Tag: water

Unsustainable Practices and Their Consequences

Most people do not realize the detrimental consequences of using unsustainable practices to obtain resources, nor do people view water as a resource to be protected and reused with care. Benoit Aquin’s photography series named “The Chinese Dust Bowl” emphasizes the importance of employing sustainable practices as well as to the scarcity of water as a resource. The pictures revolve around the widespread desertification in China, man-made deserts that are slowly expanding from over use of arable land, overgrazing, and increased drilling for water. Aquin presents shocking pictures of dry, cracked, and dusty land that highlight a lack of water through the haze and overall tan color present in all of the dusty, sandy pictures, especially since one of the reasons that the deserts were created was to find water by drilling into the ground. The dirt and heat of each picture can almost be felt by the viewer as they see the conditions that people are forced to walk, travel, and live in every day. People walk around with face masks, showing that the air itself is saturated with the dust from these man-made deserts that make it difficult to breathe normally. The desertification continues to spread and diffuse outward through wind and giant sandstorms, and it represents the most massive and rapid conversion of arable land into barren deserts.

The pictures that Aquin took push the viewers to focus on the importance of implementing sustainable practices into society, especially taking care of the environment as a necessary factor in the decisions made. They expose water as an important and scarce resource to certain places in the world, and implies the need to protect and preserve it. His pictures won the Prix Pictet, a global award dedicated to photography and sustainability, in 2008, a well-deserved reward for his presentation of the ecological damage humans inflict on nature through lack of sustainability and improper mindsets.

City Summit 2017

Next week in Charlotte, North Carolina City Summit 2017 will be held to discuss the future of America’s cities.  Although water and sustainability won’t be the only topic of discussion, it will most definitely be an important and resonant topic.  A portion of the summit’s activities will be dedicated to cities that have started to use  One Water’s strategies to accomplish reforms in the way cities handle water.  Some of these cities include Tucson, Milwaukee, and Los Angeles.  Many American major cities are coming together and collaborating in planning for a more sustainable future.

One Water presents a comprehensive plan for water management in our future cities.  With a mind for sustainability, equitability, and affordability as well as health, safety, aesthetics, among other qualities, One Water is becoming increasingly attractive to more and more cities across the country.  However, what really makes One Water stand out from other options cities have in water management is its dedication to community involvement and collaboration and integration with local politics.  Considering One Water has partnered with the National League of Cities, the organizers of City Summit 2017, for this summit is evidentiary of their dedication to being involved on a deeply local scale. Understanding that water management is likely to be different for many cities, crafting specific plans following the general ideas and principles of One Water for different cities becomes easier.  Hopefully the 2017 City Summit produces some important pathways for future development of many cities’ water management plans.

The Importance of Harvesting the Wind Energy Potential Over Oceans

As humanity aggressively steps forward into the 21st century, our demands for energy have continued to skyrocket. Thus, the need for sustainable energy sources have become more critical than ever before, especially due to the detrimental effects of fossil fuel usage. New research published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science indicates that the wind energy potential over oceans could theoretically power human civilization. However, this would require extensive portions of the world’s oceans to be covered with wind turbines. The installation and the maintenance of this project would be difficult and unlikely due to the volatility of ocean environments; the project could even alter climate conditions. Nonetheless, wind speeds over the ocean tend to be 70% higher than on land. Over some sections of the oceans, storms regularly transfer wind energy down to surface level from higher altitudes; this indicates that the amount of energy that can be captured with floating turbines is higher than that of land turbines. Although these ideas are merely theoretical, and are undermined by many practical and seemingly inevitable issues, they emphasize the importance of adopting alternative sources of energy in the future.

NYC Water

When you google “Why does NYC have…”, one of the top 5 results is about its water.  New York City has basically given itself a reputation of having amazing tasting and clean water.  However, as this Thrillist article discusses, New York doesn’t even make the top 10 list of water quality in the United States. (Note: The data being used is from 2009).  As the video mentioned, New York’s bagels and other baked goods’ popularity is commonly attributed to New York’s water quality, but is more about craft.  Furthermore, as the article mentions, our baked goods are probably hurt more than they are helped by the water quality.  Its incredibly interesting that despite seemingly being untrue, New York has a reputation for having great water and its bagels and pizza are great because of its water.

As the article discusses, when New York had to rethink its water supply in the 1940s and 50s, it was actually this fabricated reputation for having great water that prevented New York’s water from being sourced from the Hudson. Since people thought the Hudson was a disgusting body of water, they did not want to get their water from there, despite the water source being 70 miles upstream. So instead of sourcing water from the river, the watershed that is currently used to give New York City its water was made.  It is incredibly ironic that it was this reputation that prevented the Hudson River from being New York’s water supply, despite this reputation for having some of the best water in the country being largely untrue.