April 9, 2009
The world wide web is filled with a variety of information concerning water use, water management and water resources. Users are often surprised that an immense data base is availible online. Visit the Southwest Florida Water Management Distric website for a greate example. Water is still a public resource which means it is your right to know how it is being used.
Use the link below to visit a great example:
www.swfwmd.state.fl.us
courtesy of Southwest Florida Water Management District
April 9, 2009
The Unforeseen
Synopsis taken from http://theunforeseenfilm.com/blog/about/
Winner of the 2008 Independent Spirit Award “Truer than Fiction” Prize.
An ambitious west Texas farm boy with grandiose plans tires of living at the mercy of nature and sets out to find a life with more control. He heads to Austin where he becomes a real estate developer and skillfully capitalizes on the growth of this 1970s boomtown. At the peak of his powers, he transforms 4,000 acres of pristine Hill Country into one of the state’s largest and fastest selling subdivisions. When the development threatens a local treasure, a fragile limestone aquifer and a naturally spring-fed swimming hole, the community fights back. In the conflict that ensues, we see in miniature a struggle that today plays out in communities across the country.
April 9, 2009
charity: water
charity: water is a non-profit initiative bringing clean water and basic sanitation into impoverished communities. A $20 bottle of charity: water can give a person in Africa safe, clean drinking water for 20 years.
It’s hard not to think about water today. In the western world, we face growing concerns about our stewardship of the world’s most precious resource. There’s talk of shortages, evidence of reservoirs and aquifers drying up, and of course, plenty of people who simply don’t care.
But forget about us.
Most of us have never really been thirsty. We’ve never had to leave our houses and walk 5 miles to fetch water. We simply turn on the tap, and water comes out. Clean. Yet more than 1.1 billion people on the planet don’t have clean water.
It’s hard to imagine what a billion people looks like really, but one in six might be easier. One in six people in our world don’t have access to the most basic of human needs. Something we can’t imagine going 12 hours without.
Here, we’d like to introduce you to a few of those billion people. They are very real, and they need our help. They didn’t choose to be born into a village where the only source of water is a polluted swamp. And we didn’t choose to be born in a country where even the homeless have access to clean water and a toilet.
We invite you to put yourself in their shoes. Follow them on their daily journey. Carry 80 pounds of water in yellow fuel cans. Dig with their children in sand for water. Line up at a well and wait 8 hours for a turn.
Now, make a decision to help. We’re not offering grand solutions and billion dollar schemes, but instead, simple things that work. Things like freshwater wells, rainwater catchments and sand filters. For about $20 a person, we know how to help millions of people.
April 9, 2009
Flow is Irena Salina’s award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century – The World Water Crisis. Salina builds a case against the growing privatization of the world’s dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel.
Interviews with scientists and activists intelligently reveal the rapidly building crisis, at both the global and human scale, and the film introduces many of the governmental and corporate culprits behind the water grab, while begging the question “CAN ANYONE REALLY OWN WATER?”. Beyond identifying the problem, FLOW also gives viewers a look at the people and institutions providing practical solutions to the water crisis and those developing new technologies, which are fast becoming blueprints for a successful global and economic turnaround.
Salina’s film, which was an official Sundance ’08 selection and comes out in theaters September 12th in Los Angeles and New York and on September 19th in San Francisco, Berkeley, San Diego and Wa. D.C., focuses on the politics of water and the threat to our future, for both rich and poor nations, unless the emergence of a dominating world water cartel, intent on the privatization of water, is thwarted.
Documentary is produced by Steven Starr and also focuses on solutions to the crisis by highlighting the people and institutions developing new technologies that could offer a practical turnaround from where we’re headed. Interviewees include T. Boone Pickens.
April 8, 2009
Liquid Assets is a public media and outreach initiative that seeks to inform the nation about the critical role that our water infrastructure plays in protecting public health and promoting economic prosperity. Combining a ninety-minute documentary with a community toolkit for facilitating local involvement, Liquid Assets explores the history, engineering, and political and economic challenges of our water infrastructure, and engages communities in local discussion about public water and wastewater issues.
The goal of this public service media project is to stimulate community discussion and bring this issue into the public consciousness using television as a catalyst,” said executive producer of the documentary, Tom Keiter. “We want ‘Liquid Assets’ to be more than just a broadcast.”
The documentary explores major water, sewage, and stormwater infrastructure issues facing communities across the country.
WATER IN THE SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENT 