Home » Posts tagged 'water' (Page 5)

Tag Archives: water

In 2008, I noted the decline in Saudi Arabian water production and I published an article in “The Oil Drum” titled “Peak Water in Saudi Arabia.” Using a simple version of the Hubbert model of resource depletion, I noted how the supply of “fossil water” had peaked in 1990 and had been declining ever since. This is the typical behavior of “fossil” resources: they tend to peak and then decline. It had already happened to the ancient Garamantes, inhabitants of central Sahara, who had developed sophisticated technologies of water extraction during the 1st millennium BC. That had allowed them to prosper for about one thousand years, but then depletion had its revenge and they vanished among the sand dunes. Something similar (but probably much faster) is going to happen in the Arabian peninsula.

The old Hubbert model was developed to describe the cycle of extraction of crude oil. It may be oversimplified if you want to use it for detailed predictions. But, as a quick tool for understanding the situation of the production of a non renewable resource, it tells you a lot of what you need to know. That first stab of mine on water production in Saudi Arabia turned out to be correct.

It is impressive how, today, you can use Google Earth to look at the situation “from above.” You can see the collapse of the agricultural fields as depletion progresses. Here are the images of an irrigated area for a region East of Al Jubail, in Saudi Arabia, 26°48’29.60″N and 49° 8’47.58″E.

Let’s start with an image of the desert in 1984. There is absolutely nothing there:

One year later, 1985. Someone has started extracting water and irrigating the land. There are two active fields there.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The real value of water

April 5, 2021

Valuing Water is the theme of the 29th World Water Day this year. Valuing Water and Enabling Change also happened to be the theme of the Annual Report of the World Economic Forum’s 2030 Water Resources Group (now hosted by the World Bank) last year.

Clearly, no one who ever had to go without a glass of water for a few hours on a hot summer day needs to be told how invaluable water is. In fact, we all know that water is essential for life itself. There is the truism water is life! So, why this emphasis on “valuing” water?

According to the World Water Day website, “The value of water is about much more than its price — water has enormous and complex value for our households, culture, health, education, economics and the integrity of our natural environment. If we overlook any of these values, we risk mismanaging this finite, irreplaceable resource.” The Special Rapporteur on Right to Water is even more clear: “Beyond the issues of pricing, this topic includes the environmental, social and cultural value people place on water. For instance, in daily life, water can mean health, hygiene, dignity and productivity. In cultural, religious and spiritual places, water can mean a connection with creation or community. And in natural spaces, water can mean peace and preservation. Water means different things to different people in different settings.”

However, policy makers tend to focus only on the economic value of water, almost forgetting all else. The idea of treating water as an economic good is not that old. It was first articulated in 1992 at the International Conference on Water and Environment (ICWE), as one of the four Dublin principles, which said:..

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Shiney Varghese, water, institute for agriculture and trade policy,

As temps rise, so do water protector arrests

April 3, 2021

As temps rise, so do water protector arrests

AITKIN COUNTY, Minn. — Spring is bringing the heat to opponents of the Enbridge Line 3 tar-sands oil pipeline, as levels of arrests and citations for demonstrations against the private Canadian infrastructure project rise faster than at any time since construction began on it in December.

The toll on the self-proclaimed water protectors stands at more than 200, higher than for any oil pipeline opposition in the country since the Dakota Access Pipeline resistance of 2016-2017. As ground and waterways continue to thaw, increased numbers of opponents and arrests are expected.

Not all detentions in the escalating law enforcement suppression response are legal. Take Michele Naar-Obed’s recent arrest for example. She was held in custody three nights for what turned out to be a junk warrant claiming her attendance at a March 3 public action violated the conditions of her release from a previous Line 3-related charge.

Michele Naar-Obed outside Aitkin County jail, March 19, 2021. COURTESY // Resist Line 3

Officers issued dozens of citations at the event, a gathering to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the 1991 Line 3 oil spill in Grand Rapids, Minn. In the disaster, the line now being replaced burst and spilled 1.7 million gallons of crude oil onto the frozen Prairie River. The calamity vies with that of the Enbridge Line 6B rupture, — which flushed another million or so gallons into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River in 2010 —, for the title of largest inland oil spill in U.S. history.

“I’m being accused of breaking the law for participating in First Amendment activities,” Naar-Obed told sympathizers outside the Aitkin County Jail as she went in to contest the warrant and request an audience with a judge.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Justine Anderson, Esperanza Project, water, water protectors, protests, global warming, climate change, resilience.org,

Water is Life. Can We Protect It?

March 27, 2021

The Lempa River, whose watershed provides water for half of El Salvador (Shutterstock)

WATER IS LIFE. CAN WE PROTECT IT?

