Water Futures, a woman-owned consulting venture providing innovative, sustainable water solutions, today announced joining 1% for the Planet (1%). Water Futures has pledged 1% of its sales of the upcoming book, TAKING ON WATER, to support non-profit organizations focused on sustainability and conservation.
Hailey, Idaho
(PRWEB) January 31, 2012 — Water Futures, a woman-owned consulting venture providing innovative, sustainable water solutions, today announced joining 1% for the Planet (1%). Water Futures has pledged 1% of its sales of the upcoming book, TAKING ON WATER: How One Water Expert Challenged Her Inner Hypocrite, Reduced Her Water Footprint (without Sacrificing a Toasty Shower), and Found Nirvana by Wendy J. Pabich, Ph.D. (Sasquatch Books, fall 2012), to support non-profit organizations focused on sustainability and conservation.
“Water Futures is a great addition to the network. By signing on to 1%, it shows they’re really walking the walk in their sustainability efforts,” says Terry Kellogg, 1% CEO. “They’re using generosity as a tool with which to build their business and enabling valuable environmental work along the way. We’re excited to welcome them to the 1% family.” Members of 1% contribute one percent of revenues directly to any of the approved non-profit environmental organizations in 1%’s network. Non-profits are chosen based on referrals, track record and environmental focus. Over 2,500 non-profits worldwide are included in the 1% program.
“We’ve been averaging at least one new business member a day, and have nearly 1,400 members in 44 countries. 1% members have contributed over $70 million of critically needed funds into the hands of environmental non-profit groups to date,” comments Kellogg. “We are thrilled by the support we have gained as it proves the environmental ethic is trickling upward to larger corporate entities. The shared belief that you can do well as a business by doing the right thing with respect to the environment is clearly apparent. There’s a paradigm shift happening here and it’s happening organically.”
About 1%for the Planet Started in 2002 by Yvon Chouinard, founder and owner of Patagonia, and Craig Mathews, owner of Blue Ribbon Flies, 1% for the Planet is a growing global movement of over 1,350 member companies in 44 countries that donate one percent of their sales to environmental organizations worldwide. Each day, more than one new business joins the 1% for the Planet movement. As a network, the 1% community has become a frontrunner in funding the work of environmental groups around the world.
About Water Futures Water Futures is a progressive, woman-owned consulting venture with decades of experience finding innovative solutions to one of the planet’s most pressing problems – the quest for sustainable water. We are committed to empowering communities, businesses and innovators to protect and enhance precious water resources by sharing our tools and expertise. We provide strategic advice to help businesses navigate water sector plays; municipalities, ranchers, and conservation organizations protect water resources; and socially responsible companies and municipalities reduce their water footprints.
About Wendy J. Pabich, Ph.D. Wendy J. Pabich is an environmental scientist, educator and adventurer obsessed with all things water. As the founder and president of Water Futures, Inc., Wendy works to find innovative solutions to one of the planet’s most pressing questions – the quest for sustainable water. Her passion for mountains, outdoor adventure and other cultures has taken her to places near and far – including Alaska, Patagonia, and the Himalaya – to explore on skis, on foot and by water. She has taught for MIT and the Sierra Institute and holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the Parsons Water Resources Laboratory at MIT, an M.S. in Urban Studies and Planning from MIT, an M.S. in Geology from Duke University and a B.A. in Geography from Dartmouth College. She writes and speaks frequently to diverse audiences on water-related topics.
Check out my new Author Page on Facebook for news about my upcoming book, Taking on Water (due out fall 2012), related events, book tour schedule and more. Help me spread the word by “Liking” my Facebook page.
One recent weekend my husband and I spent one day skiing and the second day plumbing. I had never installed a toilet before, but it turned out to be quite a straight-forward task—particularly since the toilet kit came complete with all the necessary tools. Here’s what you do: Shut off water, unscrew bolts holding down the old toilet, remove toilet. Obsessively clean behind-the-toilet dust and scum, apply “wax ring” to underbelly of toilet, and bolt new toilet to floor. Bolt on toilet bowl, attach water supply, and turn on water. And, then…lunge to turn off squirting water valve! Dash out to buy replacement water line, install and Voila!—a snazzy, new toilet that uses 1.23 gallons per flush. Compared to our old, water-guzzling, 1980s vintage toilet—which rang in at 2.9 gallons per flush—this was a great improvement. I calculated that we’d likely save 150 gallons of water per month or nearly 1,800 gallons each year. Who needs a plumber?
