water

13 oz. Silver Parsley Water Bottle

admin — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:15:00 +0000

A new baby inspired the fine bottles available at Earthlust: it was time to start thinking about the future, and giving generations to come a clean place to stay seems reasonable. There is the Native American saying: “We are not inheriting the planet from our parents—we are borrowing it from our children.” Even the childless can appreciate the folly in generating unnecessary garbage, so why not use a water bottle? Also, once you compare it to the cost of bottled water, a larger model used twice daily will pay for itself within two weeks.

Sizes include thirteen ounce, twenty ounce, and one-liter versions, and there are also twenty ounce insulated mugs available in two patterns. Crows and hawks perch and fly on the stainless steel sides, ginkgoes leave, dragonflies fly, and mine sprouts silver parsley.

Those inclined to garden can acquire parsley seeds through Seeds of Change, easily planted in a container or garden, and then water them with liquid poured from a non-toxic, food-grade stainless steel container with its BPA-free polypropylene #5 cap. Uses of parsley include getting brewed as a tea for renal and digestive difficulties, and its high chlorophyll content has made it popular as a breath freshener, hence its persistence as garnish. I did hear a Depression-era anecdote of one restaurant saving, rinsing (one hopes) and reusing parsley garnish in order to cut costs. Desperate times... at least you can make sure that your water is fresh from the tap. And I should get an insulated version by winter for parsley tea.

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, June 28th 2009

Water Steps

admin — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 16:50:00 +0000

By A. LaFaye

Milkweed Editions

Surprisingly, this story echoed my own fear of water, which I’ve harbored ever since I can remember. I have been plagued with nightmares about water in all forms. The main character, Kyna, has suffered from an almost-paralyzing dread of water since she was three. She was the sole survivor of a storm at sea that her family was involved in.

Adopted by the couple that rescued her, she slowly learns not only how to cope with water, but bits and pieces of her adopted family’s history. It isn’t without a struggle, for her Mem and Pep, Ronan and Itha, are pretty silent when it comes to their history.

All Kyna knows is that her adopted family are Irish, bilingual, and love to swim as much as possible. To pay the bills, Pep is a writer, and Mem is an illustrator. Kyna is frustrated by their refusal to share their history. They use fabricated (so she argues) Irish folklore stories to distract her so much that she has every fairy and leprechaun yarn memorized word for word.

Despite the intense secrecy and Kyna’s fear of water, she’s a strong 10-year-old girl who actively pursues her own interests, like photography. When the family moves to an island home for the summer, she takes up with a local boy, Tylo, and explores the land, searching for the perfect shot.

Tylo is fun to hang with-except for the fact that he really believes that selkies exist—humans who can transform into seals—and that he’s seen a pod of them in the lake. It’s up to Kyna to decide whether she will follow him there, to convince him that selkies aren’t real.

The clues to the answer are always in front of Kyna, waiting for her to accept them. The answer itself helps Kyna to confront her watery fear once and for all. The ending provides a nice surprise. A quick read, Water Steps is a great addition to any pre-teen library.

Written by: Nicolette Westfall, April 3rd 2009

Water First: Reaching the Millennium Development Goals

admin — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 23:25:00 +0000

Directed by Amy Hart

Bullfrog Films

Four thousand children die every day as a result of the lack of access to clean water. Water First opens with this unbelievable figure, along with a montage of poverty-stricken African children. Luckily, the film moves beyond voyeuristic sentimentalism and goes on to make the case that access to clean water should be recognized as one of the most important global issues.

The country of Malawi is used as a case study, along with the nonprofit organization Fresh Water Malawi, run by retired firefighter Charles Banda. Fresh Water Malawi drills wells for communities throughout Malawi, usually with little support from the government or outside donors. Banda argues that the success of the eight official United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is dependent on whether or not people have access to clean water. The MDGs are goals to reduce poverty that the UN members adopted in the year 2000, with the target of having made progress toward them by 2015. The goals include eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, promoting gender equality, and achieving universal primary education.

