Today, yesterday, tomorrow – water.  Okay, so not actually tomorrow, but for this Sustainability Saturday I’m going to continue with yesterday’s Blog Action Day theme of water.  But in retrospect, that post seems a little gloomish to me.  And I don’t want to be a gloom shroom, so today’s water roundup is going to be all about solutions.  Amazing, beautiful, creative solutions to the water-related issues at hand!

Drinking Water

First off, drinking water.  We need it.  Around a billion people are without it ever day, and hundreds of thousands of children die each year due to lack of access to drinking water.  The problems with water as far as drinking is concerned are cleanliness and access.

From the ingenious Roundabout Play Pump, which harnesses kid-energy to provide water for an entire village, to the Hippo Water Roller and the Q Drum, people are coming up with elegant answers to the question of water transport.

Photo CC || http://www.flickr.com/photos/edytamaterk
Also, check out their wonderful photostream on Flickr!

Something as simple and as affordable as the LifeStraw could make the difference for people in countries with limited access to clean water, particularly given the expectation of increased freshwater shortages in the future.  The ability to sip clean water from a stagnant pool could mean the difference between life and death for millions of people.

Our Oceans

As for the oceans, unfortunately we’re not making much progress getting the plastic back out of the Pacific Gyre.  But there are some real solutions on the front of sustainable fishing and food production.

Catch shares are a new way of distributing fishing quotas that, at least as of now, seem to be working to sustain and rebuild fish populations.  With a catch share system, fishermen actually have an incentive to preserve and maintain the fish population.  Okay, so unless you’re a geeky wonk like me, catch shares may not be sexy and creative, but here’s something something more important than sexy: catch shares are working.

There are also some very creative responses to the pollution issues posed by traditional fisheries.  Ecologically sustainable ways to farm fish are out there.  It can be done, and again, there are people doing it!  (But for now, don’t assume that you’re doing the planet any favors by buying the farmed fish in your local grocery store.  Be sure you know where your seafood comes from.)

Can you see this video?  If not, click here to watch it on the blog.

But most exciting for me is aquaculture.  Aquaculture is so cool! Veggies + fish + small space + almost no waste = amazing.  Aquaculture is one of those cool ideas that can make sustainability sexy.  Particularly since it’s not just an idea on the drawing board.  It’s real and it’s happening right now.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Anyone have any positive, hopeful water-related projects or news to share?

Happy weekend, everyone!

Related posts:

1. Sustainability Saturday #5
2. Sustainability Saturday – #3
3. Sustainability Saturday #6

How is it possible that the year has gone by so quickly?  It seems like just yesterday it was last year’s Blog Action Day, and 19 Simple Ways to Start Thinking About Climate Change.  Then came the Climate Justice Fast, which got me thinking about water.  So it seems strangely appropriate that this year’s Blog Action Day is focused on water.  (But I still can’t believe it’s already October!)

I know that a billion people on this planet don’t have access to clean drinking water.  And you know it too.  However, not to minimize in any way the plight of those that lack clean water, I thought I would write about some of the other reasons water is super important.  Reasons like um… how about water is everything?  Water is our agriculture, our rain, our oceans.  Water is our weather and our seasons.  Water is our life.

Our Oceans, Our Fish

In case you haven’t heard, the oceans are in big trouble.  From overfishing to acidification to nitrogren-rich dead zones at the mouths of rivers, things aren’t looking so hot.  But one of the more interesting (scariest?) things I’ve read in a while is the report on the decline of phytoplankton over the last 60 years.  Recently, this decline has been linked to increased ocean surface temperatures.  That means climate change.  Oh yeah… that again.

Phytoplankton are really important.  People around the world rely on the oceans as a primary source of food, and those ocean creatures eat other ocean creatures, who eat other ocean creatures, who eat phytoplankton (multiples of eating and being eaten may vary).  In fact, we may be primed for the next great oceanic extinction.

We need to start recognizing how important our oceans are to us, and we need to do it right now.  Or yesterday.  Or 60 years ago.  But lacking a time machine, right now sounds good.

Our Groundwater, Our Rivers

We’re also going to need to start valuing our groundwater and rivers, and addressing agricultural runoff now.  I mean now. We already have dead zones and they are growing.  Agricultural, industrial, urban and suburban runoff are polluting our waterways and our groundwater, and once that crap is in the water, it is so hard (if not impossible) to get it out.