Near the end of this process, I spied my husband heading towards the back door, toilet in arms. I just shook my head. Now we are really living the dream: We have a toilet sitting on our back porch.
The blogosphere is showing recent interest in curbing our food waste. A Grist story suggests the average American family of four throws out an estimated $130-$175 per month in spoiled and discarded food. Money, as they point out, that’s going into the garbage or compost bin rather than paying off credit cards. Much of this food is tossed because it is: past its due date (quite often a false construct), not as fresh as it once was, too much to consume, or has actually been allowed to spoil.
The implications of all this food waste are not just felt in our collective pocketbooks. A recent study in the United Kingdom calculated that embedded water in food waste within the country accounted for one and a half times the volume of water that people actually used in their homes. The implications of our laziness are rather stunning: These foods end up in landfills where they produce untold amounts of potent methane, a gas 23 times more effective in trapping heat in our atmosphere than carbon dioxide. (Note that landfills account for 34% of our total methane emissions.) We are also unnecessarily depleting soils and applying tons of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides for foods that are never eaten. It is estimated that fully one quarter of U.S. water consumption is used to produce this wasted food. And, finally, the energy required to produce this food is on the order of 300 million barrels of oil. This is—now hold your hats—more than is extracted annually from the oil and gas reserves off our shores, more than could be gained from many popular energy-efficiency strategies, and more than we might produce as ethanol biofuels derived from grains.
We are utterly failing to close the loop, and going to war to defend it. It seems the “freeganism” movement is on to something. The adherents to this doctrine share “an anti-consumeristic ethic about eating”, and instead live on food cast off by others, often by dumpster diving in the waste bins of food retailers, gleaning from farm fields, foraging in the wilds and in urban gardens, and sharing food (what a civil concept). If you’re not into dumpster diving, there are lots of other ways you can reduce your food waste, including making a shopping list, buying only what you need, using up what’s in the fridge and the pantry (with lots of creative recipes available to use up wilting vegetables), and serving smaller amounts. There’s also a new project—Halfsies—that gives restaurant diners the option of eating half a portion—thus creating less waste and less midriff fat—and donating a portion of the plate’s cost to charity. Whether this would actually help reduce hunger in India is questionable, but it certainly raises awareness about food waste, the obesity epidemic and hunger around the globe. Take home message: Don’t just buy your vegetables, eat them! The planet and your body will thank you.
Art by Laura Smith for Southern Nevada Water Authority
For quite some time now, my husband and I have been hard at work trying to reduce our direct (showers, laundry, irrigation, etc.) and indirect (embedded in products and services) water use. Our results are encouraging and I’m documenting not only reductions in water use, but energy savings as well. It is also clear there are other ecological benefits that accrue with our changing choices. The process has been informative, transformative, fun, funny, and satisfying, and at times, vexing. My forthcoming book TAKING ON WATER: How One Water Expert Challenged Her Inner Hypocrite, Reduced Her Water Footprint (without Sacrificing a Toasty Shower), and Found Nirvana (due out fall 2012) chronicles our story.
So while I don’t want to spoil the surprise, I’m interested in hearing your stories. What’s the most interesting, strange, difficult or funny thing you’ve done to reduce your footprint (water, carbon, ecological)? Please send funny or inspiring stories, anecdotes, videos, rules or whatever else you’d like to share. You can either post them as comments or email them to me at wendy@waterdeva.com. Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you!
I came across an interesting article today by Arif Belgaumi in one of Pakistan’s papers, The Express Tribune. The author reflects on the devastating impacts of environmental degradation in Pakistan, estimated to cost the country nearly 6% of its GDP each year. Not surprisingly, in this ultra-arid part of the world, one of the most daunting environmental problems is water scarcity. In response to his country’s water troubles, Belgaumi pledges in the New Year to keep the water from running down the drain each morning as he shaves by using a mug to hold the water. (What he plans to do with that water, he does not say; I assume he also intends to fill only the cup and avoid letting the water run while shaving.)
At first glance, his gesture may seem insignificant—laughable, even. However, Belgaumi then goes on to crunch the numbers: He estimates that he lets about 5 gallons of water go to waste each morning. Over the course a year, he’s wasted 1,900 gallons. He then goes on to estimate the demographics of shaving: a populace of 170 million, 50 percent of which are male and 50 percent of those are clean shaven. If all these clean-shaven men were to be equally conscious of their water use, as a group they would conserve 40 billion gallons of water or enough to grow 70,000 acres of wheat, 24,000 acres of rice or serve the needs of the city of Karachi for 50 days!