Americans will have to fight hard to protect their water from corporate greed. They can learn a lot from El Salvador.

From West Texas to Jackson, Mississippi, tens of millions of people struggled through late winter storms that froze pipes, broke water mains, and cut off electricity. They froze without showers, toilets, or washing machines — let alone drinking water — for days or even weeks.

The irony that Texas, the state built on fossil fuels, was completely unprepared for extreme weather disasters shouldn’t be lost on anyone.

Fossil fuel and utility firms have long plied state officials with money. In turn, officials failed to regulate utilities, weatherize their grid, or create programs to weatherize homes — much less upgrade the state’s decaying water infrastructure.

This extreme weather disaster gave Americans a glimpse of the daily reality of billions who struggle to protect their water from polluting corporations.

In our travels, we’ve seen these fights up close — they’re harrowing, but also inspiring. As we in the United States face similar struggles, we might take some encouragement from others who’ve won local, national, and global fights to protect their water.

In particular, we’ve spent countless hours with people across El Salvador, where drought has taxed the river system that provides water for over half the country’s population. Over the past two decades, this river system was threatened by a giant mining company that wanted to mine gold near the rivers.

Gold mining uses toxic chemicals like cyanide that poison water. But a global mining company attempted to buy public support by launching flashy PR campaigns, funding local projects, and hiring expensive lobbyists.

Beyond offering these few carrots, they also carried a large stick. When the Salvadoran government paused new mining licenses to study the issue, the mining companies filed lawsuits against the government under the rigged rules that govern investment across borders.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Robin Broad, John Cavanagh, OtherWords, water, infrastructure,

David Schindler, the Scientific Giant Who Defended Fresh Water

March 10, 2021

David Schindler, the Scientific Giant Who Defended Fresh Water

Among the world’s greatest ecologists, his boreal research has touched all of our lives.

David Schindler was among ‘the most important and effective ecologists and environmental scientists in history, not just in Canada. I’d like to think Canadians will understand and recognize that,’ says his colleague Bill Donahue. Photo by Ellen Brodylo/Mike Morrow.

The first time I met David Schindler 30 years ago, he occupied an office the size of a closet on the eighth floor of the zoology building at the University of Alberta.

Piles of scientific papers erupted about the room like academic volcanoes. So much paper obliterated a desk that Schindler perched his computer on a TV tray. He didn’t like cities, and drove to work every day from Wildwood, Alta., 100 kilometres west of Edmonton. There he and his wife Suzanne Bayley were correctly known as “dog people.” They owned 85 sled dogs.

But that’s not what dumbfounded me. Schindler just didn’t look or behave like a university professor. People commonly mistook the lake ecologist for a rig worker or a farmer. The short muscular man could lift a car, ride a 10-dog sled team over 5,000 kilometres of terrain every winter, wrestle a group of men down a stairway (yes, he did that at Oxford University), hunt a moose and happily down a bottle of whiskey with no noticeable effects.

And then there was the peerless, cutting-edge science. By the age of 50, Schindler was one of the world’s top freshwater ecologists. Politicians and bureaucrats feared him because he wielded scientific evidence the way a Samurai swung a sword. His groundbreaking research on phosphates, acid rain, climate change, UV radiation and transboundary pollutants had rattled governments in North America and Europe and driven important policy changes around the world.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Temporary Collapse Of Texas Is Foreshadowing The Total Collapse Of The United States

February 20, 2021

The Temporary Collapse Of Texas Is Foreshadowing The Total Collapse Of The United States

We are getting a very short preview of what will eventually happen to the United States as a whole. America’s infrastructure is aging and crumbling. Our power grids were never intended to support so many people, our water systems are a complete joke, and it has become utterly apparent that we would be completely lost if a major long-term national emergency ever struck. Texas has immense wealth and vast energy resources, but now it is being called a “failed state”. If it can’t even handle a few days of cold weather, what is the rest of America going to look like when things really start to get chaotic in this country?

At this point, it has become clear that the power grid in Texas is in far worse shape than anyone ever imagined. When extremely cold weather hit the state, demand for energy surged dramatically. At the same time, about half of the wind turbines that Texas relies upon froze, and the rest of the system simply could not handle the massive increase in demand.

Millions of Texans were without power for days, and hundreds of thousands are still without power as I write this article.

And now we are learning that Texas was literally just moments away from “a catastrophic failure” that could have resulted in blackouts “for months”…

Texas’ power grid was “seconds and minutes” away from a catastrophic failure that could have left Texans in the dark for months, officials with the entity that operates the grid said Thursday.

