Life is Healthy

Often Parched, India Struggles To Tap Monsoon
Update dated 10.2.06.
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India Digs Deeper/Wells Drying Up

By SOMINI SENGUPTA
Published: September 30, 2006

TEJA KA BAS, India — Bhanwar Lal Yadav, once a cultivator of cucumber and wheat, has all but given up growing food. No more suffering through drought and the scourge of antelope that would destroy what little would survive on his fields.

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Thirsty Giant

Second of three articles.
Articles in this series examine India’s growing water crisis.

A previous article looked at urban water and sanitation problems.

Sunday: Floods and how to harvest ample rains.

Multimedia
Video
Part 1: Water Woes in India
Video
Part 2: Water Woes in India

Today he has reinvented himself as a vendor of what counts here as the most precious of commodities: the water under his land.

Each year he bores ever deeper. His well now reaches 130 feet down. Four times a day he starts up his electric pumps. The water that gurgles up, he sells to the local government — 13,000 gallons a day. What is left, he sells to thirsty neighbors. He reaps handsomely, and he plans to continue for as long as it lasts.

“However long it runs, it runs,” he said. “We know we will all be ultimately doomed.” Mr. Yadav’s words could well prove prophetic for his country. Efforts like his — multiplied by some 19 million wells nationwide — have helped India deplete its groundwater at an alarming pace over the last few decades.

The country is running through its groundwater so fast that scarcity could threaten whole regions like this one, drive people off the land and ultimately stunt the country’s ability to farm and feed its people.

With the population soaring past one billion and with a driving need to boost agricultural production, Indians are tapping their groundwater faster than nature can replenish it, so fast that they are hitting deposits formed at the time of the dinosaurs.

“What we will do?” wondered Pavan Agarwal, an assistant engineer with the state Public Health and Engineering Department, as he walked across a stretch of dusty fields near Mr. Yadav’s water farm. “We have to deliver water.”

He swept his arms across the field, dotted with government wells. This one, dug 10 years ago, had already gone dry. In that one, the water had sunk down to 130 feet. If it were not for the fact that electricity comes only five hours a day, every farmer in the area, Mr. Agarwal ventured, would be pumping round the clock.

Saving for a Dry Day

If groundwater can be thought of as a nation’s savings account for dry, desperate drought years, then India, which has more than its share of them, is rapidly exhausting its reserve. That situation is true in a growing number of states.

Indian surveyors have divided the country into 5,723 geographic blocks. More than 1,000 are considered either overexploited, meaning more water is drawn on average than is replenished by rain, or critical, meaning they are dangerously close to it. Twenty years ago, according to the Central Groundwater Board, only 250 blocks fell into those categories.

“We have come to the worst already,” was the verdict of A. Sekhar, who until recently was an adviser on water to the Planning Commission of India. At this rate, he projected, the number of areas at risk is most likely to double in the next dozen years. Across India, where most people still live off the land, the chief source of irrigation is groundwater, at least for those who can afford to pump it.

Here in Jaipur District, a normally parched area west of New Delhi known for its regal palaces, farmers depend on groundwater almost exclusively. Across Rajasthan State, where Jaipur is situated, up to 80 percent of the groundwater blocks are in danger of running out.

But even fertile, rain-drenched pockets of the country are not immune.

Consider, for instance, that in Punjab, India’s northern breadbasket state, 79 percent of groundwater blocks are classified as overexploited or critical; in neighboring Haryana, 59 percent; and in southern tropical Tamil Nadu, 46 percent. The crisis has been exacerbated by good intentions gone awry and poor planning by state governments, which are responsible for regulating water.
More at the link.
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Overpopulation, waste, mismanagement, and also climate change are all variables involved in the deepening water crisis in India. This proves that climate change is not just an environmental issue. Every area of our lives in affected by climate change which we now know is exacerbated by human activity.

India is also one of 27 countries identified by the United Nations Environment Program where the rising sea levels will submerge densely populated low-lying areas.
According to scientists, there will be a three-degree Celsius change in the global mean temperature by 2100 due to a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that exacerbates water depletion. At India's rate of population growth and wasteful water usage combined with pollution that makes other sources of water unfit for human comsumption, it will never make it.

Climate Change Threatens India's Future

Britain To Talk To India On Climate Change

The above report then seems bizarre in relation to the dams proposed to be built along the Teesta River which also should be of grave concern to environmentalists and all who believe in human rights. Why build these expensive projects in such high numbers at the risk of displacing thousands of people and disrespecting their traditions and their way of life? That risks forever destroying the ecological balance of these pristine areas? That diverts the river water thus causing other areas to suffer as these areas of India are now suffering?

Could it be that governments see that the global water crisis is at a stage where control of the resources by corporate backed state governments is essential in maintaining control over the people? Perhaps if Coca Cola wasn't stealing their groundwater for its bottling plants as well, people would have water. How many more will we see in the coming years as the global water crisis increases, especially in the most underdeveloped but most populated areas of the world? Where is the EDUCATION on this topic as it relates to CONSERVATION, management, and irrigation techniques that will save water, along with a sustainable development plan regarding CO2 emissions?

Where there is also a higher demand with less access we are seeing and WILL see exploitation of people. As with the climate crisis, we face an emergency involving our global water resources and their management, and we are running out of time on both counts unless we also get this truth out to people and work to support a more sustainable world.

The Scottish parliament is spending £250 a bird to remove pigeons nesting on the building. The crackdown was imposed when ministers heard rumours of a coup.

When people first meet me and find out that I am a writer, they always ask the same question: “Where do you get your ideas from?”

The answer is always that I do not know. If I did know I would go there more often. Haha. I do, however, do a lot of research, whatever I am writing about. This can help generate ideas, satisfies my innate desire for accuracy (in a sketch where I needed a man to refer to a train, I checked the GNER timetable and used a train that actually existed – it made no difference to the sketch, but made me infinitely happier that there was an underlying truth to the comedy), and is very enjoyable as I love finding out trivial facts and impressing my girlfriend when she comes home from her proper job.

In the past month I have genuinely had to research:

– Xylophones. (Wooden bars only – anything metal and it’s a glockenspiel. Don’t believe me? Well, xylophone is from the Greek for “wooden sound”. So there.)

– How long it would take to fall off Beachy Head. (Just under 6 seconds, assuming no air resistance. Ample time to say the required punchline.)

– Pornography featuring women over the age of 40. (Very pleasant – there were no such things as “MILF”s when I was a lad. And we had to look in hedges instead of on the internet.)

This week, however, I had to write a children’s story about a sofa. I decided that the best form of research was to sit on one. Mine. With a cup of tea. And, when the muse still didn’t strike, to lie back a bit. So, there I was, a man, lying on his sofa, alone in the flat, girlfriend not due back for hours, a bit bored. Inevitably, one thing led to another...

I didn’t hear my girlfriend’s key in the door.

I didn’t hear her colleague’s voice.

The first I knew of their presence was when they were standing over me, their faces a mixture of shock and amusement. Finally, her colleague broke the silence.

“Have you built a den out of the sofa cushions?”

I laughed nervously. “Er, no. I just took them off to vacuum underneath.”

We all looked slowly around the room. No one mentioned that the vacuum cleaner was nowhere to be seen.

Still, the den was a great idea for the story.

'We Will Lose A Real Treasure

TURKEY'S DAM CONTROVERSY
"We Will Lose a Real Treasure"

Designs for Turkey's Ilisu dam were finalized in 1982, but social, historical and environmental concerns have stalled development for decades. But this weekend saw the country's prime minister attend the groundbreaking ceremony for the dam, which is considered one of the world's most-controversial public works projects.

The ancient Turkish city of Hasankeyf is no stranger to conquest by distant powers. Nestled on the banks of the Tigris River, it still bears the mark of its successive rulers -- among them, Romans, Arabs, Mongols and Ottomans.

But now it's those reminders of a settlement that was established several thousand years before Christ's birth that Hasankeyf's 3,800 citizens fear will be lost. The ancient city lies at the heart of plans for a massive dam project that will provide water supplies and electricity to Turkey's southeast.

Photo Gallery: The Treasure Turkey Will Lose

Over the weekend, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's attended a groundbreaking ceremony for the project -- against the backdrop of 4,000 protestors who rallied against the Ilisu dam, which would forever submerge the town's archeological heritage.

