Ocean Aid is a campaign created to raise awareness about the pollution collecting in our oceans and inspire community action to keep our oceans clean. Co-founded by eco-entrepreneur, Anthony Zolezzi, Ocean Aid uses new technology, social media and group collaboration to educate about the importance of oceans as our life support system.
Jan 11th
This morning I arose especially early in hopes of getting to my office by 6:30am, and upon going outside, noticed water pouring through cracks in the street. I checked it out and determined it had to be coming from a broken water pipe, which made me realize just how critical it is to repair leaks in the existing municipal water system. In fact, each day, leaking pipes account for the loss of an estimated 7 billion gallons of water, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, due to the fact that a large part of the country’s water system is decades old and in need of replacement. However, as CNN reported last January, federal funding for this purpose has been cut significantly in recent years, and the state of the infrastructure has deteriorated as a result.
Being absolutely fascinated to learn first-hand how the Los Angeles Water and Power folks go about fixing a massive leak of this sort, I stuck around to observe how they planned to tackle the problem. It turned out to be an incredible display of technology, discipline and expertise. First they closed off the street, then proceeded to dig a deep hole that quickly filled More >
Dec 9th
Last Tuesday morning I was able to do something that I hadn’t been able to do in a week, a very simple thing that most of us take for granted, and that was to use tap water to brush my teeth. When you’re traveling in South America, all of your water has to come from bottled or purified sources. There is no such thing as being served tap water in a restaurant, and none of the locals drink water that isn’t either bottled or boiled.
To really appreciate the relatively clean, safe water that flows out of the tap here in the U.S., you have to spend a few days in a locale where it doesn’t.
When you think of the infrastructure pipes, reservoirs, pumping stations and energy it takes to accomplish this, it is really quite overwhelming. Trillions of dollars will be required to provide the populations of developing countries with the benefits of potable, pathogen-free water of the sort that’s readily available to residents of more advanced nations. While this represents a big opportunity, just moving the water will require incredible amounts of energy. If it could be done using renewable sources such as wind and solar, that would sort More >
Nov 15th
While flying out of New York last week with the sun setting in the west, I was witness to the majestic spectacle of clouds reflecting the sun’s rays, and it put me in mind of that old Joni Mitchell song about recalling “clouds’ illusions” and how we “really don’t know clouds at all.” Which is to say, I suddenly realized how clouds don’t get the credit they deserve. We tend to characterize difficult periods of our lives as cloudy ones, or use the idea of a “dark cloud” hovering over someone as a symbol of problems they might be having (as was done in the “Peanuts” comic strip). Even I have been known to feel dejected on occasion by the prospect of a cloudy day. And then it hit me just how much we fail to appreciate clouds and what they actually do for us, just as we take for granted so many of Mother Nature’s other incredible creations.
Clouds are in many ways like the rainforest or the oceans, but even more important, they are the vehicle for moving water from ocean to river or from ocean to atmosphere, and then to land. This is known in technical terms as More >
Sep 17th
This past weekend, I went on a quest for new knowledge, traveling to Phoenix for my first summit on water, with all the anticipation of a kid going to a new school. Learning new things about a subject or commodity that most people take for granted is always exciting, but what I really find intriguing is that water is the ultimate recycled product. The hydrological cycle of water evaporation to clouds, and its subsequent transformation to precipitation is about as pure as it gets. The most important thing we can do is not to somehow screw this process up.
In fact, the prospect of attending this particular conference had me so excited I literally couldn’t sleep the night before. This is a subject that I have thought about ever since I touredthe Los Angeles wastewater treatment plant two years ago and saw that 70 percent of perfectly potable treated water was being dumped back in the ocean.
So it really resonated with me when I heard one of the speakers at the conference, Cindy Wallis-Lage from the consulting firm of Black & Veatch, emphasize that that where water is concerned, we need to change the language and the whole paradigm to eliminate More >