Dedicated, talented, impassioned people are working on finding solutions, but the more of us that understand and engage with the issue, the better chance they will have.

Photo CC || http://www.flickr.com/photos/aussiegall

Protect Our Water

I know that I’m a little touchy about water.  I grew up living between two drought states – California and Colorado – which definitely affected my perspective on scarcity.  Living in the Pacific Northwest has been weird for me because there is so much water here that many people never give it a second thought.  But I can’t help it.  Every time I see sprinklers running in the middle of the day or my neighbors dumping chemicals on their beautiful lawns, I cringe.  I can’t help but try to do as much as possible to protect the water we have, even if it doesn’t seem like such a scarce resource here.

The neat thing about the world as we know it is that everything is connected.  The more we learn, the more we see how interconnected everything really is.  You may not think you’re helping protect water, but the little things you’re doing in other areas of your life are absolutely connected to the water systems on our planet.  Things like:

• No chemicals on my lawn.  Our lawns runoff travel through drainage ditches to our neighborhood storm ponds.  Those seep back into our groundwater.  So no chemicals.  Ever.
• I have a rain barrel.  I got it from Freecycle, so total investment was basically a short drive and a little bit of effort.  Extra water during the wet season can be used to water plants during the dry, hot summer months.
• No plastic.  Ok, so I’m not entirely plastic-free, but I do use a lot less plastic than I used to, which is waaaay less than the average American household.  This means less plastic to accidentally end up in the Pacific Gyre.
• Carbon footprint reduction – we’re far from carbon neutral in this household, but we’re trying to reduce our impact as much as possible.  Increased atmospheric CO2 leads to ocean acidification, dead zones and the collapse of aquatic ecosystems.  Same with higher ocean temperature.
• Supporting sustainable agriculture – our produce, dairy and most of our meat come from local farmers implementing sustainable agriculture practices.  We fall off the wagon occasionally, but for the most part, our food dollars go to people who are trying to leave the world a cleaner, greener place.

How about you?  Is water on your radar?  What are you already doing to protect our water?  What other little things might you be able to do?

Related posts:

1. Let’s Talk About Water

I spent last Thursday and Friday fasting, taking my second turn in our rolling fast in support of Climate Justice Fast.  The first time around, I was struck not as much by the absence of food as I was by the ready availability of clean, affordable water (my thoughts are included in Greenfyre’s Hunger Strike Day 13, retrospectives and reflections).  My reaction was similar this time, but fueled by new information and ideas.

This is largely due to the fact that, over the last several weeks, there has been extensive coverage of water as a pressing issue, and one that is inextricably bound to climate change.  Much of the coverage revolved around a discussion of James Workman’s book, Heart of Dryness.  He gave a round of interviews and wrote a compelling op-ed in the LA Times about the necessity of addressing water and adaptation in tandem with emissions mitigation at the Copenhagen Climate Conference.  (Water is not on the agenda in Copenhagen.)

Throughout the discussions of water weaves an underlying question:  Is water a unifying or a dividing force?  Heart of Dryness documents that water has the potential to unite people within and across communities.  But, as Workman himself acknowledges, water has been and still is a source of conflict among human populations.

This discussion about water once again leads us to an evaluation of systems.  I agree with Alex Steffen’s assessment that we (yes – me, you, all of us) need to become fluent in the economic and political systems that shape our world and are the primary source of meaningful, far-reaching change (The Revolution Will Not Be Hand-Made).  Because the fact is that water itself – that little H2O molecule – isn’t the issue.  Rather, it is the systems we have created to manage, regulate, trade, protect, distribute and conserve water that have tremendous power over our daily lives.  Indeed, our survival depends on finding and implementing systems that work.

Will water unite or divide?  When it comes down to it, we are the ones who must decide how to best answer that question.

More On Water:

• TED Talk: Anumpam Mishra, The Ancient Ingenuity of Water Harvesting (my favorite of the bunch)
• Watershed (by Vienna Teng)
• Heart of Dryness: How the Last Bushmen Can Help Us Endure the Coming Age of Permanent Drought (James Workman)
• Copenhagen’s Missing Ingredient: Water (James Workman, LA Times)
• James Workman on Tell Me More
• TreeHugger on Heart of Dryness (with video interview of James Workman)

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