"We will lose a real treasure," said Ercan Ayboga of the Initiative to Save Hasankeyf. Zeynep Ahunbay, a prominent activist for the preservation of historical sites in Turkey went even further, saying the ruins should be given UNESCO'S "world cultural heritage" designation.
Turkey says the €1.2 billion ($1.5 billion) Ilisu dam, one of 21 outlined under the broader $32 billion Greater Anatolia Project (GAP), will improve agricultural and social conditions by controlling flooding and improving irrigation.
Much more at the link.
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The Ilisu Dam-Environmental Impacts
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And this is where Syria and Iraq come into the picture, as well as speculation regarding why this dam that will indeed do environmental damage and submerge a sacred city needs to be built. Especially when it will drive Kurds off their lands. Is this necessary, or simply political retribution?

The Middle East is already a water scarce region. Building billion dollar projects that seek to divert water from the Tigris River that Iraq and Syria also depend on can only cause friction down the line. And should the U.S. actually provide funds for this project that will divert water from Iraq, that would most certainly solidify the reason for being there... and it isn't to be benefactors to the Iraqi or Kurdish people.

Statement Of Hasankeyf Platform

Ilisu Dam: A Human Rights Disaster In The Making





To me, disrespecting something others revere as sacred is abominable. What we are doing to our world in the name of "progress" is killing her. For once you exploit her soul there is nothing left. These government tactics to simply take over sources of water to then control their flow for profit without balance is a human rights abuse that will lead to widescale war in the future if we do not stand up against those who are aligned with it to exploit the poor at the profit of the rich.

Australia's Farms Thirst

USA: September 28, 2006

SYDNEY - Drought is again gripping Australia's farms, threatening to sap economic growth and complicate life for policy makers as they ponder whether to raise interest rates again.

Australia's farm sector is relatively small, accounting for a little less than 3 percent of Australia's annual A$918 billion ($690 billion) in economic output.
But agricultural output, including wheat, barley and sugar, still makes up 16 percent of exports and is prone to violent swings from year to year.

"A severe drought could wipe 0.8 percentage point off Australia's growth rate," estimated Craig James, chief equities economist at Commonwealth Bank.

"Rural exports would slump, farm incomes contract, and food, transport, retail and financial firms would experience sharply lower revenues," he said.

Such a drag would be significant given annual economic growth slowed to just 1.9 percent in the second quarter of this year, the slowest pace in three years. "During the last drought in 2002/03 we were coming from growth levels of 4 to 5 percent, but this time other sectors of the economy just aren't as strong," said Brian Redican, senior economist at Macquarie Bank.

That was an added uncertainty for the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) as it weighs the balance of risks between growth and inflation.

The central bank has judged inflation to be the danger so far, raising interest rates in August to a five-year high of 6.0 percent and warning that more may come.

"But drought could easily take a full percentage point out of growth and that has to be a factor for the RBA when deciding whether to raise rates again," said Macquarie's Redican.

THIS DRY LAND

Drought never seems far away here. Australians are the fourth biggest users of water among 30 industrialised nations, despite living on the driest inhabited continent on earth.

Eastern Australia has already experienced five consecutive years of below-normal rainfall, while last month was the driest August on record. Some 92 percent of New South Wales, the most populous state, is considered officially in drought.

Now, meteorologists are reporting strengthening signs of an El Nino event, a warming of temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific often associated with severe droughts in Australia.

More at the link.
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Does this or does this not show a complete lack of leadership on the part of the Australian government to secure water resources for their people? FIVE CONSECUTIVE years of below normal rainfall that can be linked to climate change, and nothing. However, don't try to impart any truth to Howard... he's a Bush puppet. What good is their office on water going to do now after FIVE YEARS? Is it because there is an election next year that they feel they have to set up something to look as if they are doing something?

When we see a comprehensive plan to fight the climate crisis that also includes lowering fossil fuel emissions along with water conservation with the required amount of funds being given for a complete overhaul of their water infrastructure, then perhaps they will look serious. Australia needs water NOW, not when it is politicallly advantageous for them to formulate a real plan.

I am browsing the pages of Friends Reunited, mentally totting up who I am now more successful than, when I see that Jules, a university friend, has signed up. He hasn’t put any details on, but I am genuinely pleased to be reminded of him as we were very good friends. We shared a house for a couple of years and even played in some bands together. I haven’t thought about him for ages, and I can’t remember how or why we lost touch, but I am sure that it must be mainly down to me.

We used to make each other laugh all the time, and I particularly remember a joke we had that ran for ages. If one of us wanted the other to do something, we would say, “If you don’t do X I’ll do Y”, where X was something like “come to the pub” and Y was a series of escalating threats that eventually culminated in the phrase “kill your kids and sexually abuse your dog”. This was the worst thing that our undergraduate minds could think of, and we found it so funny that we pretty much stuck at that. Analysed by an outside observer this is probably about as funny as any “in” joke, but anyone who has had something like this with a friend will know that it is the repetition and inappropriateness that makes it so funny.

These were, of course, the days before mobile phones, so we would have to communicate by leaving notes on each other’s doors. (This may seem unfeasible to young people now, but I am sure that we didn’t miss out on anything. I, for instance, had sexual intercourse at least twice whilst a student.) I particularly remember coming home from an unexpected weekend away to find the following pinned to my door from Jules:

7:00 Where are you? Are you going to the pub later?

7:45 We have gone to the pub. If you don’t join us I’ll kill your kids and sexually abuse your dog.

11:30 Consider your children dead and your dog sexually abused.

The more I think about Jules, the more I want to be in touch with him again. So I write him an email giving a brief rundown of the last fifteen years, and saying that I hope that he’s well too. And I have a great line to sign off on:

PS If you don’t write back I’ll kill your kids and sexually abuse your dog.

I am pleased with this. If somebody took the effort to remember a private joke from a decade and a half ago and re-deliver it to me in an updated context I would be very touched. Even if the joke was about multiple child murder and bestiality. That was what our friendship was based on.

I click send.

A few weeks go by and I do not hear from my friend. I am a little surprised, but reason that perhaps he is busy and doesn’t have the time to reply. Then I log back on to Friends Reunited, only to find that he has removed his name entirely from the system. I can think of no reason why somebody would do this. You can simply put your name on Friends Reunited with no details of your life. You don’t have to reply to anyone. It doesn’t even give your email address, so the worst that can happen is that you occasionally receive a forwarded email from somebody, which you can just delete.

The only explanation I can think of for him doing this is that he was so offended by my email that he gave up the possibility of any other friend contacting him ever just to make sure that he would never hear from me again. And the only offence he could have taken is at the PS.

What if his memory isn’t as good as mine and he has forgotten about our joke? What if it’s my memory that’s defective, and what I recall as something hilarious that ran for months and months was something that we just said once and moved on from? What if his children have recently been murdered and/or a much-loved canine pet has been interfered with?

Jules – if you’re reading this, drop me a line. If you don’t... Well, you know what’ll happen.

Australians don't need another level of bureaucracy, they need WATER NOW. This is what happens when you POLITICIZE this issue. And if you are not going to tackle climate change in conjuction with this you are not tackling the water crisis, especially in regards to water infrastructure and waste as it relates to the effects of climate change...i.e. more severe and sustained droughts from the effects of climate change that will require proper management, infrastructure, and conservation. It is simply smoke and mirrors otherwise, just like this government's stance on the Kyoto Treaty.
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Australia Opens Water Office

Tue Sep 26, 1:32 AM ET

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia's water resources are drying up much faster than predicted, experts have warned, as the government unveiled an office dedicated to tackling the worsening crisis.

Government scientists said their worst-case scenario for 2050 -- widespread drought, shrinking ski fields and crop failure -- appeared to be happening now and urgent action was needed to sustain water supplies.

"All the models we have been working on suggested the sort of drying we are seeing now wouldn't be here until about 2050, so it appears to be happening much quicker," eminent water scientist Peter Cullen told News Ltd. newspapers.

The dry weather could be caused by a dramatic acceleration of climate change or drought worsening the effects of expected levels of climate change, he said.

With the country in the grip of its third worst drought in history, the government announced Tuesday the creation of an office of water management to take charge of the situation.

"Water is the biggest environmental challenge Australia faces and the federal government is taking a growing role in directing and managing the response to the water challenge around Australia," said Parliamentary Secretary Malcolm Turnbull, the country's newly-anointed water guru.

The development follows the recent visit to Australia of former US vice president Al Gore, now a campaigner for climate change awareness, who said the effects of global warming were clearly visible in the world's driest inhabited continent.

