[Image credit: Brian Hursey at Flickr under a Creative Commons license]
Something amazing happened here in Atlanta on Friday night: it rained. I’m not sure I can remember the last time that happened – maybe late last month? The winter months are some of the driest here in northern Georgia, and our drought situation may not be getting much news coverage, but it’s far from over.
The Incredible Shrinking Lake
Lake Lanier, Atlanta’s main water source, is still hitting record lows, and Northern Georgia is facing moderate to severe drought conditions. The lake is at about 1050 feet above sea level, and if it drops below 1035 feet, the city will no longer be able to tap this water resource. At the current depletion rate, we have enough water to last only a few more months.
Meanwhile, it feels like the city has pretty much forgotten about conserving water. Our city’s population grows every day, further taxing the dwindling resource. Neighbors are running their sprinklers again. Talk of conservation seems to have just petered off as we’re on track for record lows in our water supply.
Taking Action: Conserving in More Ways Than One
Before you can reduce your water usage, it helps to know how much you’re consuming. Find your Water Footprint to get an idea of where you can stand to reduce your usage. Once you’re ready to make some changes, you can work on turning your house into a water conservation station.
Electricity production uses huge amounts of water, so taking steps to use less power helps conserve water, too! Consider investing in smart power strips that help fight vampire power. Even something as simple as swapping out conventional light bulbs for CFLs can make a big difference in your power consumption, and therefore indirectly decrease your water use.
You can take an extra step by spreading the word! Talk to your friends and family about how easy it is to conserve water and power. Even if they aren’t concerned about the environment, many of these measures can save them money by lowering their utility bills. A lot of these steps are free or pay for themselves after a just few lowered billing cycles!
About Becky Striepe
If you are looking to conserve water, a Corona dual flush toilet is a good idea. You can find them locally at http://ecotransitons.com.
~Regina
oops! wrong link!
Try: http://ecotransitions.com
Atlanta is about to learn what Los Angeles has known for awhile, now. No amount of conservation is going to cure the “so called” drought. there is no shortage of water..There is a surplus, of people.
In the early eighties, So. Cal was, as now, stricken with drought. Water rationing was imposed. Rates raised. The rains came back. Everybody forgot about it, for awhile. The rates never went back down though.
What was the governments policy, over the following 30+ years, until the present drought. Would you believe..doubling the population. That’s right. Add even more people.
The drought isn’t just in terms of water. There’s a general infrastructure drought. Jails over flowing, hospitals closing, schools failing, traffic, blah, blah.. It’s all a result of over-population.
It’s not over-population, brought on by birth, either. Nope!
100% of this nations doubling of it’s population, since 1971, has come from immigrants, and the children thereof.
So you see, everytime you conserve water, carpool, etc….You’re only squeezing closer together, to make more room, for more immigrants. Immigrants that you are going to have to compete with, for wages and resources, in the future.
Bottomline…No resource conservation program has any chance of success, without some sort of population stabilization component.
If you are serious about saving water, want a toilet that really works and is affordable, I would highly recommend a Caroma Dual Flush toilet (Sorry Regina, it’s not a Corona)
Caroma toilets offer a patented dual flush technology consisting of a 0.8 Gal flush for liquid waste and a 1.6 Gal flush for solids. Caroma, an Australian company set the standard by giving the world its first successful two button dual flush system in the nineteen eighties and has since perfected the technology. Also, with a full 3.5″ trapway, these toilets virtually never clog. All of Caroma’s toilets are on the list of WaterSense labeled HET’s http://www.epa.gov/watersense/pp/find_het.htm and also qualify for several rebate programs currently available as well as LEED points. Please go to http://www.caromausa.com for more detailed information or visit http://www.ecotransitions.com/howto.asp to see why they actually work better than any US toilet. Best regards, Andrea Paulinelli, owner ecoTransitions Inc.
Look on Google. All around all big cities in Asia is a green ring? This is caused by the cities’ “night soil” being hauled away and deposited as fertilizer in the gardens that supply fresh greens to the cityfolk! Americans have dry composters for humanure available here on the net. The dried manure can be sold! to buy bottles water for drinking! As the (GRD) great republican depression pressures and molds the American psyche to appropriate size, many changes, seemingly distasteful momentarily, though practical and realistic, will come to the fore! Methane gas from poop at pig plants, cattle farms and large city sewage systems will soon be the American norm! Grey-water recyclers and rainwater catchment schemes are better than sand-bathing! We will soon find out exactly why our 18th century British life models powdered their hair and faces – unless we change our ways! The GRD is about change, mindbending, paradigm shifts, societal upheaval, values adjustments and come-uppances. We have been push into the GRD, and will feel its full strength on our very souls as we move through it, never to return to our slothful past and surviving only by sustainability of our efforts. Our captors, the Uber-rich, have set us free and engaged Mao’s Revenge, – a self-regenerating army of country girls in their prime, manning Chinese factories for 55 cents an hour, and working 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week, poop in floor slot toilets, sleep on 3′x6′ mats on the floor in the factory, eat at the in-factory cafeteria, wear company uniforms 24 hours a day, color coded to indicate their departments, return to the peasant farms whence they came when burned out, pensionless and, no economic burden to anyone, die an early and convenient death! and have been taught by General Motors U.S. how to build Buick LeSabres and a Chevette like car called the Cherry! They will take a job from your neighborhood soon! and will dominate the first half of the 21st Century if not all of it!Uber-rich stock holders of the world are tired of your (very expensive) sort, and prefer her (very cheap) sort! as far as they are concerned, don’t you kiss your sad ass goodbye, just f##k off and die! and, as usual for Capitalists, once a corporation dies, nobody is liable to anybody – poof, you’re a bag of shit!