Tag Archives: USA

Gray Water Getting More Interest

Gray water is such a simple idea, but it is expensive to implement the infrastructure on a mass scale – particularly in the suburbs. There is however, more interest in the idea thanks to an increased knowledge about how important water is. Californians are now looking more at gray water – and in the USA California tends to set trends for the rest of the states.

The systems — which use water from sinks, tubs and washing machines to irrigate home landscaping — are touted as a way to keep lawns green and flowers blooming without abusing a scarce resource or inflating water bills.
Greywater Guerrillas launched its first jerry-rigged experiments with gray water in 1999, when the original guerrillas were trying to reduce the water bill for their house of six roommates. The systems and devices have become much more sophisticated since then, said Laura Allen, an educator with Greywater Guerrillas.
Gray water systems channel the used household water (though not from toilets) to irrigation ducts 9 inches below the surface of a home’s lawn or garden.
Advocates say it’s a practical use of water that otherwise would go into the sewer system, and therefore an expedient means of conservation. And conservation is important as water becomes an increasingly valued resource, proponents say.
“Our water bill is going to be like our oil bill in the future,” said John Russell, a landscape designer who heads WaterSprout, an Oakland company that specializes in residential and commercial irrigation, including gray water systems.

U.S. War Deserters Welcome in Canada

American troops who don’t want to fight in an illegal war can now live in Canada without fear of being deported!

U.S. soldiers who fled to Canada to escape the war in Iraq won a symbolic victory in the House of Commons Tuesday when a majority of MPs voted that the deserters should be allowed to stay permanently in the country.
But the motion, put forward by the NDP, is non-binding on the minority Conservative government. Tory MPs voted against the motion but were outnumbered by the three opposition parties in a 137-110 vote.
“The Harper Conservatives must respect this and immediately implement this motion,” said Olivia Chow, the Toronto New Democrat who moved the motion. “Ordinary people want the Iraq war resisters to stay.”
The Toronto-based War Resisters Support Campaign estimates as many as 200 American soldiers escaped to Canada to avoid serving in Iraq.

3 Trillion Dollar Spending Spree

Here, have $3,000,000,000,000 and spend it!

What appears to be an art project (or is it marketing?) is critiquing the cost of the USA invading and occupying Iraq. That’s right, it will cost $3 trillion to fight for oil, er, freedom. The website linked above is a challenge to see how well you can spend the same amount of money for the world that you want. It’s obviously aimed at Americans. Take a look at my shopping cart here.

$3 TRILLION isn’t just how much the Iraq War will cost our government, it’s how much it will cost our sputtering economy. When the Bush administration launched this war, they claimed Americans would not have to make sacrifices. They even cut taxes with the help of a Republican-led Congress, rather than raising them as had been done historically in times of war. According to Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard professor Linda Bilmes in their book The Three Trillion Dollar War, we’re fighting an unnecessary war on borrowed money. The war has caused our skyrocketing national debt. And more than anything else, the war has caused our recession.
Here’s how $3 trillion breaks down:

$526 billion — borrowed money poured into Iraq so far
$615 billion — total interest costs for taxpayers
$280 billion — to rebuild our military
$590 billion — disability benefits and health care for Iraq veterans
$1.5 trillion — estimated costs through 2017

Whale Songs to Warn Mariners of Their Presence

A system of buoys that will warn boats of the presence of whales has been put in place along a part of the east coast of the USA. The network of buoys listen for sounds that whales make and then the network will relay messages to boaters in the area to stay clear of the undersea creatures.

They have developed a cutting-edge underwater listening system to protect the creatures from their number one killer: ships. The Massachusetts Bay network can track right whales by their signature call – and in as little as 20 minutes warn mariners to slow if they’re too close.

The devices are also giving scientists unprecedented insight into how the creatures change behavior to respond to the cacophony of man-made noises in the bay.

“We need to listen to these whales” to save them, said Christopher W. Clark, director of Cornell University’s Bioacoustics Research Program, which developed the technology with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Clarks said an increasing number of pipelines, cruise ships, tankers, and construction projects are drowning out the whales’ soft calls, making it difficult for them to connect. Clark has evidence that the whales simply don’t “whoop” when the bay gets too noisy.

“In the world of right whales, we know it’s a noisy place to live,” Clark said in an e-mail. “Underwater [is] not much different than living on the tarmac at Logan.”

Bike Sharing Starts in the USA

Bicycle sharing has been around in most of the world for quite some time, now it is hitting the land of the automobile. The program is going to start in Washington DC. The symbolism here cannot be ignored.

A new public-private venture called SmartBike DC will make 120 bicycles available at 10 spots in central locations in the city. The automated program, which district officials say is the first of its kind in the nation, will operate in a similar fashion to car-sharing programs like Zipcar.

The district has teamed up with an advertiser, Clear Channel Outdoor, to put the bikes on the streets.

“There’s a lot of stress on our transit systems currently,” said Jim Sebastian, who manages bicycle and pedestrian programs for Washington’s Transportation Department. Offering another option, Mr. Sebastian said, “will help us reduce congestion and pollution,” as well as parking problems.