However, Australian Prime Minister John Howard dismissed Gore's contention that climate change had led to a drop in rainfall in Australia's agricultural areas. He also did not meet Gore or see his film, "An Inconvenient Truth".

The so-called "Big Dry" has already cost the rural economy five billion dollars (3.85 billion US) and politicians took the unusual step of asking Australia's churches last month to pray for rain.

But conditions in the country's southeast and northeast coastal areas are expected to become even drier than normal over the next three months, according to the bureau of meteorology.

Government scientific agency CSIRO predicts Australia's average temperatures will rise up to two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) by 2030 and six degrees Celsius (10.8 Fahrenheit) by 2070.

Climate modelling also shows snow cover will shrink by almost 40 percent in the next 24 years and up to 85 percent by 2050.


Labor doesn't approve:

Labor Criticizes Water Plan

Throwing money at it now to give the illusion you are doing something doesn't solve it. Especially when it has been going on for so long.

Water Office To Tackle Drought Crisis

If you're interested in Blogger template hacking-via-javascript, be sure to check out Google's AJAX Search API. While its home on Code contains a bunch of interesting sample apps for learning and tinkering, Google Engineer Mark Lucovsky recently published an ajaxy, bloggy playground on BlogSpot: http://ajaxsearch.blogspot.com/

Notable stuff:

• the sidebar's "Google Search" field searches multiple indexes (Web and BlogSearch), as well as individual sites (in this case the AJAX Search API blog, the Google blog and www.blogger.com) - you can customize all of these things
  
• the sidebar's "Video Search" field displays (and plays!) results inline
• links in the main blog section can dynamically link directly into the sidebar's embedded Map and Video boxes (try clicking the 'Sakana' and 'Jimi Hendrix' links)

• Hoctro's Place has applied the above to Blogger beta - nice work!
• Hoctro also has a Blogger Beta Playground, so be sure to check out some of his neat hacks.
  
• Zizukabi has an AJAX Search Widget in his sidebar, though I don't read Korean so I'm not 100% sure about what he's saying. :)
• Mark Lucovsky posted a beta blog with the same functionality.
  

• Mark posted another AJAX Search API example, the Video Bar.
  

I was very perturbed to receive the above letter from the property management company that looks after my block of flats. It would appear that the CBeebies repeat fees are dwindling, and that Teletubby Po is now having to do exterior decorating to make ends meet. She has obviously managed to undercut the local tradesmen by submitting a tender that specified that she would only want to be paid in Tubby Custard. And perhaps a big hug for a job well done.

With the proposed cuts to the broadcast hours of CITV we can expect a lot more of this, as my postman, Pat, told me this morning. But it is ridiculous that my property managers are employing Po. Everyone knows that Tinky Winky is the tallest Teletubby, and would therefore be best at painting the high bits.

As water resources in many parts of the world become more in demand due to rising populations, mismanagement, waste, government intervention, privatization, and the effects of the climate crisis, countries are going to have to look for alternative methods to balance sustinence with demand.

My first thought in conserving water resources was regarding the most water intensive crops and what areas these crops were grown in. Rice is a very water intensive crop and is grown mostly in Asia which is experiencing severe water shortages due to mismanagement, waste, population, and now climate change.

Studies are being done on this:
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Thirsty Crops
Thirsty Crops initiative

Impact of water intensive crops on the water resources and other ecosystems: The water used for various crops is not only environmentally sustainable but also economically unviable. The impact that such water intensive crops "Thirsty Crops" have on the ecosystem are tremendous and the interlinked social impacts are also very high. To look into this issue for wise use of water for crops is what this initiative is all about.

Work on the impact of cultivation of crops such as rice, sugar cane and cotton on the available water resources in the Godavari basin initiated. A detailed field-based study of water use practices vis a vis the three water guzzling crops in the four states of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa has been completed. Analysis and report preparation is underway. Future plans for selection of sugarcane as the thirsty crop and its impact and the alternative strategies that can be employed in the cultivation practices is the long term goal.
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These studies take into the account the variability of water needed vs. water wasted, and hope to strike a balance that will see water intensive crops grown in such a way where waste will not lead to such crops having to be cut or discontinued in areas for which such crops are the livelihood of those living in these areas.

Of course, the best scenario here would be to have areas grow higher value crops with less water. Unfortunately, that is not how it plays out.

Here is a listing of some water intensive crops:

Rice, cotton, alfalfa, apples, pecans, melons, corn(you want ethanol, it's gonna cost you), peppers, potatoes, watermelon, peanuts. How many of these foods besides many vegetables do you buy on a regular basis? Do you even know how much water it takes to grow them, or how much of that water is simply wasted in the irrigation process? Or even further, how much water is retained in the product that can be used over again?

I have thought about it, and have been looking into water saving methods regarding excess irrigation water, run off, timed sprinkler systems, catchement systems, and other methods to conserve water resources without having to sacrifice economically. Unfortunately again, droughts around the world are making it hard for some farmers to grow even the least water intensive crops which makes this most definitely a crucial issue we will have to face in this century with the world population estimated to be at 9 billion.

Another method is water transfers, but as this document indicates it doesn't always help the areas the water is being transferred from:

Farm Workers Water Transfer-California

Drought is already changing the way farmers here do business:

Drought Changing The Way Farmers do Business

So you see, how we live in these times will effect not only our water security but our food security and our environmental security. Water is not a topic to be taken lightly, for it is our lives. In my next entry I hope to showcase some methods of irrigation and conservation used in Asia.

I suppose it would be sinful to suggest that ski resorts shorten their seasons.

Mountain Water Resources Threatened By Global Warming

Emmanuel Angleys
Fri Sep 22, 4:05 PM ET

MEGEVE, France (AFP) - Mountain water resources are under threat from global warming and increased usage of the precious resource by ski resorts, scientists warned at a conference in the French Alps.

"Mountains concentrate an important chunk of precipitation. All the great rivers of the world take their source from them. They are the planet's water castles," said Jean-Francois Donzier, director general of the International Office for Water.

TheUnited Nations forecast an increase in global temperatures of 1.4-5.8 degrees Celsius (34.5-42.4 degrees Fahrenheit), and implications for mountain water resources could be massive, the experts warned at the four-day conference in the French ski resort of Megeve.

The effects are already evident in the reduction in size of glaciers, with close to half of those in France forecast to disappear by the end of the century, according to Pierre Etchevers from the French weather office.

"We add eight to 10 meters (26 to 33 feet) of ladder every year to get to the Mer de Glace (glacier) in Chamonix," said Martial Saddier from the French Association of Mountain Water.

And a reduction in the volume of snow has been noted over the past 20 years, as well as a shortening of the period when snow falls, threatening the future of ski resorts below 1,800 metres and prompting the increased usage of snow cannons, machines turning water in snow which is then sprayed onto the pistes.

For ski resorts, the recourse to man-made snow has obvious economic advantages, attracting more and more visitors and extending the season -- despite complaints from purists.

Resorts now want to "guarantee that everyone who comes to the mountains has the possibility to ski from December to March/April," said Jean-Claude Domenego, head of the French Alpine Club.

But both the increase in the number of winter sports tourists and the greater recourse to snow machines have also added to pressure on mountain water resources, depleting resources and leaving less for other human uses such as agricultural irrigation downstream and hydro-electric power stations.

As a result around 20 artificial water reservoirs are being constructed in the Alps, said Alain Marnezy, professor at University of Savoie, including one for 400,000 cubic metres (14 million cubic feet) at Grand Bornand.

With mountains covering around a third of Europe's surface, there were also calls for greater support from European Union authorities.

The scientists also discussed the European directive aiming for a "good ecological state" of Europe's water by 2015, although there were differences over the definition of such a term.

"No one is in agreement on the definition of a good ecological state of water," said Jean-Marie Wauthier, international director at the water ministry in the Walloon region of Belgium.

There has to be a distinction between the biological state, characterised by a minimum presence of animal and plant life, and a good chemical state, meaning a lack of pollutants in the water, Wauthier said.

Further difficulties are created by the fact that many of Europe's rivers flow through more than one country, making cooperation between states imperative. The Danube, for example, flows through 18 countries.
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Global Warming Threatens Snow

It's Happening In The U.S. As Well

My water tank’s overflow is dripping. It will be a simple matter to replace the washer in the ballcock, and I intend to do the job myself because this will be cheaper. I can think of no circumstances where it is better to get a professional in if I can save money in the short term by having a crack at it myself, particularly as I have at least some of the right tools for the job and am quite good at improvising with others.

