Lake Koka in Ethiopia started out as…well, as nothing. It is a man-made lake that was formed by the damming of the Awash River back in the 1960s. For many years after the lake was formed it was a place where tourist came to marvel at the beauty and wildlife. For the thousands of people who live in the area it is used for everything from washing and drinking to irrigation and fishing. Basically it is the reason that theycontinue reading
Welcome to this week’s edition of Water Heroes. This week we’re talking about Lynn Henning who has gained notoriety due to her persistence in fighting for clean water in Michigan. Since 2000 she has been working to stop water pollution coming from large livestock farms around her home, throughout Michigan, and now in other states in the country. Her advocacy and hard work has earned her the prestigious Goldman Prize in 2010 and the 2012 Planet Defender Award, and shecontinue reading
Welcome back for another edition of Water Heroes. This week I’ll be talking about Ma Jun who has just received the Goldman Environmental Prize for “bringing unprecedented environmental transparency and empowering Chinese citizens to demand justice”. Ma is no stranger to the environment. He has been an environmentalist in China for years, and is also a writer, environmental consultant, journalist, and is director of the Institute for Public and Environmental Affairs, or the IPE. Let’s take a look at somecontinue reading
Are the companies that make your clothes environmentally friendly? For a lot of us the answer is no. Yesterday I stumbled onto a new report released by the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs on water pollution from the textile/apparel industry in China. This report, titled Cleaning up the Fashion Industry, quoted a 2010 report as saying the textile industry in China ranked 4th in wastewater COD emissions and 3rd for overall wastewater discharge out of its 39 industries. Althoughcontinue reading
A problem that is common for cities around the world is what to do with their wastewater. In western societies the most common way to treat wastewater is through a wastewater treatment plant where chemicals and biological elements are added to treat the water. However, for a lot of the world these plants are too expensive and they lack the expertise required to run the plant. A cheaper and more ecofriendly way to treat wastewater is by using the environment,continue reading
Today I’m going to review an award winning documentary I recently watched called Blue Gold: World Water Wars. This documentary is based on the book Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World’s Water by Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke. Both Maude and Tony have been heavily involved in the fight for clean water for decades, and you see a lot of them in this movie. Maude is the co-founder of the Blue Planet Project, chairscontinue reading
When I started reading about mining and its environmental impacts I soon realized that I would have a number of different topics to pick from, but I had to narrow it to one so today I’m going to be talking about acid mine drainage, or AMD. AMD is a byproduct of the mining process (usually from abandoned mines) and is polluting groundwater and waterways world wide and at the same time turning them orange. It occurs when mineral deposits containingcontinue reading
I’ll start by giving you a little information on Bangladesh because if you’re anything like me you don’t know much about it. Bangladesh is located in southern Asia and is surrounded mostly by India (95%), but also has a border with Burma, and sits on the Bay of Bengal. Bangladesh has an area of about 55,597 square miles (10% of which is water) and has a population of about 161 million people. As a comparison, the state of Iowa is 56,271 squarecontinue reading
Everyone in the world knows about the war in Afghanistan but few know about the water crisis going on in the country. Afghanistan was once a flourishing country with beautiful cities and plentiful food and water supplies, but decades of war have decimated much of the country. One of the casualties of war has been the infrastructure that supplies the people with a clean water source. However, the war is not the only cause of the crisis. Geographical constrains, climate change,continue reading