Saving Water Saving Energy Blog

Spring brings rebirth -- new hope -- and renewed enthusiasm for tackling the earth's problems. A new NRDC report on state "climate readiness" is a great resource to inspire your next earth-oriented local campaign. The interactive map quickly compares where your state is in the challenging process of climate planning and implementing adaptation strategies. Water protection leaders should download this report and spend some time poking around the interactive tool. Click the title, image or here to view the full post.

Are you working on climate change adaptation in you community? Having difficulties making the leap from that research you worked so hard on, to seeing action carried out? Finding it difficult to communicate the importance of adaptation in a certain social or political demographic who may not be willing to accept the existence of climate change? You don't need to keep banging your head on your desk trying to reinvent the wheel! Join the Climate Access network to tap into the world of resources that are out there and readily available to help you succeed! Click here to view the full post.

In the Unites States, approximately 520 billion kilowatt hours of electricity - equivalent to 13% of the nation's total electricity consumption - are used each year to pump, heat and treat water. Cutting down water use in and around your home can help conserve water resources (also helps cuts down your water bill), conserves energy use (again saving you money) and reduces greenhouse gas emissions associated with the energy used to move, heat and treat the water you use. Measure your water, energy and greenhouse gas emissions savings potential with the Alliance for Water Efficiency's great new website and tool, Home Water Works, launched last week. Click the title, image or here to view the entire post.

The effects of climate change are vast. As are the means by which climate change adaptation can happen. Unfortunately, climate change can be a touchy, scary and even angering subject for some folks. So when communicating the issues around climate change adaptation, advocates must tailor their messaging to resonate with the specific audience they are targeting - or, "bring climate change home." One unarguably neat new resource that can help you literally bring the effects of climate change home is NRDC's new interactive Extreme Weather Event map. Click the title, image or here to view the full post.

Check out this week's re-posting of Duke University's The Climate Post to learn: Which GOP Presidential candidate was the last of the group to announce his climate skepticism (oficially making all GOP candidates skeptics...); Why there is little hope for an agreement coming out of the UN climate negotiations happening in South Africa; and, why the US companies are claiming they are being harmed by the massive growth in China's solar industry. Click the title, image or here to view the full post.

Recently River Network started a Peer Learning Network for 20 local leaders who are helping communities respond to climate change. The projects represented in the PLN range from planning for wetland migration as sea-levels rise to preventing water contamination from natural gas hydro-fracking. There are at least three “themes” to this work: 1) Working collaboratively (often with water and energy utilities) to reduce impacts of climate change, 2) Community-level planning for more frequent “natural” disasters, and 3) maintaining habitat for native species. We have much to learn from each other as we grapple with what climate change means to each of us. In structure, River Network has more in common with the Occupy Movement than a national environmental organization.

Electrical generation capacity in the United States will continue to expand seemingly endlessly in conjunction to human population growth. This is unfortunate news for available freshwater quality and quantity, a finite natural resource that humanity is dependent on and is often overlooked as taking the brunt of the impact of electrical development. That said, water impacts of electricity production needs to be the crux of energy management decisions. Check out the latest report by the Pacific Institute that analyses the future water needs of different energy scenarios in the intermountain west. Click the title, image or here to view the full post.

Two weeks ago, U.S. Congressman Pete Stark introduced the Save Our Climate Act, H.R. 3242, that proposes levying a tax on carbon. This bill is designed to reduce national dependence on foreign oil, drive alternative energy development, mitigate the effects of climate change, and reduce our national deficit. Click the title, image or here to read the full post.

Clean energy means cleaner air and cleaner water. Are you or your organization working to push the expansion of clean renewable energy sources in the United States? Check out the Natural Resources Defense Council's excellent new 'Renewable Energy For America' page that includes an interactive map of the US that shows where current renewable projects are located as well as where there are untapped renewable resources that can and should be explored. Click the title, image or here to view the full post.