The only problem is that the water tank is in the top of a tall cupboard. If I stand on a chair I can get to the tank, but can't quite reach the valve. I could really do with a stepladder, but I do not own a stepladder because the only cupboard in my flat tall enough to store a stepladder in is full of water tanks.

I do, however, have an ironing board. I have seen people on television standing on ironing boards in a humorous fashion, usually pretending to be surfing. I can only assume that these people would have undertaken a full health and safety audit before attempting such a stunt, and that an ironing board is therefore fully capable of supporting a man’s weight.

It is just as I am unscrewing the whole ballcock assembly, thinking “I had better not drop these little bits of valve in the water tank – they are probably Very Important”, that I make a sudden lurch downwards and to the left. There are three tiny, but ominous splashes as I drop the Very Important Bits of Valve.

I get up off the floor and look around the flat for hidden cameras – this would make great footage for “Britain’s Biggest Idiot”. The ironing board is now leaning at quite a rakish angle. By “rakish”, I mean “unusable” – both for standing on, or ironing. I cannot believe that in trying to mend one thing I have made the first thing worse, and also broken a second thing. It is this kind of situation that is often rejected in my sitcom scripts for being “too unrealistic”. Well, who’s laughing now, eh, BBC?

I try to straighten the ironing board’s left leg, but despite years of hard physical labour at a computer keyboard I lack the upper body strength required to bend tubular steel. But my girlfriend will be bound to notice that something is different about the ironing board when the bottom halves of her skirts and blouses are more creased than the top halves because the iron keeps slipping down to the left. I suppose that I could stand on the ironing board again and try to bend the right leg by the same amount to level it out. My girlfriend might then say that the ironing board is lower than usual, but I will just say that she must have grown. She is not very tall, so will probably be quite pleased with that explanation and not question it any further.

I stand on tiptoe on the chair and shine a torch down into the depths of the tank. I can see the Very Important Bits of Valve glimmering on the bottom like pearls, far out of reach. Alongside them are some identical Very Important Bits of Valve. Clearly I am not the first idiot to have lived here.

I leave a note for my girlfriend explaining that the water is turned off and head to Homebase with a list that reads “washer, whole new ballcock, stepladder, ironing board”.

This illustrates perfectly what I was trying to explain in the entry before this one. How does having children do the work disguised as play to run a pump teach them about conservation, irrigation, management, and self sufficiency? This is an absolute CRISIS that is being faced in Sub-Saharan Africa because the lack of water is causing a famine that has put millions of people at risk of death, and already killed thousands including livestock. And while politicians go to initiatives to make feel good speeches and pledge money that doesn't even come close to solving anything, the crisis deepens. They don't need "pledges," they need ACTION NOW because they are running out of time.
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Thirsty Africa Digging Deep For Water

Friday September 22, 07:13 AM

Thirsty Africa 'digging deep for water'

New water sources are desperately needed in Africa where around 300 million people lack access to safe drinking water, the head of the World Water Council said.
Sub-Saharan Africa, with the exception of a few countries, is failing to meet UN targets set at the start of the millennium to halve the number of people without access to clean water or sanitation by 2015.

Of an estimated population of more than 700 million, about 313 million Africans lack access to basic sanitation with drought, war, pollution and fast urban growth hindering access.

"Africa represents about 24 per cent of land surface yet has only 9 per cent of water resources," said Loic Fauchon, head of the World Water Council, an international organisation that groups governments, firms and civil groups.
"That means we have to better the capacity we have to find other water sources maybe with new techniques. ... You have to help Africa draw water deeper just like it is done for petrol and gas," he said.

Speaking on the sidelines of an Africities summit in Nairobi where mayors and planners are meeting to seek solutions to the problems caused by swelling populations in African cities, Fauchon said the 2015 target was too lofty.
"(You need) a lot more time. ... What was forecast in terms of clean water and sanitation was too ambitious," he told Reuters.

"We do not even know at what pace we are going at."

He said Africa's obstacles to achieving the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for water and sanitation were financial, institutional and the "know-how".

"The amounts dedicated to water and sanitation are ridiculously low," he said, adding that only 5 per cent of public aid and 6 per cent of investments were allocated to such projects.

Do you remember the Blogger Mobile jingle? I am happy to report that we have added “the rest” to the new version of Blogger in beta.

If you have a mobile blog already, we’ll now let you switch over to the beta (if you meet the other criteria, that is). Then just keep sending your pictures and messages to go@blogger.com, and we’ll post them for you.

Already using the new Blogger? You can create a new mobile blog simply by sending an e-mail or MMS from your phone to go@alpha.blogger.com. The “alpha” tells us to create the blog on the new version of Blogger.

In this same release we’ve fixed some feed related things as well: comment feeds are now showing the latest comments, and pagination works, which solves this known issue. Also, feed URLs on the beta are now also served up from your blog’s domain in addition to from beta.blogger.com.

What Works

Well, this is an idea that at least gets water to people for now, which of course, is good. However, isn't it really an exploitation of children? Just because they live in poverty do they not warrant having the ability to walk into their homes and turn on a faucet for their water like American children do? You mean to tell me that these companies providing these "merry-go round pumps" don't have the capacity to then put more towards giving them quality water systems that can deliver water straight to their homes? In the 21st Century this isn't possible?

Laura Bush Announces Program At Clinton Initiative

And of course, because it is cheap and can get someone a high profile, Laura Bush announced a program regarding it at the Clinton Initiative this week. Unfortunately, it looks as though she didn't say that these children in Africa deserve to have the same access to water children in more priviledged countries have, especially countries like this that WASTE more than they use. How do these children also learn the tools necessary to provide for themselves? This type of activity just keeps them beholding to other entities such as the WORLD BANK.

I really do not mean to be negative here, but there are also other factors that I believe must be be considered. What happens in these Sub-Saharan areas when there isn't enough water to pump through these merry go rounds because of drought? How then do they get water? What happens should these children become ill and cannot play? How then do they get water?

While it is an idea that at least alleviates the drudgery of collecting water, it is still collecting water only by deceptive means. Grants should also be used for educational purposes to teach these children how to survive in their countries should pumps become unusable due to extreme drought, climate change, or other factors.

Although seeing their smiling faces is uplifting, the stain of poverty will remain on them pumps or not unless they are given a real chance to learn how to sustain themselves and again, they deserve to have water pumped right to their homes through faucets.

The fact that companies and politicians only use this to get props for themselves instead of really calling for what it takes to do this right, shows to me an underlying motive to it all. And yes, while I believe it is good it is said that they are getting safer water, perhaps one day the children of Africa will truly be looked upon as worthy of getting their water as American children do, and not needing to be exploited to get it.

Drought and Famine In Africa

Does Laura Bush and Bill Clinton also think the children dying of famine feel like then having to get on a "merry-go-round" to pump the water they need to live? This is just another "rich man's make himself feel good" project. Give the people the tools they need to become independent of the World Bank and other entities, then you are doing something. And Laura Bush, push your illegitimately elected torture loving husband to enact legislation that brings down the very human induced greenhouse gases that contribute to the droughts that are killing these people if you care so much, instead of doing these touchy feely speeches in your Armani suits and Gucci pumps.

Play Pumps
Why do they need ads and other messages on these pumps, and just what types of messages are being placed there?

It also appears that one of the sponsors is Coca-Cola...I wonder how much money they are making from having their products advertized on these pumps, and how much of it they might actually be taking to use to bottle for profit in exchange for their sponsorship. And both the Case Foundation and the MCJ Foundation are aligned with the Bush Administration and were part of their "interfaith" conference this year. Hmmm, do those using the water have to pledge their faith as well before being able to use it? I find it hard to believe that any corporation or government entity would sponsor anything like this without expecting anything in return, especially any organization tied to the Bush regime.

Again, it isn't the plan to bring clean water that I object to, it is the way it is being done, and what I see as a motivation to exploit it. These pumps could have been built to be powered on solar power or any type of hydraulics system rather than using the children to have to pump for it. To think any of that water they are pumping might be going to Coca Cola's or some other companies's profits from behind the scenes to me is just wrong.

(just linking to a few notable blogs that crossed my path in the past few days)

1. The Boing Boing crew just launched a new blog on Blogger beta - the Boing Boing Digital Emporium:

"The four of us at Boing Boing love music, comics, videos, and books. We especially love them in digital format so we can store them on capacious hard drives, instead of cramming more things into our already overstuffed bookcases. And we super-extra especially love them to be DRM-free so we can read, watch, and listen to them on our MP3 players, on our handheld devices, on our computers, and in our cars."

