The author describes her family's shift from typical consumers of water to experiencing scarcity.
Her family went from consuming (presumably) ~1600 to 100 litres of water during the day (within the domicile - this number does not account for public uses of water).
The author then superimposes the possible reality of water scarcity on her situation. Would the family be bathing with one litre of warm water in a bowl, as a regular thing? Would flushing the toilet mean carrying 20 litres - one fifth your daily water usage - to the toilet each time?
Of course, habits would change and sanitation practices would be amended.
Responsible water usage has been long inculcated into my mind. Not that I adhere to responsible practices all the time, but I make a valid effort to. I find the European influence in my life has had this result on me. I can only speculate, but in Europe, resource scarcity has been a much longer and more vivid reality than it has been in North America; where resource scarcity is still balked at by some today.
So, here is the question: What do you do to save water (If at all)? If you don't believe that responsible water usage is an obligation, why not?
Some things I do:
1. Limit my showers to about 3 mins. I also save my showers to the gym as I find I doddle less and finish quicker. This also saves me money on my utility bills. Additionally, I have a "pre-soak", after which I turn off the water, soap up, and then rinse.
2. This might be gross to some, but I won't flush urine. I find it wasteful to flush 20 litres of water just so the toilet bowl isn't off-yellow. There is no odour produced, and with the lid down, you wouldn't ever notice.
3. I am prudent with dishwashing. I will use a sponge soaked in water and soap to wash a substantial amount of dishes. I rinse quickly with cold water.
4. This isn't me, but my brother had a unique strategy (to the chagrin of his girlfriend) where he would shower with the drain plugged and use the leftover water and a bucket to flush the toilet. Something I would adopt in a hurry if my roommate agreed to it.
So what do you do? What don't you do? What is your attitude towards water usage?
Don't the toilets in Europe have less water in the bowl? This always made sense to me, I've never understood why we have to go into a large pool of water and then have more water come when flushing. Thankfully my floater frequency has diminished in recent years so a double flush is not needed.
The real solution people don't have the guts to mention is that we can all piss in the sink or into bottles and then fertilize our lawns instead of wasting 5 litres of water per flush even if you re-use the bowl several times before you do it.
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With the quality of the wastewater system in Calgary, I don't really see the point of going too far in an effort to use less water. The water that goes down the drain end up back in the river cleaner than when it got taken out of the river.
Not that I don't try to conserve water, it just seems that, at least here, efforts can be more productive elsewhere.
If 71% of the earth's surface is water, and we can easily turn salt water into drinking water if necessary, then I think there are far more pressing concerns than conserving water.
If 71% of the earth's surface is water, and we can easily turn salt water into drinking water if necessary, then I think there are far more pressing concerns than conserving water.
Water conservation is about preserving the amount of water resources available to certain areas, equally important to both natural ecosystems and human habitation and about the amount of energy that has to go into water purification, desalinization, processing, etc. and it's impact and cost.
Water scarcity doesn't mean that it's a rare substance on the entire planet that we are going to run out of.
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If 71% of the earth's surface is water, and we can easily turn salt water into drinking water if necessary, then I think there are far more pressing concerns than conserving water.
The author describes her family's shift from typical consumers of water to experiencing scarcity.
Her family went from consuming (presumably) ~1600 to 100 litres of water during the day (within the domicile - this number does not account for public uses of water).
The author then superimposes the possible reality of water scarcity on her situation. Would the family be bathing with one litre of warm water in a bowl, as a regular thing? Would flushing the toilet mean carrying 20 litres - one fifth your daily water usage - to the toilet each time?
Of course, habits would change and sanitation practices would be amended.
Responsible water usage has been long inculcated into my mind. Not that I adhere to responsible practices all the time, but I make a valid effort to. I find the European influence in my life has had this result on me. I can only speculate, but in Europe, resource scarcity has been a much longer and more vivid reality than it has been in North America; where resource scarcity is still balked at by some today.
So, here is the question: What do you do to save water (If at all)? If you don't believe that responsible water usage is an obligation, why not?
Some things I do:
1. Limit my showers to about 3 mins. I also save my showers to the gym as I find I doddle less and finish quicker. This also saves me money on my utility bills. Additionally, I have a "pre-soak", after which I turn off the water, soap up, and then rinse.
2. This might be gross to some, but I won't flush urine. I find it wasteful to flush 20 litres of water just so the toilet bowl isn't off-yellow. There is no odour produced, and with the lid down, you wouldn't ever notice.
3. I am prudent with dishwashing. I will use a sponge soaked in water and soap to wash a substantial amount of dishes. I rinse quickly with cold water.
