Read n' Seed 3: Second Quarter of "Aqua Shock: The Water Crisis"

1.  The chapters I have covered for this quarter are 3 and 4. 
2.  The main topics I have read about are:

• Other countries besides the United States also are dealing with the water crisis.
• Not only are we losing water from overuse and waste, but much water is being contaminated. 
• Many people are becoming ill from drinking water. According to a 2006 report from the EPA, 4,400 people were hospitalized and 50 people died as a result of waterborne diseases across the country.

3.  Some significant things I learned are

• Because of leaky pipes rain water gets into the sewer and is wasted. This is happening a lot in Boston because most of the pipe work is from the early 1900's and the useful life of these pipes is only 100 years. To fix this problem all the pipes would need to be replaced, which would be much too costly. So instead they must just suffer the consequences of wasting this water.
• Leaving water on for just five minutes wastes as much energy as leaving a 60 watt bulb on for fourteen hours. Most of do this while brushing our teeth, next time you brush turn the water off and help to save energy and water at the same time.
• People think that drinking out of water bottles is safer than drinking tap water, think again. Bottled water isn't tested as regularly as faucet water for impurities and pollutants. Also, many popular brands such as Dasani and Aquafina are tap water or come from public reservoirs. A study was done that tested ten US bottled water brands in eight states and the District of Columbia and found thirty-eight pollutants including bacteria, fertilizer, Tylenol, and industrial chemicals.

4.  These things affect society because we are falsely believing that drinking bottled water is better for us. Most of  don't go research online before we buy a bottle of water from the vending machine at school or at the gas station. These companies are getting away with having water that is contaminated and we are all still buying and consuming it. Some of the contaminants found in bottled water were shown to increase risk for cancer and other diseases. It makes me think no water is safe to drink anymore. Also, although it might be costly we need to invest in replacing and building water storage structures. Leaky pipes, faucets, etc. must be dealt with. We need to preserve more water or we will indefinitely run out.

Share & Voice: Environmental Guy

 

"Environmental Guy"

I found this video on YouTube. It's called Environmental Guy featuring Jim Carrey. I found it amusing and entertaining. Its kind of a funny way of putting some of the issues going on in our environment. Enjoy!

Eye Opener: CSPI

Eating Green

 I chose to do the Eating Green Calculator to see the amount of environmental burden my lifestyle causes. According to this, I use up 1.1 acres of grain and grass in one year, in order to feed the animals that are used to make the food I consume. I considered this a lot until I saw my results for the amount of manure created by these animals was 7,458 pounds. I was surprised that only .2 pounds of pesticide were used to grow the animal feed, that seemed like a pretty low amount until I sat that 26.7 pounds of fertilizer is actually used to grow animal feed the feed the animals. After improving my diet I found that actually .6 acres of land could be grown from decreasing some of my servings, my pesticide use decrease to .1 pounds, fertilizer fell to 15.2 and manure fell to 3915. If everyone could improve there diet and eat more locally grown fruits and vegetables our environment would be so much better off. Changing this would actually lower cholesterol by 49 milligrams, which is a good factor for me because high cholesterol runs in my family.

What this really means to me is that by just decreasing my servings of meats and dairy I can help the environment over a year. By just decreasing 1 or 2 servings from these categories went from using acres of land to actually growing back land. Its amazing to see how much impact it would have if everyone just made these small changes. We could preserve so much more of our planet and also be much healthier people.