"That's why we created the Boing Boing Digital Emporium, launching today. We'll be selling our favorite DRM-free digital goods and giving the the majority of the proceeds (minus the transaction charges imposed by Paypal and Payloadz) to the creators of those goods."

How Are We Going to Get This Dutchie Going Around?

Bela Lugosi’s Unwell

Peckish Like the Wolf

Things Can Still Get a Little Bit Worse

Begin to Suspect the Boogie

Oops!... I Did It

Bang You’re Seriously Wounded

It’s My Party and I’ll Tell You You’re My Best Mate and I Love You If I Want to

Smells Like Some Kind of Spirit

Do They Know It’s Only September Yet the Shops Think It’s Christmas?

(Like these? Try these.)

Ahoy sailors. The infamous pirate Edward Teach once wrote in his ship’s log (or “p’slog” in 18th century slang):

Such a day found one with a great deal of liquor on board, so kept the company hot, damned hot; then all things went well again [cite]

Not a proper post today, but a link back here.

And then a link here.

The power of the internet!

(Though I still need to buy some better scales.)

This is a common problem that is faced by more countries than the continent of Australia, but Australia is a clear example of how the effects of climate change combined with wasteful water practices will leave many countries literally high and dry if they do not get serious about investing in water infrastructure and managing waste of water.

And according to this report from 2003:

Human Induced Climate Change Causing Drought

Yet, PM Howard will not be willing to take the necessary steps regarding this crisis, because he parrots Bush's lame excuse that signing the Kyoto Protocol will hurt the economy. Apparently he hasn't been paying attention to world events, where the drought in China has cost them dearly in lost crops (as it has also right here in the U.S.A.) because of human induced drought. There does NOT have to be a sacrifice of economy for sustainability. WAR is what costs us PM Howard, not actually using our resources for SUSTINENCE.

And this:
Drought Kills Eight Million Cattle

The pictures here will break your heart. Cattle, shrimp, wheat, and other crops have been effected by this drought that has been going on for three years now, and is only predicted to get worse for the winter months. Just what has to happen before the leaders of Australia realize that the economy of this contneint IS suffering BECAUSE they need to have a plan to mitigate the effects of drought and other effects of human induced climate change and waste?

Worsening Drought In Australia
Earth Observatory
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Australia Told To Reform Water Systems
By Rob Taylor
Mon Sep 18, 4:24 AM ET


CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia is the driest continent, but chronic water problems in its cities and rural areas are the result of poor management rather than water scarcity, a new report said Monday.

As Australia braces for another searing summer and a worsening drought, a report for a business lobby group said rather than restrict water use, governments should fix water supply flaws, which would boost the economy by as much as A$9 billion.

"Australia's water supply system is broken and needs urgent solutions," Business Council of Australia chief executive Katie Lahey said. "Unavoidable water scarcity is one of Australia's greatest myths."

Since 2002, Australians have endured one of the worst droughts in recorded history, with governments imposing restrictions on householders watering their gardens and banning people from using hoses to wash their cars.

The long dry spell has given rise to multi-billion dollar proposals to "turn the rivers around" and pipe water thousands of kilometers from the wet tropical north to the drought-affected southeast where most of Australia's 20 million people live.

The country's weather bureau is now predicting a drier and hotter than average spring from September to November, with a possible drought-inducing El Nino in its early stages.

Lahey said water restrictions in many communities would be unnecessary if a competitive water-trading scheme was introduced and there was more investment in water infrastructure.

"Water use in our major cities has declined by nine percent since 2001, but our water supply problems are getting worse," she said.

Visiting Australia last week, former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore warned Australia had more to fear from global warming than almost any other nation given the scarcity of water.

The Business Council said to help address problems, the price of water needed to rise, with Australians willing to pay 540 times more for bottled drinking water than they were for water through the tap.

Water expert Peter Cullen from the University of Canberra said the BCA paper was a wake-up call for governments at all levels across Australia.

"Water trading is necessary and we must all expect to pay more for water," he said, adding Australia had been caught out by the pace at which climate change had hit water resources.

"Much of what is happening now we were not expecting to see until 2050," he said.

But Mike Young, an environmental scientist at the University of Adelaide, said despite its sun-parched image, Australia ranked 40th in the world for availability of water per head of population, with more 150 nations worse off.

A letter arrives from a neighbour asking if we are interested in clubbing together to buy the freehold of our block of flats. This sounds like a good idea, as the lease is about to fall below 80 years. In fact, the more I think about it, the more worthless leasehold properties appear. I try to explain it to my girlfriend.

“A lease of zero years is worthless, right?” I posit.

“Right.”

“And no one would buy a property with a lease of just one year, because in a year’s time it would be worthless, right?”

“Right.”

“So no one would buy a property with a lease of two years, because we’ve just said that a property with a lease of one year is worthless, so even a property with a lease of two years is only a year away from being worthless. Which we’ve just said is worthless.”

“Er, right.”

“So therefore, by induction, all leasehold properties are worthless, regardless of the length of the lease”, I say, triumphantly.

“What’s induction?”

“It’s a method of mathematical proof. Think of it like dominoes”, I explain. “You prove that you can knock the first one down, then you prove that any domino will knock the next one down. Therefore, by deductive reasoning, you’ve proved that you can knock all of them down – ie that the formula is correct for all natural numbers. So it proves that people are idiots for buying leasehold properties.”

“So why did you buy this place?”

“Well, I hadn’t yet formulated this exciting, er, formula. I suppose that people quite happily put logic aside when they’re dealing with timespans of decades. They just assume that they’ll find somebody to sell the hot potato on to. So long as nobody questions the ultimate value of it, the system works.”

“Or you can just extend the lease.”

“Yes”, I concede.

“Or buy a share of the freehold.”

“Yes. I suppose.”

She returns to the book she is reading. It doesn’t look like a very interesting book, and I don’t know why she prefers its made-up stories about people who never existed to discussing the truth of mathematics with me, her boyfriend, who does exist.

A thought occurs to me. A thought that is both brilliant and terrifying.

“In fact”, I continue, “It’s like life.”

She puts the book down, wearily, and gives me her full attention.

“When you get to the last year of life, you’re not going to achieve anything worthwhile in the next 12 months, because whatever you do, you’re about to die anyway. So the last year of your life is pointless. So therefore the penultimate year of your life is pointless as you’ve still only got 12 months to go until a point that we’ve just said is pointless. And therefore every year before that is pointless. And yet we run around like idiots when we’re young trying to achieve things, thinking that these things are worthwhile. And you can’t extend the lease of life. Or buy a share of the freehold.”

I am inordinately pleased with myself. I have just proved, by mathematical induction, that life is pointless.

My girlfriend looks at me, discomfited. I am not sure whether she is contemplating the futility of her existence, or just the futility of her existence with me.

I have just switched to Haloscan comments, so I'm afraid that all previous comments have been deleted. If you could all just re-enter all your previous comments in the same order that would be great, thank you.

China's Designs On Tibet
Excerpt:

Once in place, the infrastructure network will speed up the exploitation of the Tibetan plateau's rich deposits of gold, copper, zinc, coal and other resources. Copper is regarded as particularly valuable as it is an essential component in the generation and transmission of electricity.

China has also invited transnational oil giants such as BP and Shell to explore for oil and gas equivalents after realising that its own companies lacked the expertise known to drill in a region known for its complex geology.

The Free Tibet Campaign, which fights for China's complete withdrawal from Tibet, has mounted a vigorous opposition against Western oil and mining companies helping China to extract local resources because it says Tibetans are routinely denied participation in key decision-making surrounding such projects.

"Tibetans are unable to exercise their economic rights to determine how their resources are utilised," Whitticase said. "They live in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation where opposition to an unsuitable project such as hydrocarbon extraction would have dire consequences.''

Perhaps one of the most controversial Chinese plans to tap Tibetan resources to date is Beijing's new water scheme, called the "the big Western line".

Encouraged by the success of its civil engineering triumph with the Golmud-Lhasa railway, Chinese planners have come up with an even more audacious scheme to build a series of aqueducts, tunnels and reservoirs that would carry water from Tibet all the way to the parched plains of Northern China.

The partly underground 300 km western line could eventually supply up to eight billion cubic metres of water a year from the Jinsha and other rivers in the Tibetan region, according to Li Guoying, head of the Yellow River Conservancy Commission. The water will also be used to feed the Yellow River's upper reaches to feed rising industrial demand, Li told the media at a press briefing recently.

