There was a great Modern Marvels on tonight about water. It had a good segment on the Bellagio water show:
Aside: Modern Marvels is now available for download on itunes. A coworker got an iphone and it is significantly more impressive than I thougtht (now if only that AAPL stock I just bought would go back up).
It reminded me of some things I have been thinking about since St Lucia. I really think most of the 21st century will be spent on getting the basics back in order (hopefully before any crisis). Access to water (I say just water because 1/2 the world doesn't have access to clean drinking water), power and food supplies etc.
Most of the 1900's and the industrial revolution solved most of these basic needs for us here in the US. The fact that Las Vegas exists and has drinking water is really amazing. Farmers became more productive, we had power plants built all over and managed to get water to the Bellagio water show. This allowed a great percentage of our population to diverge into other areas of work rather than the basics. Today, I personally produce zero food, zero water or power but trade my deodorant sticks for all my needs (effectively).
Growing up in New England, this would not have been allowed to occur during the age of the pilgrims, most had to bring in their share of the harvest and probably only a few doctors etc were exempt from this. But since 1900 we have "lost" or no longer needed 75% of the farming jobs due to advances in crop yields (the exact % is in Naked Economics).
As the population of the US in general and specifically the rest of the world has grown, we are eating up whatever buffer our technology has created. Today we have summer brown outs in California, and watering restrictions in dry parts of the country (only even numbered houses can water their lawns on certain days, Dale maybe you could start a carbon emission-like market for your 42 days w/o watering your lawn). I know the snow runoff west of the Rockies no longer produces enough drinking water to meet demand. And Modern Marvels showed the underground water table east of the Rockies (in the plains) is expected to be down to 20% the original capacity by 2020.
As of right now, I am not crazy worried about this (provided we start to get smart about these things) since our ability to diverge will allow us to use new technologies we may not have had. We may not have been able to look at solar power as much without the advances in silicon wafers and computer chips.
For the stock people, there is a good water index fund (PHO) that has everyhting from purification companies to sewer line manufacturing (just see the ripped up Glendale streets, a lot of us town need updates) etc it is up 33% since being introduced a couple years ago.
2 comments:
i am so glad you wrote this, because i feel like so many people think that only "tree huggers" and "granola heads" are the ones who care about the earth. well, our earth is something that EVERYONE needs to think seriously about. further, we can change so much with just teeny, tiny lifestyle modifications.
examples?
1. every 2 minutes in the shower uses as much h2o as a person in africa uses for everything in their life for an entire day--drinking, bathing, cooking, cleaning, etc. take a shorter shower! even i, known for my marathon showers, have cut down tremendously. i am faster than dave now!
2. keep your sprinklers in check. the average lawn needs only 1 hour of watering per week.
3. turn off the water while you brush your teeth and you'll conserve up to 5 gallons of h2o per day. if everyone did this, the daily water savings could add up to 1.5 BILLION gallons.
want more? read "the green book" or subscribe to idealbite.com's daily biter tips.
little known fact of the day: dave sturgis is a member of the green party.
I thought of you the other day: I was at the airport at one of those over-priced mini-marts, and saw original SPREE. SO, if you want some, apparently you need to fly somewhere.
other green tip - take your own water bottle, and don't use the disposable sorts. Many restaurants and some cities are talking of, banning disposable water bottles b/c something like only 23% get recycled and it's just water.
Also, if you take your own bag to the store you sometimes get a deposit credited on your tab. Sometimes it's a flat 5 cents per bag, I've heard of some (but have yet to find!) where it's a percentage of your bill.
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