Our World and Everything in It

I don’t know if any other people interested in moving forward with all types of alternative energy have noticed the purposeful placement of the word “foreign” in many of the presidential contenders, Bush/Cheney, and legislator’s speeches. When a politician says they will make sure to fund research for new technologies to get us away from “foreign” oil dependence, they are probably talking money for a new type of oil drilling process. Technically, they won’t be lying, just misleading, if you tend to disregard that tricky little word “foreign.”

Granted, it’s been said that we do not have alternative technology available yet to take up the brunt of our oil demand, but it seems we keep looking to only one, and not a combination of alternative sources. What about a combination of alternative energy sources? I hear this idea floating around, but no gelling. The Sierra Club of Michigan has a very good presentation that shows a combination of energy sources, wind, solar, geothermal, etc., plus conservation programs like reclaiming wastewater, and recycling may meet all of our energy demands in Michigan. But we’re not advancing toward a future that will no longer be reliant on one big massive conglomerate like the oil cartel is to us right now. It seems we work toward monopolies in this country. Then we’re upset when we’re stuck with them without a choice. We should be looking to all venues to move forward for our energy future, not reinforcing the idea of fossil fuel again, like it’s all right because it belongs to us. 

I see the big push to get away from “foreign” oil as the big ruse to drill in the Arctic circle, the polar bear habitat, Utah, even Livonia, MI for Pete’s sake, and anywhere a slant oil drill can legitimately be utilized to “not’ enter our protected National Parks. They do so anyway at an angle right under protected habitat, while doing a great deal of damage with all the accompanying paraphernalia like roads, pipeline, trucks, heavy equipment, and trash. Ditto for coal mining. Using coal is getting away from “foreign” oil, all oil, but is still perpetuating the use of filthy fossil fuel that will eventually run out. Sure it might be thousands of years before it does, but at what price, gutting the countryside, ruining the earth trying?

So beware of that tricky little “foreign” word that comes before oil. It’s not a detail that should go unnoticed, because it doesn’t make any difference. It does, or they wouldn’t be slipping it in there.  It makes all the difference in our lives, our environment, and our world whether our future continues to poke around the earth and the oceans below for oil or coal that is “OURS.” Our oil and coal burn just as filthy as the “foreign” stuff.

Monroe News presented an article this weekend from ABC news and other sites like The Huffington Report below that 36 states will suffer water shortages in the next 5 years. We’re a little slow to move to divert emergencies in this country lately so it’s imperative each community get moving.  Look what the small town of Clary N. Carolina did way back in 2001.

Cary began a reclaimed water system on a small scale in 2001. Reclaimed water has been treated up to a certain stage in the purification process. We can’t drink it, wash, or bathe in it but meets federal standards. What a community can do is recycle it instead of dumping it into lakes, rivers, and streams and reclaim it for irrigation, industrial processing, cooling, etc., leaving us with more clean drinking water.

Reclaimed water needs a separate pipeline from drinking water. This does require money, but it’s good for jobs and is just the beginning of what a green industry could bring. In the long run the system helps the community in times of drought.

The Cary, N.C. Reclaimed Water website states: “The state lets Cary divert a total of about 5 million gallons of treated wastewater a day from the two treatment plants (water reclamation facilities) for reuse rather than discharging into creeks.
        Amounts reused are:
        • Approximately 1 million gallons on peak day
        • Up to 20 million gallons monthly in summer.”

Cary is aiming at a 20% water usage reduction by 2015. Currently, close to 1900 communities across the country are using reclaimed water. The most progressive states include Washington, Florida, California, Arizona and Texas. Cary is a small town of a little over 112,000 that saves almost 1,000,000 gallons of water per day. If the roughly 2000 communities are doing as well as Cary than 2 billions gallons of water is saved per day or more by reclaiming water.

Think about an entire country doing this, the jobs it would create. But I’ve blogged about lack of money to renew water infrastructure in this country. We are in need of much money wasted on war concerns at a time when we should be hunkering down and getting serious about alleviating global warming. We can see our environmental conditions are changing. Preparing for its effects is not unwise. I don’t know about anyone else but the less I have to change drastically the better. If it means starting earlier than so be it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20071026/vanishing-water/.

http://www.townofcary.org/depts/pwdept/reclaimhome.htm.
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Temperatures soared in Las Vegas today. They might break a record. All through the Southwest temperatures are in triple digits. I was in Vegas last year this time when it was 105 degrees. All I could think of was the strain on everything because of the heat. The water usage and power for A/C is what really takes a hit. It’s a shame in a city where the sun consistently beats on the buildings, that those buildings are not solar powered. But Vegas is trying to become more environmentally friendly. Vegas water czar, Patricia Mulroy has issued mandates to conserve water, but is always searching elsewhere to maintain the water supply for the ever growing Vegas population.

When I saw the temperature in Vegas this morning, I started wondering if the plan to procure water for Vegas 300 miles away in the valleys of Nevada and Utah happened yet? The Vegas water authority bought 5 ranches for water already. Five ranches were sacrificed that is. They raised food for Americans, but were sold for a price so Vegas citizens and tourists can get more water. On the one hand Vegas is trying to be more environmentally friendly, but the argument used to get the water is based purely on the economy, which breaks down to money. It was put this way: 90% of Nevada’s water goes to agriculture, which generates 6000 jobs, so Las Vegas utilizes the water for the greatest economic return. So Vegas should get the water. Is this a wise move in the long run?

The ranchers that farm in the valley where the underground springs are threatened, claim that if water is taken from one spot, it disappears at another. One rancher pointed to spots where wildlife, sheep, and horses watered.  It dried up when new wells were tapped miles away. A U.S. Geological Survey confirms that the underground water systems in Nevada are interconnected. Vegas water czar Mulroy claims the water Vegas will extract from the underground springs is not water that is currently used by the ranchers. Current is one thing, the future is another. Five ranches growing crops for us are already out of commission for water for Vegas and now Mulroy hopes to “eventually tap 65 billion gallons of rural water a year with a 300-mile-long pipeline expected to cost more than $2 billion. That’s enough water for 50,000 families a year” in Vegas. Read the article about the rancher’s side of the story at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10953190. What about all the American families looking for locally grown food? Since China is not to be trusted for food imports, skepticism about any food imports is growing. Buying up farmland for water seems like a waste.

These are some of the questions that are going to keep coming up as our weather changes. It is a dilemma concerning  trade offs. Mulroy and other major investors/developers in Vegas have done much to conserve, read: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10939792, but they fall short when it comes to curbing population growth in that area. What do you think? 

I don’t think the problem is about rural versus urban as Mulroy thinks. I think her argument for Vegas is blind to anything but economics. It’s about jobs, about money and growth. She misses the point about global warming crisis. If the temperature continues to increase in the Southwest, in other words, if Mother Nature takes over, there won’t be any people around to sustain an economy anywhere. People will move sooner or later when the heat keeps escalating. And surrounding states that are getting beat to death by nature in other ways, flash floods, tornadoes, fires, and hurricanes, won’t be able to offer the support for neighbors like we saw for Katrina victims

Since Mulroy and businesses in Vegas don’t want to curb the population growth, the ranchers that are threatened ask if this has come down to “Crops or Craps?” I’d like to know if we really mean to sacrifice our food supply for urban sprawl, and entertainment, to include all new the water parks, and amusement places that take up acres and acres of land? Importing food from other countries will become a necessity if we don’t start protecting our farmland. It’s a real revelation to see how interconnected our lives are with farms and farming practices throughout our country isn’t it?  Lately, I’ve really learned to value that guy on the tractor in the field.