Still, the project remains so controversial that no starting date has been announced. (END/2006)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Reading this has truly incensed me, because it lays bare the motivations of the Chinese government for the world to see. HOW we can do so much business with this country knowing what their government is boggles my mind. Their leaders are corrupt, they deplore freedom of speech, and they do not care for the people, the environment, nor the spiritual ties this land has to those who live there.

Imagine the damage to the environment their 21 highway project will cause. Imagine the damage to the land with all the aqueducts and other means of stealing Tibet's water they will come up with to not have to be RESPONSIBLE for what they are doing in their own country. It is no wonder no date has been set for their latest scheme. It should bring international condemnation to them for their blatant attempt to ravage Tibet and other holy places of their resources particularly their water, and take the identity of their people away just for their own profit.

See:

Free Tibet Campaign

The Chinese Water Grab

About Tibet

Project For Tibet

Friends Of Tibet

I think it is interesting to note that in this region which includes the Himalayans, one of the rivers that are part of this system is the Indus which I also reported about here in an entry regarding dams being built in the same regions where indigenous people would be effected.

You can also read about that here:

Destroying A Himalayan Paradise

HOW MUCH MORE OF OUR BEAUTIFUL WORLD WILL WE ALLOW THEM TO TAKE TO ASSUAGE THEIR GREED? China only wants this region as a military installation. I say, the ravaging of Tibet must be stopped.

I am recording a sketch for radio. I am just recording a demo at home as I think this is a better way of demonstrating the concept than a script. I am about to start recording when I have an idea – the sketch would be even better if I could get the old BBC Formula 1 music and use the bit that goes DUMMM, DUM-DUM-DUMM DUM-DUM-DUM-DUM-DUM DUMMMM. Once I have this idea I know that I cannot go back to recording the sketch without the music, despite the fact that it will only ever be heard by one other person. I am a perfectionist like that.

I know that this piece of music is The Chain by Fleetwood Mac, from their Rumours album. I also know that I do not own a copy. And I know that if I download it from somewhere like iTunes there will be all sorts of digital rights management issues so that I won’t be able to copy and paste the bit that goes DUMMM, DUM-DUM-DUMM DUM-DUM-DUM-DUM-DUM DUMMMM. And I will have to pay 79p.

I am scared of using illegal file-sharing software in case a burly policeman comes knocking on my door. I don’t want the contents of my hard drive to become an exhibit in court as my collection of internet pornography is embarrassingly small and conservative in nature. (That’s conservative with a small ‘c’. If I got off on pictures of Ann Widdecombe that would be extremely liberal. And if my pornography were Liberal in nature then a dodgy MP3 file would be the least of my worries.)

I do find a Russian website that promises any song for just nine cents though. This sounds like a good deal, particularly as it will be in MP3 format, so I can easily get the bit that goes DUMMM, DUM-DUM-DUMM DUM-DUM-DUM-DUM-DUM DUMMMM. But I am wary of giving my credit card number to a dodgy Russian businessman in case when I get my next statement I find that I have just spent £21m on Shaun Wright-Phillips. I would not know what to do with him. (Apart from play him wide on the right, obviously.)

So, I email a friend who I know will be in, in case he has a copy that he can rip and email to me. I am not sure about asking him though as his musical tastes are both eclectic and didactic. Either he will be insulted that I think he possesses a Fleetwood Mac album, or he will be condescending because I do not already own such a seminal piece of work. He doesn't reply. That could mean anything.

I could trek all the way into town and try to remember where I bought CDs before the internet, but the thought of buying something by Fleetwood Mac from somebody half my age fills me with horror. Even if I explain that I only want it for the bit that goes DUMMM, DUM-DUM-DUMM DUM-DUM-DUM-DUM-DUM DUMMMM, and that it is for a show that I’m sure all “da kidz” will listen to.

Then a memory stirs. Perhaps I do own this album after all. When I was a student, my friend Amy moved house and stored some things at our place. She collected them, but left behind a shoebox of tapes. She never wanted them back as they were a load of 70s music that her brother gave her because he didn’t want them any more. I took ownership, eager to broaden my musical horizons, but it was a bit like buying a complete set of classic novels. I never played a single one of them.

I have, however, taken the shoebox of tapes with me on each of the seven occasions that I have moved house since, each time thinking, “I must either play these or throw them out, not just put them in the wardrobe”. And I have a feeling that one of the tapes is Rumours by Fleetwood Mac.

But where in the wardrobe? An entire wall of our bedroom is floor-to-ceiling shelving behind sliding doors, storing many large boxes of things about which I have thought, “I must either do something with this or throw it out, not just put it in the wardrobe”. It is like looking for a box that is hidden amongst many other similar boxes.

The shoe box is, of course, in the very last box. But when I open it I see that it does indeed contain a copy of Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. I am overjoyed. There was a reason for paying seven different sets of removal men to transport it from one home to another over the past 16 years. I must remember to tell my girlfriend this the next time she suggests having a clearout. Triumphantly, I take it out of the shoe box.

The case is empty.

The inlay flutters to the floor.

Defiantly, I pick up my guitar and try to work out the tune. DUMMM, DUM-DUM-DUMM DUM-DUM-DUM-DUM-DUM DUMMMM...

In the News

Ambassadors Trip Gives Board, Staff Hands-On Feel for Projects

A delegation of WaterPartners International board and staff traveled to Ethiopia this summer to get a first-hand look at the projects that WaterPartners is supporting.

Partner organizations Water Action and the Relief Society of Tigray hosted the group as they visited project sites in Ginchi, Adigrat and Samre. While the projects varied considerably, depending on the needs of the village, one thing did not—the warm reception from the people of Ethiopia. Cheers of joy from grateful villagers greeted the delegation everywhere they went. The people of Dekera even held a parade for them. Read More.

You can provide safe water to people in Ethiopia and other developing countries by making a gift to WaterPartners International.

WaterPartners Executive Advocates for Micro-Credit at World Water Week

WaterPartners Executive Director Gary White participated in a special debate on August 21st at World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden.

The topic of the debate, hosted by UN-HABITAT, was “Official Development Assistance vs. Market Based Mechanisms.” White participated on the panel advocating market-oriented solutions and discussed WaterPartners experience in pioneering the WaterCredit InitiativeTM. By making small loans to individuals and communities where credit is not readily available, WaterCredit empowers people to finance their own water solutions on their own timetables. And because the loans are repaid into a revolving fund, it greatly extends the number of people who can be helped per dollar of assistance. Read more.

Support WaterPartners with every page you print...at home or at work

When you buy printer ink and toner supplies from PrintForWater.com, 5-10 percent of every purchase is donated to WaterPartners. That means that with every page, report, letter, or photo you print, you'll be helping children get access to safe drinking water.

SPECIAL OFFER:

For every cartridge you order on September 13 and 14, an extra 5 percent of the purchase price (10-15 percent total) will be donated to WaterPartners. So now is a good time to stock up your supplies. The selection is massive, the prices are competitive, and shipping is FREE on all orders over $40. Read more.

Postcard From the Field

Sustainability in Action: A Legacy of Successful Projects in Central America

Installing water systems and leaving, something WaterPartners International has been doing proudly for years. Leaving communities with the skills and tools to keep their water systems running. Leaving communities empowered to maintain their systems for years to come. Leaving truly sustainable projects behind.

