thereafter. The water around us is original equipment — it was included with the planet itself, in the first 100 million years or so. There is, in fact, no mechanism on Earth for creating or destroying large quantities of water. What we've got is what's been here, literally, forever.

And it all arrived on Earth in exactly the form it's in now: H2O.

Water not only came from space, it was created out in space. It is, in fact, cosmic juice, formed hundreds of millions, or even billions, of years before the solar system itself. Once you understand the lineage of water, you realize that the ads touting Evian ("born in the French Alps") and FIJI Water ("untouched by man") dramatically understate the case.

Gary Melnick is a senior astrophysicist at Harvard University's Center for Astrophysics who has spent years using orbiting telescopes to study star formation and water in space. He was part of the team that in 1997, using the European Space Agency's Infrared Space Observatory (ISO), discovered an interstellar spring of water of astonishing scale.

They pointed the ISO telescope at Orion, a constellation that is quite easy to spot with the naked eye on a clear night. The stars of Orion are part of our own Milky Way, and one shining spot in Orion — the middle dot in Orion's sword — is in fact not a star but a massive, glowing cloud of gas and dust, the Orion Molecular Cloud. That cloud is the kind where new stars form, condensing out of the hydrogen gas.

"Orion is the closest region to Earth where massive stars are being formed," says Melnick. The full cloud of hydrogen, which looks to the eye like just that one dot in Orion, is of such vast scale that it is giving birth to thousands of stars at once.

When Melnick and his colleagues used the telescope to look at part of the Orion Molecular Cloud, he says, "What we found was that there is enough water being formed sufficient to fill all of Earth's oceans every twenty-four minutes."

As the stars coalescence and collapse in on themselves, they send shock waves out through the clouds of gas, which contain lots of loose hydrogen and oxygen. When the shock waves slam the hydrogens and oxygens into each other, they often form water. Hydrogen, for the record, is the most common element in the universe; oxygen is the third most common.

The result, right there in the sword hanging from Orion's belt, is a water factory that is making the equivalent of all the water on Earth, sixty times a day. Have a look at the Pacific Ocean, or the Atlantic Ocean, or something small like Lake Michigan, and think about creating just that much water three times an hour — the scale is really almost hard to credit. All the water on Earth, sixty times a day? That's one swampy patch of the Milky Way.

Not quite, says Melnick, with the bemusement of a guy used to thinking in cosmic distances that the rest of us find literally unimaginable.

"The cloud is creating enough water molecules every twenty-four minutes to fill all of Earth's oceans," says Melnick. "The density of the water, well, it's not like if you were floating out there, you'd get hit with a bucket of water in the face or anything."

While the cloud is making sixty Earth waters every twenty-four hours, it is doing it across a span of space 420 times the size of our solar system.

"It is the same as cool mist," says Melnick. "It's just a lot less dense."

Water forms in interstellar clouds in another way, equally familiar and equally alien. The hydrogens and oxygens literally mate on the surface of tiny grains of dust that are part of the interstellar clouds. In the cloud, says Melnick, "hydrogen hits the dust grains quite frequently. And every once in a while oxygen will hit the dust grains too, and linger."

What happens next isn't quite clear, says Melnick, "but somehow the hydrogen finds the oxygen and forms OH. Then another hydrogen finds it and forms H2O."

The new water molecules form a thin coating of ice on the dust grain, like what you find on ice cream that's been in the freezer too long.

And sometimes the water from the cool mist lands on a dust grain, and clings. "If the dust grain is cold, in almost all of those cases, the water will stick to it and not come off," says Melnick, "just the way your tongue sticks to a cold pole in the middle of winter."

Your tongue, of course, is covered with saliva that is 99.5 percent water, water which was itself once floating around in interstellar space, perhaps frozen onto a dust grain.

And that's it, as far as the astrophysicists and the astrochemists understand it at this point: All the water on Earth — the thunderheads, the snow-covered ski slopes, Old Faithful, and the current of the Mississippi River — started out as the finest mist, the smallest ice cubes, drifting around inside an interstellar dust cloud.

In general, there is no dispute about that.

Here's the mystery. Scientists don't actually know how that water gets from the interstellar cloud to Niagara Falls. And perhaps most startling of all, they don't know how much water there is on Earth.

From The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water by Charles Fishman. Copyright 2011 by Free Press. Excerpted with permission by Free Press.

http://www.npr.org/2011/04/11/135241362/the-worldwide-thirst-for-clean-drinking-water?sc=fb&cc=fp