As millions of customers throughout the state begin to have power restored after days of massive blackouts, officials with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, which operates the power grid that covers most of the state, said Texas was dangerously close to a worst-case scenario: uncontrolled blackouts across the state.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Threatened by Coal, Ranchers Take the Kenney Government to Court

December 8, 2020

Threatened by Coal, Ranchers Take the Kenney Government to Court

Alberta is poised to let miners destroy mountaintops and vital watersheds grazed for a century.

Mac Blades (foreground) carries on his family’s 100-year ranching tradition on the slopes of Alberta’s Rockies. He and his wife Renie joined a lawsuit to stop open-pit coal mining in the area after restrictions were lifted. Photo by Callum Gunn.

When Jason Kenney’s government quietly abolished the province’s visionary Coal Policy last May to appease Australian coal miners, a shock wave travelled through cowboy country along the scenic slopes of the southern Rockies.

One of those waves arrived at the doorstep of the Rocking P Ranch owned by Mac and Renie Blades.

Another hit the nearby Plateau Cattle Co. owned by John Smith and Laura Laing.

Both families graze their cattle at the base of a fir-topped mountain called Cabin Ridge during the summer months.

Under the province’s 44-year-old Coal Policy the picturesque mountain lay within a landscape known as Category 2. That classification forbade open-pit mining and thereby conserved a precious watershed in arid Alberta.

But in one fell swoop the Kenney government ended that protection by killing the policy and most of its land classification system.

As a consequence the province abruptly opened up 1.5 million hectares of the southern Rockies to mountaintop removal in the middle of the Oldman River watershed, which supplies drinking water to more than a million Canadians. The government is now taking bids for some of that area until Dec. 15.

Australian leaders of coal mining corporations, who had lobbied for the abolishment of the Coal Policy, openly praised the government when their wish was granted.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Staying Hydrated During The Winter Months Is A Key To Good Health

November 18, 2020

Staying Hydrated During The Winter Months Is A Key To Good Health

Did you know that drinking more water during winter is crucial to your health and your survival?

Did you know that drinking more water during winter is crucial to your survival? This fact is especially important when you are spending more time outdoors.

Hydration is imperative to achieve proper gut functions, healthy skin and hair, and lubricated joints. With winter right around the corner, many of us are chucking the ice-cold drinks for hot teas or coffees. That’s great, but make sure you are still getting adequate hydration this winter.

Drinking enough water each day is crucial for many reasons: to regulate body temperature, keep joints lubricated, prevent infections, deliver nutrients to cells, and keep organs functioning properly. Being well-hydrated also improves sleep quality, cognition, and mood.

While dehydration is often associated with those blazing hot summer months, winter should be of concern as well. During the winter, we tend to go for longer periods without water, not realizing that breathing cold and dry air causes the body to lose significant amounts of fluid, which would lead to dehydration. People often feel about 40 percent less thirsty in the winter, even though the body’s need for water is unchanged year-round. Because we don’t feel thirst as acutely as well do in summer, we’re less likely to keep a bottle of water handy during cold-weather months.

Here a few ways to make sure that even as the temperatures dip and snow starts to fall, that you get enough water to stay healthy:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Many toxic water incidents are HIDDEN from the public, so take a sip at your own risk

September 20, 2020

Many toxic water incidents are HIDDEN from the public, so take a sip at your own risk

(Natural News) If you assume your tap water must be safe to drink because you haven’t heard otherwise, you could be gambling with your health.

Seven years ago, the American Society for Civil Engineers issued a warning that most of the country’s drinking water infrastructure was “nearing the end of its useful life.” Not much has been done since then to resolve the problem, and now it is emerging that many toxic water incidents are hidden from the public.

The Office of Inspector General criticized the EPA and various U.S. water utilities in a 2019 report for failing to consistently and accurately report drinking water risks. According to the OIG’s investigation, there are a series of problems that could be putting public health at risk from contaminated drinking water supplies.

For example, they found that some of the agencies responsible for enforcing water regulations have not been consistent in enforcing public notice requirements. Many have not been reporting and tracking violations, nor have they been consistently issuing public notices. Because the EPA’s oversight protocols don’t cover all of the public notice requirements, some agencies can’t be sure whether the public water systems in their purview are notifying consumers of safety violations.

They also say the public water systems do not have accurate guidance related to the tools currently available for issuing public notices and could be missing out on chances to inform people effectively of problems with their drinking water. On top of that, the public notice guidance that the EPA gives to public water systems and primary agencies is outdated and does not reflect the current regulations.

Lead contamination is rampant

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Do we have room for a billion Americans?

