planetwater

The first attempt remained an attempt, but was the inaugural event for an organization now known as Greenpeace. Today, a Greenpeace ship made it to Amchitka.

If you’re a tree-hugger, if you’re a SUV driver, or just anybody — I think this is a good moment to sit back and think about Greenpeace for a minute. Would it be possible to found a similar organization today? How much have they reached?

Wow! Who would have thought that the truth about bottled water would ever become mainstream? It seems that more and more people in the US realize that it they are paying for something they can get for free while also producing huge amounts of waste and wasting huge amounts of energy. What’s the situation in Germany? Is anyone questioning the obsession with Volvic, Evian, or Sprudel? Also, is anyone considering the life cycle impact of reusable bottles (Mehrwegflaschen)? I think it is time for a discussion of environmentalism in Germany and the US on planetwater.org! -Patrick

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Those eight daily glasses of water you’re supposed to drink for good health? They will cost you $0.00135 — about 49 cents a year — if you take it from a New York City tap. Or, city officials suggest, you could spend 2,900 times as much, roughly $1,400 yearly, by drinking bottled water.

I do feel like saying: “Told you so!”

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According to the New Scientist, the Amish are very fast in adapting solar power. By now, 80% of the Amish families in the largest Amish community in the world in Ohio, own solar power. Reasons for the quick adoption include:

• safety concerns (gas lamps were a fire hazard)
• legal requirements (transportation code requires horse buggies to be lit)
• remain separated from the rest of American society by not hooking on to the electricity grid

After having lived in close proximity to Mennonites for a few years, and having enjoyed their agricultural products, and missing those products now that they are not available to me anymore, I do acknowledge the importance of such communities. In Waterloo they live peacefully together with the rest of the community, everybody chuckles about their horse buggies, but everybody is delighted by their fine potatoes, their fine produce, and their fine work.

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Well, if somebody’s telling you so, you might get some useful support from the NewScientist. A very nice collection of all the stories, why climate change isn’t happening, why it isn’t man made, why we shouldn’t trust scientists dealing with climate change. And a very nice collection of background information, where the stories come from, what’s the scientific basis and where the myth starts.

Finally there are some new thoughts on climate change. At least new to me. The Guardian has an article by Mike Hulme, a professor in the school of environmental sciences at the University of East Anglia and the founding director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

What matters about climate change is not whether we can predict the future with some desired level of certainty and accuracy; it is whether we have sufficient foresight, supported by wisdom, to allow our perspective about the future, and our responsibility for it, to be altered.

I’ve heard from readers that I am writing too much “serious” stuff. The concern is that this “serious” stuff might scare contributors to this blog away. I have no intention at all to scare anybody! And I think that blog entries on music, literature, movies, art in general, or any other topic within the boundaries of legality and good taste really, are interesting. This “serious” stuff, water in general and climate change in particular these days because it is such a hot topic in the general public, at least within my current surroundings, is occupying my mind and hence I am writing about it. If the majority of the readers and contributors think that this blog is not suitable for this, I will stop.

A lot of fuzz is going on these days about our climate. Is it getting warmer? What happens if it’s getting warmer? Who’s fault is it? Should we do something against it? What should we do? When should we do it?

The role of journalism is critical in this process, as it is generally for forming public opinion. My personal favorite happened in German public news this morning, when the anchor announced, plainly announced without any background, that patio heaters (I assume those gas fired ones) are bad for the climate, and they should be generally abandoned. Wow. Somehow, before the latest IPCC report from the working group I entitled “the physical science basis”, the media was generally quite critical, and sometimes even doubtful if climate change is happening at all. On the IPCC web page I still can find only the “summary for policy makers” of the working group I report. It doesn’t seem like the actual report is actually published yet. This has totally shifted to announcing that climate change is happening, and almost to scaring everybody how bad this is. Another brilliant piece of journalism has happened in the New York Times yesterday, and is very well summarized here, including the responses this NYT article has caused.

Tonight, NPR is airing a promising discussion with participants having big names in the scientific and political genre. It should be available as podcast soon.

Seriously, Holy Drinking Water! N.B. the warning: If you are a sinner or evil in nature, this product may cause burning, intense heat, sweating, skin irritations, rashes, itchiness, vomiting, bloodshot and watery eyes, pale skin color, and oral irritations.

The German news magazine “Der Spiegel” has an article today about how more and more people live on the earth, and how less and less have access to drinking water. The provocative title asks if that unequal distribution will be cause for future wars.

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