May 25, 13
Dam Nation: Dispatches From the Water Underground
Ever since learning about water mapping from Georg Bertsch and about watershed-based planning in Toronto from Chris Hardwick at Doors 9 on Juice last year, I've been aware that we talked a lot about energy but not enough about water. This prompted me in a fit of guilt to buy a bunch of books about greywater harvesting; these now sit in a dispiriting and unread pile next to my bath. Then, bingo: I found this wonderful book called Dam Nation: Dispatches From the Water Underground which I...
For The Love Of Water: H209 & The New Generation Competition
Today kicks off opening day for the H209 Water Forum in New York City. Hosted by the Henry Hudson 400 Foundation, the event aims to explore many of the water-related challenges of the 21st century. Beginning with a keynote address from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Lisa P. Jackson, and Tineke Huizinga, the H209 conference will feature more than 100 forward thinking individuals. From the HH400's release: Dutch and American business leaders, environmental, planning and engineering experts,...
New Resource: The Living Planet City
“Welcome to the Living Planet. It’s clean, it’s efficient — and it’s doable. Today.” This blurb appears on the front page of WWF Canada’s new website, the Living Planet City, which launched on Tuesday. The Living Planet City’s bright animation of thriving urbanism (pictured right, in a screen shot) illustrates 20 big ideas to make any city more sustainable. In the “west end,” a combined heat and power plant uses “waste” heat energy to provide chilled water for a...
World Water Day: Freshwater Roundup
Sunday, March 22, is World Water Day. The UN initiative began in 1993 as a means of celebrating freshwater resources around the world, and of raising awareness around the need to keep these resources clean and available to people everywhere who need them. World Water Day 2009 is focusing on transboundary waters with its theme, "Shared Water - Shared Opportunities." Although predictions about the growing danger of water-related conflict are a heightening concern in the face of global...
Sonoma Mountain Village: Is Green Suburbia Possible?
Is green suburbia possible? Forty miles north of San Francisco, on the site of a former industrial park, work is underway on the ambitious new Sonoma Mountain Village, a 200-acre development that aims to be truly sustainable. The development is America’s first to be certified as a “One Planet Community,” part of an effort to build healthy and sustainable neighborhoods in the UK, US and Canada. Built through a partnership between sustainability experts BioRegional and the developer...
Graphic Series: Earthly Ideas, Greywater Systems
This week's cartoon describes greywater systems. These resourceful plumbing setups collect lightly contaminated water – like the water from showers, sinks and clothes washers – and reuse it for non-potable tasks like flushing the toilet. If you'd like to learn more about greywater and related solutions, in the Worldchanging archive is a good place to start. Learn how a group of practical activists is taking matters into their own hands in Plumbing the Future: Greywater Guerrillas, or read...
No Such Thing As Waste Water
On the blue planet, and especially in the industrialized world, water is seemingly everywhere. At the turn of the faucet or the flush of a toilet, our control over our water supply is misleadingly large. Although the planet is covered in more than 70 percent of the stuff, only three percent of it is actually drinkable -- a percentage we are continually diminishing with pollution from our sewer, agricultural and industrial systems. And even though personal anti-wasting steps (turning off...
Plumbing the Future: Greywater Guerrillas
Looks like not all plumbers are simply average joes (sorry, couldn't help myself). According to this excellent article by Matthew Green of the East Bay Express, a league of "plumbing activists" are putting their technical skills to work combating California state codes that inhibit the widespread use of water-saving greywater systems. The California policy, its shortcomings and the current controversy as described in the Express: Drawn up in 1995 by California's departments of health and...
Irrigation Offsets
This article was written by Jeremy Faludi in May 2007. We're republishing it here as part of our month-long editorial retrospective. Green buildings do many things to save water, sometimes spending thousands of dollars to do so. But what if they could save double, or 10 times as much water for the same cost? And what if they could help bridge the rural-urban divide while they were at it? This could all happen with irrigation offsets. As we've written before, cropland irrigation uses...
Worldchanging Interview: Timothy Burroughs of ICLEI USA
This article was written by Worldchanging San Francisco local editor Matt Waxman in February 2007. We're republishing it here as part of our month-long editorial retrospective. Timothy Burroughs is a Program Officer at the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) USA Office based in Oakland. ICLEI is the leading global organization and network of local governments promoting sustainable development. I first met Timothy last November when he came to the Town of Moraga...
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