September 8, 2020

Do we have room for a billion Americans?

As I was reading Matthew Yglesias’ piece “The Case for Adding 672 Million More Americans,” the Soviet-era designation of Mother Heroine, initiated by Joseph Stalin in 1944, came to mind. Stalin and subsequent Soviet leaders gave Mother Heroine medals to mothers who bore and raised 10 or more children. Lesser honors were provided for mothers who bore and raised between five and nine children. There is some mention of additional financial assistance from the state to those with such large families, but I could not find much information on this.

For America’s version of Mother Heroines (and Heroes), Yglesias proposes “not just paid leave but financial assistance, preschool and after-care services, reasonable summer programming, and affordable college for all qualified student”—all in order to encourage larger families (which he claims Americans actually want).

Yglesias thinks we need to increase our population so that we will be able to compete with 1.4 billion Chinese. Whether you think competing with the Chinese is important or not, there is a problem with the hidden metaphor that Yglesias is using throughout his piece. He is imagining that the United States of America is like the family room in your home. Normally, you might have two or three members in the room at once, watching television, reading, or munching on snacks. But actually, you could fit 10 or maybe even 15 people in the room comfortably if you rearrange the furniture.

So, Yglesias thinks if we, so to speak, rearrange America’s furniture a bit—build more housing near major metropolitan areas, provide more assistance to families, encourage more legal immigration—we can reach 1 billion in population. “America should aspire to be the greatest nation on earth,” he tells us.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How Low Flows Due to Irrigation are Destroying Oregon’s Deschutes River

August 25, 2020

How Low Flows Due to Irrigation are Destroying Oregon’s Deschutes River

The majority of water removed from the Deschutes is used to grow irrigated pasture and hay for livestock not crops consumed directly by humans. Photo by George Wuerthner

The recent article “Low Flows On Deschutes” highlights why irrigation is a significant threat to our river’s ecological integrity.

According to the report, flows on a portion of the Deschutes dropped to 60 CFS leaving many parts of the river channel dry. To put this into perspective, historically, before irrigators took our water from us, the river ran at 1000-1200 CFS year-round. As a spring-fed river, the Deschutes supported outstanding fisheries.

Huge trout caught out of the Deschutes near the turn of the century before irrigation destroyed the river.

This tragedy continues because the public is not standing up for its rights. We, the people, own the water in the river, not the irrigators. We allow the irrigators to take water from the river without any compensation to the public, and regardless of the damage done to aquatic ecosystems. This system was devised by irrigators to serve irrigators a century ago.

Isn’t it time for us to enter the modern age? Using water in the desert to grow hay for livestock is just a crazy waste of a valuable resource. Keeping water in the river would provide for greater recreational use. And maintaining viable flows would protect aquatic life like spotted frogs, trout, and salmon, not to mention all the other water-dependent species like eagles, mink, otter, and the rest.

Despite the claims to “water rights” the actual water in all state rivers belongs to Oregon citizens as affirmed by the Oregon Supreme Court.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How to Build a Rain Garden to Capture Runoff

July 17, 2020

How to Build a Rain Garden to Capture Runoff

There are many reasons to build a rain garden. Rain gardens help filter out pollutants like bird guano from stormwater and turn them into nutrients for your garden. They help reduce the draw on local aquifers to irrigate our gardens and allow those aquifers to be replenished by the natural water cycle. Because of this, rain gardens are essential in the fight to reduce stormwater pollution’s impacts on river systems, which in turn, end up in our beloved ocean. Stormwater is one of the largest sources of environmental pollutants entering the world’s oceans today. Rain gardens can even help reduce the populations of mosquitoes and other biting insects who rely on stagnant water to breed. As climate change brings diseases like malaria further north, managing mosquito populations becomes less a luxury and more a public health necessity.

Apart from purely utilitarian reasons to build rain gardens, the hobby gardeners and organic farmers of the world will find that rain gardens also provide an opportunity to sculpt a beautiful new aesthetic which conventional gardens simply cannot match. To get started, all you need is a ruler, a level, and a calculator.

Doing The Math

Rain gardens capture the rainfall from impermeable surfaces that flows across your property. Then, using nothing more than the natural slope of the land it collects and disperses that water into the garden and out into the local watershed beyond. If done properly, this water should collect and drain away within 24 hours of any given rainfall. Of course, to capture all the water falling on your roof, driveway, patio, and other impermeable surfaces you’ll need to know roughly how much water to expect.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Water Procurement: Setting Up a Low-Budget Water Catchment System and Why It Will Save Your Life

July 10, 2020

Water Procurement: Setting Up a Low-Budget Water Catchment System and Why It Will Save Your Life

Using the information from Part 1 & 2, the setup of a water system, decontamination station, and rain catchment procedures entailed to blend all parts together.