WaterPartners left the community of San Antonio Valle, a small farming community in rural Honduras, seven years ago, but this wasn’t project abandonment. WaterPartners left this community fully prepared to take care of their system, and this community has done just that, and more. Read More.
~~~~~~
Help people obtain safe drinking water by clicking on the Water Partners International icon on this blog. I support this organization because they go where the need for water is greatest, and where the tools to provide that water benefit the world's children. They don't just give water, they give life to people in teaching them what they need to do and in giving them the tools to do it.

Also, I have taken a bit of a rest from posting here, but that is because I am putting together an entry regarding different irrigation methods employed around the world and putting together some of my own thoughts on how we can best tackle this crisis through using irrigation more efficiently. I am also working on a plan to raise money to build pumps in places where they are desperately needed to provide potable water to children. The blog will be back up with postings in a couple of days.

Thanks.

I go out to post a letter. On a street corner that I have to pass stands a group of youths. At no stage in my life have I felt comfortable walking past groups of youths on street corners. When I was a young child they scared me. When I was a youth myself, they scared me. And now they still scare me.

As I am about to pass, the alpha male of the gang says, “Excuse me”.

I just about manage not to fall to the ground yelping, “Please, not my face!”

Then he says, “Do you know Puff the Magic Dragon?”

My Terminator-style Head-Up Display kicks in, analysing the question from every conceivable angle and giving me a list of possible replies.

Are they talking about drugs? Puff sounds like it’s something to do with drugs, magic probably refers to magic mushrooms, and I’m pretty sure that chasing the dragon is smoking heroin. But are they trying to sell me drugs, or wanting to buy drugs from me? Do I look more like a drug user or a drug dealer? I look down at my attire – it says neither “crackhead junkie” nor “Mr Big”. It says “middle-aged man hurrying to catch the last post”.

Perhaps he just said something random to throw me off my guard before one of his mates sticks a screwdriver between my ribs. Maybe I should just throw myself to the ground and get it over with.

Then a third, even uglier possibility flashes up. They are going to embarrass me. It’s one of those cruel questions that whatever I answer they will have something funny to say in return that will make them all laugh at me. From primary school I remember “Were you born with happiness?” (“a penis”) and “Have you ever touched a BMW?” (basically you were damned if you had and damned if you hadn’t). And I can still recall the shame of replying to “Do you know Theresa Green?” in the negative, only to be told “DERR! Don’t you know trees are green?”

But as hard as I think I can’t remember any such trap involving this particular mythical creature. They’re looking at me like they want an answer.

“Er, yes”, I venture cautiously. “He lived by the sea?”

Alpha Male smiles and turns to his mates. “See – I told you so.”

That was it? They wanted me to settle an argument about a nursery rhyme? What about stabbing me or at least laughing at my trainers?

As I walk away, I hear another of them say, “People round here are really nice, aren’t they?”

A third one agrees: “Yes, they wouldn’t do that where I live.”

I stride on to the post-box, happy and confident. Whatever I had read about the youth of today, they weren’t all bad.

Though I still walk home the long way to avoid them.

Native Groups Join To Save Water Supply

By Jeffrey Jones
Thu Sep 7, 6:14 PM ET

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Booming oil and gas development in Western and Northern Canada has prompted native groups to build a united front to better protect the vast region's water resources, aboriginal leaders said on Thursday.

About 200 First Nations representatives from Alberta, British Columbia and the Northwest Territories gathered in Fort Simpson, N.W.T., this week for a three-day conference on how to stem worsening water quality and diminishing supplies as a result of industrial development.

It was hosted by Deh Cho First Nation Grand Chief Herb Norwegian, who is holding out against the C$7.5 billion ($6.8 billion) Mackenzie Valley pipeline that would cross his people's land.

As many as 60 aboriginal groups live on a huge watershed that encompasses much of the oil- and gas-rich provinces of Alberta and British Columbia and the Northwest Territories, Norwegian told Reuters by telephone. The resource is considered sacred in native cultures.

"The idea here is that this becomes a catalyst so people can actually start focusing on this really serious issue of water," he said.

"In Canada we have an abundance and we take it for granted, but I think we need to be very serious about what we have at our doorsteps. First Nations have been using it for thousands of years and now we want to have something done about the problems that are coming our direction."

Poor water quality on native reserves across Canada has made international headlines in recent years. In 2005, 1,200 people from the Kashechewan Cree reserve in northern Ontario were evacuated due to contaminated water.

A top concern is water availability in northeastern Alberta, where surging oil prices have sparked an oil sands investment boom valued at more than C$100 billion. The industry uses huge volumes of water to extract the tar-like bitumen.

The level of the Athabasca River has dropped and residents have been told to avoid drinking the water or eating the fish, said Jean L'hommecourt of the Fort McKay First Nation, which is located in the midst of most of the developments.

"I'm not sure about what can be done to replenish the water again, because that's something that probably can't be fixed unless all the industry stops taking water from the Athabasca River to produce their oil," L'hommecourt said.

The Athabasca flows more than 1,500 km (935 miles) from the Columbia Icefield in the Rocky Mountains to Lake Athabasca in northeastern Alberta. Those waters then flow north more than another 2,000 km (1,200 miles) via the Slave and Mackenzie rivers to the Arctic Ocean.

The leaders said they aim to hold another water conference next year, and invite industry and government representatives to what could become a regular round-table session.

However, Pat Marcel, an elder and tribal chairman from Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, said he believed governments with visions of rich royalty and tax revenues have ceded at least some of their protection powers to industry, forcing native groups to forge their own coalition.

"First Nations are seeking help by joining with the Deh Cho territories and (British Columbia native groups). I think we can have a very successful caucus here," Marcel said.

Water supply is already a major issue in northeastern British Columbia, site of a deep natural gas and coal development rush, as well as hydroelectric dams, said Chief Roland Wilson of the West Moberly First Nation.

Much of the activity is geared for export to satisfy the immense energy demand of the United States.

"It's so California can run their air conditioners 24 hours a day down there and keep them all nice and cozy, while the First Nations people up here have to suffer the impacts," he said.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Corporate greed up close and personal.

See my previous entry on this here in our archives entitled: Oil Sands Development Not Sustainable.

It would appear that the Albertan government cares more for profit than its native inhabitants.

Also see: Deh Cho First Nations

I’m very pleased to announce that Flickr has added support for the new version of Blogger in beta! Now you can blog and post photos directly from Flickr to your beta blog. This is something that a ton of you have been requesting, and many thanks go to the Flickr folks for upgrading their site to work with the new version of Blogger. (The relevant known issue has been updated, if you’re keeping track.)

Flickr is using a secure authentication method made possible by the new Blogger’s use of Google Accounts. When you want to add a Blogger beta blog to Flickr, Flickr will redirect you to google.com to enter your username and password. Read more about granting access to websites.


Flickr (and other websites that support this technology) will never see your username or password; all of that information is kept securely on Google’s servers. In addition, these websites will only be authorized to post to your Blogger blog. They will not be allowed to access your seach history (if you save it, that is), your Gmail, your Google Checkout data, or any other part of your Google Account. If you ever want to deauthorize a website and disallow it from posting, you can revoke its access from your “My Account” page.

Remember, never enter your Google Account login information on a website not owned by Google!

There are two main advantages to having met my girlfriend on September 11th 2001:

1. I approached our blind date that evening with much more confidence than I would usually, knowing that I had an absolute banker of a conversation topic up my sleeve. Should things begin to flag on the “What’s your second favourite book/film/type of jam?” front I knew that I could always slip in “So, did you see the news at all today?” Though if she had replied, “Yes, wasn’t it great? Die, infidels, die!” I am not sure how far I would have played along to get a shag. I would like to think “not very far”, but I had been single for a while.

2. It makes it very easy to remember our anniversary. Most people greet Osama bin Laden’s annual late August video promising yet more death and destruction to the Western world with fear, anger or revulsion. My first thought is always, “That reminds me – I must pop into Clinton’s and get a card”. And should I ever get confused with the month/date order thing and find myself trying to celebrate on November 9th I can just say, “Hey, do I need an excuse to buy you flowers?”

But, despite our obvious debt to the man, my girlfriend won't let us call any first-born son Osama. If I had known then that she would turn out to be so unreasonable...

In the past month we’ve made a number of changes to image uploading to detect and solve the problems that some folks have been having. The number of problem reports concerning image uploading have decreased substantially, so we know that we’re moving in the right direction. There are still some problems out there, however, and we’re committed to tracking them down and solving them.

To that end, we’ve just released an additional change on the Blogger beta site to show you thumbnails of your photos after you upload them:

We hope that this thumbnail feature will help us diagnose the remaining issues, in particular those where no error message pops up. If you still have image upload problems on the beta please report them to us so we can get them solved. Don’t forget to mention in your description whether or not you see the thumbnails!

One more thing: to get all the latest fixes make sure that you clear your browser cache.

I know it may sound cheesy for some frustrated bloggers but, happy photoblogging!

