Water, Water, Everywhere: $50 per gallon and up

Hey all.

Family stuff is happening these days, so I'm not able to keep up here as I once was, but I have been following the rapid approach of World Water Day, which occurs this Sunday, March 22. To that end, I thought I might link you all to some articles around the web that might give you a broader understanding of the problems involved in water rights and water availability throughout the world.

• CHILE: Why "Free-Market" Water Rights Just Don't Work
  An article about the water struggles in Quillaqua, Chile by The New York Times illustrates how badly wrong a water rights policy can go.
• CANADA: No Princes in the Water Rights Game Either
  Now, you'd think that a country with a fairly solid human rights record (in the main--I know no one's perfect) would be a little quicker to agree that clean water is a basic human right. Not so much. Luckily, you can tell the government just what you think of that.
• AFRICA: Coca Cola Equals Fresh Water?
  The Coca Cola Company has pledged $30 million dollars to fresh water projects in Africa. Now if they could just stop wasting the world's water by bottling it and shipping it across the globe.
• USA: We Solve Our Problems on Film
  The Environmental Protection Agency is running a contest for films that will inspire the nation's people to protect our lakes and wetlands.

For more information about water rights, check out:

• New American Dream, which is holding a webinar on water rights this coming Monday.
• This list from Business and Human Rights Resources which provides more links to more water info.
• FLOW: For the Love of Water is a documentary film on the global water crisis. It's available on Netflix, if you're like me and are too lazy to seek it out in a theater or rental store.

So that's it for today. Go drink a little tap water out of a real glass, would you?

It's Tuesday! DO SOMETHING!

Yes, I'm actually starting a feature! A "segment," if you will. Every Tuesday (hopefully), I'll be posting a few ideas of things you can do to help the world. Some will be letter-writing campaigns or donation opportunities and some will be little things that you can do at home to try to step a bit more lightly.

Here's the list for this week:

• Call on the International Community to Help Protect the People of the Democratic Republic of Congo
  The situation in Congo is dire--send a message to the international community that the time to act is now. You need to sign up as a member of Amnesty International to send the letter, but AI is a wonderful source of information globally and well worth joining. The call to action has recipients named from the previous administration here in the US, but it will actually get to the proper people. (And don't worry, AI won't send you a million emails--or indeed, any at all if that's your wish.)
• Do Something Useful with Those Empty Bottles
  If you do have empty water bottles around (try not to, but if you do), there's a great way to reuse them that doesn't involve washing them and drinking out of them again (which may or may not cause more chemicals to leak out of them). Fill them with cold water and stick them in the back of your fridge. Air in a fridge rushes out when you open the door, and the warm air that replaces it has to be chilled all over again, using energy. Cold things, on the other hand, stay cold when you open the door (if you don't leave the door open all day). The more stuff in your fridge, the less air in your fridge, the less your fridge has to work.
• Help Improve Education through Small-Scale Donation
  Because of the lack of public school funding in the US, teachers often end up spending a distressing percentage of their incomes buying simple yet needed supplies for their classrooms. Donors Choose is a website designed to provide targeted funds to targeted classrooms. Teachers write up grant proposals and donors choose which program to give their money to. It's a fantastic way to give a gift to a friend, by the way. My best friend got a donation made in her name to a school in her area, which made it both very personal and very conscious. No gift wrapping, no fuss, no overhead. Just a teacher who now has the books she needed to help further her students' educations.

That's all for today! Have a good one--and do something!