And, while one might argue that these numbers underestimate current good behavior—shutting off the faucet between rinses—and overestimate water use, regardless, the point is well made. If we all pitch in—just a little bit—we’ll all be better off. So, what’s your New Year’s resolution?
Unhealthy Waters = Unhealthy Fish (photo by Beatrice Murch)
October 2012 will mark the 40th anniversary of the Clean Water Act. First enacted as the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948, the law was substantially strengthened in 1972 and 1977 to become what is commonly called the Clean Water Act. The objective of this landmark legislation was to “restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters” by eliminating discharge of pollutants into the navigable waters of the U.S.
And while the Clean Water Act found great success in its first quarter century, almost doubling the number of rivers and lakes considered “fishable” and “swimmable”, and dramatically increasing the percent of the population served by sewers, it still faces incredible challenges. The 2004 National Water Quality Inventory: Report to Congressestimated 44% of assessed stream miles, 64% of assessed lake acres and 30% of assessed bay and estuarine square miles were not clean enough to support fishing and swimming. The report identified the leading causes of impairment as: pathogens, mercury, nutrients, and organic enrichment/low dissolved oxygen, and the top sources of impairment as atmospheric deposition, agriculture, hydrologic modifications and unknown or unspecified sources.
Despite these challenges, on July 13, 2011, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2018: Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011. The act proposes to amend the Clean Water Act to “preserve the authority of each State to make determinations relating to the State’s water quality standards, and for other purposes.” The NRDC rightly argues that the bill “reverses the basic premises Clean Water Act – that what one state does affects the waters in other states, and that state policies alone had failed miserably to provide waters that are safe for drinking, swimming and fishing” and that the bill would prevent EPA from requiring states to develop effective clean water protection rules. The bill has not yet been taken up by the Senate.
As a nation, our water quality issues are not trivial. We have a Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico – an area the size of the state of Rhode Island in the bottom waters in which oxygen concentrations are so low that virtually nothing can live, we are contaminating drinking water with fracking fluids, and loading up aquifers with nutrients, antibiotics and microbial pathogens from Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). A 2009 New York Times article suggests that “the Clean Water Act has been violated more than 506,000 times since 2004, by more than 23,000 companies and other facilities” and the number of violations had grown over the previous decade. At the same time, powerful industries are successfully lobbying to undermine effective regulation. It seems that this latest attempt to undermine the Clean Water Act is more of the same. As William K. Reilly, EPA Administrator under President George H.W. Bush, said “Unless the E.P.A. is pushing state regulators, a culture of transgression and apathy sets in.”
Have we forgotten the fate of Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River, which captured national attention and incited outrage when it burst into flames in 1969 (not for the first time, I might add). At the time, the river was said to be one of the most polluted in the U.S. – its surface covered with a brown oily film and trash and debris-filled, thick, black oil slicks — and entirely devoid of fish. The event is considered by many to have largely spurred the environmental movement, the Clean Water Act, and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Is this what we want for our future?
You can learn more at PopVox and take action to defeat H.R. 2018 at Change.org.
For its unique properties, water remains mysterious. Unlike most compounds, water is less dense as a solid than as a liquid: hence, ice floats on liquid water. Its boiling point is unusually high. Water’s ability to dissolve a wide variety of substances has earned it title as the “universal solvent”. Its high heat capacity allows large bodies of water to modulate earth’s temperature.
Despite its ubiquity, there is still much that we don’t understand about water’s odd behavior. Today, scientists at MIT are hard at work trying to unravel some of water’s secrets. Materials undergoing phase transitions between solid, liquid and gas often exhibit sudden, significant property changes. A theory proposed two decades ago suggested that water’s strange behavior might be explained by dramatic density changes occurring between two different liquid states (rather than two phases). Recent experiments by Yang Zhang MIT PhD ’10 and Sow-Hsin Chen, professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT, demonstrate that when water molecules are confined by tiny tubes of silica (and hence prevented from crystallizing), temperature drops produce changes in density without concurrent changes in phase. The research has important implications for lower temperature limits for crops, structures and living beings.
This video clip by Yang Zhang demonstrates the dramatic behavior of supercooled water. An ordinary bottle of spring water was kept in the freezer overnight. Because it remained still, the water reached a temperature well below its freezing point. However, because there were no nucleation centers — such as ice crystals, bubbles or ripples — to start the freezing process, the water didn’t freeze. When the bottle was subjected to a sudden impact, the shock wave caused almost all of the water to freeze instantly. Even if the thermodynamics bore you, the video is pretty cool!