The film successfully argues that water is intimately tied to all of these goals. For example, women and girls are the ones who bear the burden of fetching water, oftentimes miles away from their homes, and usually from unclean sources. Girls often drop out of school once they hit puberty because of lack of sanitation. Drinking water from unprotected sources causes cholera, malaria, dysentery and other diseases, which are especially devastating to young children and women who have recently given birth.

Water First lets the people of Malawi speak for themselves as viewers are invited to watch the daily struggle of life without access to clean water. The viewer can choose to watch a twenty-eight minute or a forty-five minute version of the film, which is helpful for teachers who want to screen Water First during class. Overall, the film is informative and cogently makes the case that water is a fundamentally important issue in advancing human rights and community development in impoverished countries around the world.

Written by: Liz Simmons, March 4th 2009

Yours, Mine, Ours, or Theirs?: Accessing and Controlling Oil and Water

admin — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 11:02:00 +0000

Illinois Humanities Council

Chicago, Illinois

Humanities lectures and art openings are consistent sources of free entertainment, so I was delighted to attend “Yours, Mine, Ours, or Theirs? Accessing and Controlling Oil and Water,” a conversation hosted by the Illinois Humanities Council. Panelists provided an engaging and far-ranging forum regarding two globally vital substances of incomparable importance. Some theorize that just as twentieth century conflicts began over the control of oil resources, our future conflicts will be over water. In 2002, Fortune magazine was blithely reporting on bottled water as the next hot commodity. Within two years, they were publicizing Pentagon reports that speculated on future wars incited by a water shortage brought about by climate change.

The litany of casualties in the name of oil includes the blood of Ken Saro Wiwa in Nigeria and the child of the neighbors two blocks east, a military service banner hanging in their window. Oil is a substance that we can live without, conserve, or replace with alternate energy sources. Not so with water. Will future conflicts bring a quieter carnage in the form of mere famine and dehydration? Does any human have the claim to meeting fundamental needs, or will we perpetuate societies in which there are no rights—just commodities and people who survive through persistence and happenstance, chance, and tenacity—vicious inheritors playing a Darwinist game in a world concocted by Smith and Hobbes?

Future hot spots include the Ogallala Aquifer, Mexico City, Chad, and China. My imagination spun a future combining elements of Frank Herbert's Dune with Mad Max. The scenario made my head hurt. Good thing that I had packed water in an EcoUsable water bottle to wash down some aspirin. Their stainless steel bottles are 100% recyclable and available in three sizes. As I’m always thirsty, for me, there is no choice other than the 33-oz. version—mine has a fun pattern of dots and hoops on its enamel shell— but there is also a 25-oz. size featuring a more curvaceous shape and built-in water filter. I had rationalized my bottled water consumption by reusing the bottles for homemade sun tea, but there are economic and environmental reasons to stop buying bottled water, period.

The artist Chris Jordan created powerful images of American consumption in his series Running the Numbers including an image of the two million plastic bottles that are used in the United States every five minutes. After a brief self-congratulatory moment of not having used a plastic water bottle, but speculating about the carbon imprint of one made in China, I was promptly thrust back into demoralization after viewing an excerpt of The Water Front, a documentary covering four years of water conflict in Highland Park, Michigan.

Using the phrase “water scarcity” in a community on the shore of a freshwater inland sea would be absurd if not for the impact on people's lives. The financial crisis precipitated by the town's Chrysler plant shutting down resulted in the auctioning off of municipal water services. Bills skyrocketed, and unpaid tabs were added to property tax bills, resulting in a spate of foreclosures. One water company representative states that “Nothing is free,” and someone has to pay for cleaning and infrastructure, but it appears that the market has neither mercy, nor any conception of fundamental human needs or rights.

The invisible hand is neither just nor kind. Privatization trends suggest that they would sell you the air if they could. Zimbabwe's current cholera epidemic demonstrates the limitations of perceiving clean, potable water as anything other than a necessity. The faucet drips as I write this. If I replaced a washer, I might save three gallons a day...

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, February 18th 2009