World Water Congress
Take a look at the sponsors of this to know what this is really all about.
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Hmm, this is just downright ironic that Beijing is hosting this Congress. And I wonder, would all these promises be made were China not hosting the 2008 Olympics? I find it hard to believe that they actually care for the people. If they did, they would have fixed their infrastructure long before this.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ENVIRONMENT-CHINA:
Fitting Venue for World Water Congress
Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, Sep 8 (IPS) - When the World Water Congress convenes this weekend in Asia for the first time, the choice of the Chinese capital would be nothing but befitting. The 1.3 billion people of the world's most populous country have at their disposal only a quarter of the water per person that is available on average around the world.

But China's water woes go far beyond the scarcity of water resources. Pollution has left nearly half of the water in China's rivers suitable only for agricultural and industrial use, making fresh drinking water a luxury for many of China's 800 million peasants.

It would cost China about 136 billion US dollars, close to 7 percent of its GDP, to clean up all the pollution pumped into the country's environment just in 2004. Most of the money has to be put towards water pollution, announced the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), this week.

"These are figures that are extremely alarming, and show the environmental situation is very serious," Pan Yue, head of the national environmental protection watchdog, said in the SEPA report, released Sep. 7.

China will be looking to the 5th World Water Congress, held in Beijing Sep. 10-14, to tap the latest technology and attract more foreign participation in its water industry. Foreign investment in the water sector currently accounts for only 10 percent of the total, but Beijing hopes to raise this drastically.

More than 2,000 water experts and government officials from various countries and international organizations are expected to attend the congress.

The forum will provide a "valuable platform to bring in advanced ideas, technologies and experiences in the water sector," Qiu Baoxing, vice-minister of construction, told a news briefing. "It will benefit both China and the world".

Qiu said China hoped to get expertise on how to deal with the acute shortage of water resources and its ever increasing water demand. "China is at the crossroads in dealing with water problems," he declared.

Nearly three decades of breakneck economic growth, with little attention paid to ecological degradation, has taken its toll on the country's meagre water resources --already strained by rapid urbanization and population growth.

Currently, 312 million Chinese villagers are facing water shortages and unsafe water supply, contaminated with fluorine, arsenic, high levels of salt or other industrial pollutants, minister of water resources Wang Shucheng told the state news agency Xinhua this week.

China's urban water environment is worsening too. About 400 of China's 600 odd cities are short of water, according to the water ministry. In Beijing and some 100 other cities, the shortages are deemed to be "extreme".

If left untackled, in 2008 -- the year Beijing plays host to the Olympic Games -- the water crisis would leave the Chinese capital short by up to 1.1 billion cu metres of water, the ministry predicts.

Water scarcity threatens China's food security as well. A persistent drought this summer has affected the lives of 17 million people in central and south-western China and has caused crops to dry up in the fields.

"Overall, some 10 percent of China's grain harvest is being produced by over pumping of water, which means it is not sustainable," says environmentalist Lester Brown, director of the U.S.-based Earth Policy Institute.

Despite the seriousness of the crisis, Chinese leaders have shied away from raising water prices to promote water conservation. Experts say current prices are not enough to make farmers conserve water.

"Raising water prices is not the right option for China because rural incomes are not high," Qiu asserted.

As rural areas have fallen behind the cities in their development, public resentment and social unrest have become some of the main worries for the government in the countryside.

Protests against polluting industries and lack of water have become a common sight across Chinese villages, as the environment has all too often been sacrificed in the pursuit of single-minded profit.

Rather than risk social unrest by raising water prices significantly, Beijing has announced it will spend about 1 trillion yuan (125 billion dollars) over the next five years to improve urban water security and build sewage treatment systems. Another 5 billion dollars are allocated to improve the water supply in rural areas..

Water minister Wang Shucheng vowed this week that by 2015 all the 300 million peasants who currently lack clean drinking water would be provided with safe, potable water.

Wang said China is likely to far exceed its United Nations Millennium Development Goal which was to reduce by half the number of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water by 2015.

But an editorial in the official ‘China Daily' warned that all the government investment will not be enough to solve China's water crisis, if promises to clean up the country's filthy rivers are not followed by concrete action.

"The wish list the ministry of water resources has delivered for rural residents without access to safe drinking water is a proper commitment," it said. "But it is one thing to put a target on a wish list. Achieving it is a challenge of a different order of magnitude." (END/2006)

Saturday night. It is my friend Hannah’s birthday. She, her friend Carrie, my girlfriend and I have gone to see The Singer and the Song ("A Celebration of Vocal Performance"), and are waiting to see the headline act, Japanese karaoke show Frank Chickens.

Whilst Hannah is in the loo, one of the venue staff starts chatting to us and finds out about Hannah’s birthday. She then reveals her devious ulterior motive. She wasn’t just being friendly, the conniving witch, she was trying to get people to sign up for karaoke. I am shocked by her underhand tactics. Carrie, my girlfriend and I all look at each other. The woman pleads. She cajoles.

“You could sing your friend Happy Birthday”, she finally suggests.

I don’t want to do it. I have a terrible singing voice and hate any kind of public speaking. I know that my girlfriend doesn’t want to do it either. But Carrie looks like she isn’t sure. We don’t know her very well and I can’t tell if she secretly wants to do it, and is looking unsure so that we don’t feel pressured by her to do it, or if she absolutely doesn’t want to do it, but thinks that we secretly want to and doesn’t want to be rude and stop us two doing it.

“I’ll do it if you two do it”, Carrie says politely.

“I’ll do it if you two do it”, my girlfriend says politely.

“I’ll do it if you two do it”, I say politely.

This was probably how the Third Reich got started.

We find out that none of us want to do it, but only after we've filled in the slip of paper.

The karaoke starts, and the bar is immediately set very high with an excellent rendition of Van Halen’s Jump that includes air guitar, air drums and air keyboards, obviously lovingly rehearsed. The next man sounds great too, and has even brought his own sparkly gold jacket.

But as the evening wears on and I have a few more drinks, my hope that they don’t get round to us fades. I’ve been in restaurants where one table starts singing Happy Birthday to somebody and usually at least half the other tables join in, so at a show like this, actually dedicated to amateur singing, I am sure that the audience will help us out.

By the time we take to the stage I am feeling confident. We wait for the opening bars. I hear the opening bars. The opening bars of this*.

There is a split second of nagging puzzlement before the bowel-liquefying realisation that a simple, but significant mix-up has occurred.

I look at my girlfriend and Carrie. They look back at me like rabbits caught in the spotlight on the Mastermind chair, having just been told that their chosen specialised subject has been changed from “Carrots” to “Causes and effects of the Franco-Prussian War”. They each give a panicked shrug and take a half-step back from their microphones. The first lyrics appear on the screen.

I have a choice. I can either make an elaborate throat-cutting gesture to the man who cues up the music, explain the mix-up, then try to lead the crowd in singing “Happy Birthday To You”. Or I can launch into a full-blooded impersonation of helium-voiced Clare Grogan singing a song that I have never even sung in the privacy of my own shower, let alone on stage. I look at Hannah who is staring at me with a beguiling mixture of incredulity, amazement and hope.

My grandfather served in the First World War. My father endured National Service and could have been called up for years to follow. I am lucky to have been born in a time of relative peace, but that hasn’t stopped me wondering how I would respond in a combat situation. Now I knew. This was my D-Day, my Flanders field. There was a Boche machine gun that needed taking out and the rest of my platoon were dead, dying or didn't know how the tune went.

“Happy, happy birthday in a hot bath
To those nice nice nights...”

Some random thoughts as I sing:
(a) So that’s what the lyrics are. All these years I thought she was singing...
(b) ... I can’t remember what I thought she was singing. This means I now have no idea how the verses scan.
(c) Why is my left leg dancing in the way that my central nervous system is asking it to, but my right leg is just wobbling?

But maybe it’s not going too badly. The song only has about four notes in it, and none of them are particularly high or sustained. Coincidentally, my voice has a four-note range, and by a stroke of luck it is pitched an exact number of octaves below the melody. In the second verse I even have a go at the little yelps Ms Grogan does on “I got such a fright”.

And there is so much reverb on my voice that for the first time in my life I can actually hear myself sing. My voice sounds familiar. During the repeated “Happy Birthday”s after the middle eight I try to work out who I sound like. I go though a whole list in my head – Sinatra? Crosby? Nat King Cole? No. I sound like Mark E. Smith from the Fall.

Oh well. But then I look around and see Carrie, my girlfriend and various Frank Chickens all dancing behind me. We’re somehow pulling this off. The crowd cheer - tonight they have been celebrating vocal performance in its most diverse forms, from barber's shop quartet to conceptual art installations, and it probably hasn't got more diverse than this: the world's least convincing female impersonator doing a Fall tribute act. Perhaps I should get measured for a sparkly gold jacket after all.

Afterwards, Hannah hugs me and says, “That’s the best birthday present I’ve ever had”.

Great. What can I get her next year?


* For those of you without speakers, that was the unmistakeable xylophone riff at the start of Happy Birthday by early 80s Scottish New Wavers Altered Images.