4. This isn't me, but my brother had a unique strategy (to the chagrin of his girlfriend) where he would shower with the drain plugged and use the leftover water and a bucket to flush the toilet. Something I would adopt in a hurry if my roommate agreed to it.
So what do you do? What don't you do? What is your attitude towards water usage?
Getting a lot of value out of the thesaurus you got for Christmas, eh?
If 71% of the earth's surface is water, and we can easily turn salt water into drinking water if necessary, then I think there are far more pressing concerns than conserving water.
This. If it ever came down to a water scarcity for the Earth in general, I'm sure research funds would be poured into producing efficient salt water filtering technologies. At present time, that's not really needed, so I don't think much research is going towards it.
Water conservation is about preserving the amount of water resources available to certain areas, equally important to both natural ecosystems and human habitation and about the amount of energy that has to go into water purification, desalinization, processing, etc. and it's impact and cost.
Water scarcity doesn't mean that it's a rare substance on the entire planet that we are going to run out of.
Several years ago, a machine was developed that can be bought for the price of a laptop that will purify and desalinate everything from salt water, to sewage, to polluted water... powered by cow dung. When we consume water, it does not get destroyed... it finds its way back into the water cycle.
This. If it ever came down to a water scarcity for the Earth in general, I'm sure research funds would be poured into producing efficient salt water filtering technologies. At present time, that's not really needed, so I don't think much research is going towards it.
We have had access to the technology for years. In fact, Coca-Cola is apparently testing the Slingshot device, and may soon deploy it to developing countries around the world.
This. If it ever came down to a water scarcity for the Earth in general, I'm sure research funds would be poured into producing efficient salt water filtering technologies. At present time, that's not really needed, so I don't think much research is going towards it.
Who has easy access to salt water though? Coastal cities only. Then that water has to be transported or pipelined inland. It's not exactly oil and doesn't pay for cross-continental pipelines left and right. Inland or land-locked cities, farmers, oil sands, etc. need to use local water supplies from rivers, streams, lakes, rainfall, etc. which are in a much more limited supply and who's re-direction or contamination can impact the environment a great deal.
Is it scaleable? If so I will pay you $5 million for it.
It must be if Coca-Cola is planning on delivering it to areas where water is scarce.
I cannot find the article, but I think we have already exceeded the UN's millennium goal for access to clean water. This technology will blow our most optimistic goals out of the water... heh
We are looking at some form of water scarcity in southern Alberta - not extreme, but it isn't unlimited. The other factor is that even if there is lots of water, the treatment of water, distribution to residences, collection of wastewater, and treatment of the wastewater all cost money (which is not currently fully covered by our utility bills - it's still pretty subsidized). So it makes sense to take reasonable steps to minimize water use.
I'm definitely not a water reduction fanatic, have all low-flow toilets, use a front-load washer, don't leave taps running unnecessarily, keep showers etc. to a reasonable length, hardly ever water my lawn and use our rain barrel when possible for watering the garden, etc. I could probably do better, but based on our utility bill our water usage is well below average.
The biggest users are still industrial and agricultural though, so there's only so much residential users can do.
Yeah I remember the Slingshot water thing being talked about years ago, the guy who invented the Segway worked on it I think.
The device itself scales, however burning dung to purify water for millions I would be highly skeptical of. Just look at India and how many respiratory deaths are a result of having to cook with dung or wood or whatever.
__________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
But certainty is an absurd one.
In the end, I think as long as water is so cheap there is no incentive to conserve. The 220 L rain barrel at Canadian Tire is $160. At the roughly 7$ per 1000 L that I pay it would take filling the bucket up 100 times before you see a return on your investment. At our house we have seven down spouts on our eaves so the outlay of $1120 would likely never pay for itself.
The other issue for me is that I live in the north half of the province so all the unused water flows north instead of south so there is very little downstream demand for water access.
Yeah I remember the Slingshot water thing being talked about years ago, the guy who invented the Segway worked on it I think.
The device itself scales, however burning dung to purify water for millions I would be highly skeptical of. Just look at India and how many respiratory deaths are a result of having to cook with dung or wood or whatever.
It would generate air pollution, but it would still seem to be the best option right now. However, as our ability to capture solar energy increases, maybe we could further enhance the device. The UN believes that another factor that deteriorates the health of the poorest in developing countries (outside of access to clean water), is the use of burning wood in an enclosed space to cook food. The slingshot device could also be used to solve that problem by becoming a source of electricity. Less time spent gathering fuel and clean water means more time spent increasing their quality of life.
Water Scarcity