How are you doing, Ready Nutrition Readers? This article is the final segment of a three-part series dealing with obtaining water in a preparedness and survival stance. We will focus today on home and small group needs for water, incorporating knowledge from the prior two segments to complete the picture. The needs of each home will differ considerably due to varying needs of water consumption. A two-story home with five children, two parents, and an elderly grandparent with a long-term illness, for example, will need a different amount of water than two brothers in their thirties living in a small cottage.

The basics we’ll cover can be tailor-made to fit the situation that governs your needs. Conservatively speaking, each person needs between 1-2 gallons per day for intake; this does not include use of showers, toilet, sink, and laundry. As we covered in part 2 of this series on water, during a survival/grid down scenario, there are a number of diseases that must be taken into consideration. There are filtration and purification methods as detailed in part 1 as well as large-scale considerations. First things first: let’s discuss obtaining water.

I have included a diagram that shows how to make a water point for the family. Prior to doing any of this, consult with your lawyer or your local and state guidelines concerning laws, statutes, and regulations in the state you live; they may prohibit your obtaining and storing water (surface, rain, or other).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Water and Cadillac Deserts

May 10, 2020

Water and Cadillac Deserts

California Aqueduct near Kettleman City. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

My lengthy experience at the US Environmental Protection Agency brought me face to face with the terrors of our “modern” times. One of those awful realizations was that the leaders of America – and the leaders of other countries — are not telling the truth about the impact of people and industries have been having out there, on the natural world. For example, water.

The degradation, poisoning, and the disappearance of water is, first of all, the result of too many people inhabiting the planet. Despite perpetual wars and plagues, world population is steadily rising.

However, an even bigger force has been undermining water and life on Earth: industrialization: the machine power man acquired and employed to reshape the world to his interests.

This engineering power spread to plantation owners and modern oligarchs who rushed and grabbed land from indigenous people or small family farmers. Water has been absolutely necessary for “landscaping” the natural world and the production of cash crops in large farms and plantations. In addition, developers, miners, river-dam builders, and large cities want lots of water.

Before I tell the story of what “moderns” are doing to water, let’s turn to an earlier age when the Greeks treasured water.

Sacred water and Greek cosmology

Water was sacred to the Greeks because nature and the cosmos were sacred. The gods, and the universe those gods represented, demanded that the Greeks understand their power, which meant an understanding of nature and the cause and effect of phenomena in the natural world and the universe. Mythology informed them that:

(1) the god of southern wind, Notos, was the father of rain, Zeus having given him the prerogative of sending rain-giving clouds from the sky to earth.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

‘We Need Water Before Oil’: Kenyan Communities Scarred by Chinese Oil Exploration

April 18, 2020

‘We Need Water Before Oil’: Kenyan Communities Scarred by Chinese Oil Exploration

The repeated honking of a speeding Tawakul shuttle announces the return of travellers to Merti from distant towns at dusk. It also marks the close of another searing and slow day in this part of northern Kenya.

Idling villagers’ faces are suddenly lit by the prospect of seeing their families as they rush to meet the late arrivals, stirring this sleepy shopping centre into activity.

Wako Ade, a local motorbike taxi rider nods towards a reunited couple as the dusty vehicle empties its passengers at the bus terminal and says with frustration: “We are tired of this life. The bus is our only connection with Kenya through Isiolo town. I think the rest of the country forgot us.”

It wasn’t always like this.

About a decade ago, all eyes were on this weather-beaten and marginalized part of the country. Ade remembers seeing visitors from as far as the capital city, Nairobi, flocking to the town, positioning themselves for prospective business. For good reason: Merti was about to strike oil.

But it never materialised.

Destruction

In 2008, the China Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) announced it had identified 15 wells which showed strong signs of holding oil and gas deposits. But by January 2011, CNOOC had left, leaving the community with damaged land and $2 million worth of shattered hopes.

“There was excitement everywhere. We began preparing for an economic turnaround that has eluded us since Kenya gained independence,” recalled 75-year-old Dika Bidu from Dadach Basa village, which sits 12km away from CNOOC’s Bhogal rig.

As a village decision maker, the government told Bidu of the new health facilities, schools, piped water and tarmac roads that would be built to improve the lives of the people there.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Tag Archives: water

Content

Post categories

Economic Links

Energy/Resource Links

Environmental Links

Geopolitical Links

Liberty Links

News Links

Other Links

Survival Skills

Post Archives by Category

Post navigation

Latest Posts