Gaia Desert

See this recent article in the Guardian about Voluntourism :  "Before you pay to volunteer abroad, think of the harm you might do" The PEPY group in Cambodia turned me on to this. The article references a report by the Human Science Research Council Report I n recent decades, the tourism industry has thrived, grown and diversified to encompass a wide array of travel activities, with alternative volunteer tourism leading the way. Well-to-do tourists enrol for several weeks at a time to build schools, clean and restore river banks, ring birds and other useful activities in mostly poor but exotic settings. AIDS orphan tourism has become a niche market, contributing to the growth of the tourism industry. AIDS orphans ‘have economic valence' and ‘orphanhood is a globally circulated commodity', as some researchers have phrased it. I am a supporter of "fun tourism". An old concept that our productive society seems to have forgotten. Eco-tourism, "

Are you wondering how much water your household uses? The Pacific Institute  offers a great free tool to estimate your homes energy use. I went through the survey and the website gave output many pages of statistics, figures and tables. It appears that the pacific institute's ultimate goal is to help us realize the embedded energy that we move through when we use water. Embedded energy is the total energy used by a utility to collect, treat, and distribute water to the customer and to treat wastewater. The calculations have many assumptions built in. I was battling it's assumptions for leaks, but then I read the fine print.  The website operates on the assumption from an AWWARF study finding that states nearly all houses have leaks. The study, Residential end uses of water is linked here .   http://www.wecalc.org/

This is a great work which is necessary to depoliticize climate science.   EPA Rejects Claims of Flawed Climate Science EPA denied 10 petitions challenging its 2009 determination that climate  change is real, is occurring due to emissions of greenhouse gases from  human activities, and threatens human health and the environment.  The  petitions to reconsider EPA's Endangerment Finding claim that climate  science cannot be trusted, and assert a conspiracy that invalidates the  findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the  U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the U.S. Global Change Research  Program.  After months of serious consideration of the petitions and of  the state of climate change science, EPA finds no evidence to support  these claims. In contrast, EPA's review shows that climate science is  credible, compelling, and growing stronger.  Additional information is  available at: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment/downloads/endanger

The wastewater problem in Juli, Peru. http://picasaweb.google.com/ryan.gaia/TheWastewaterProblemInJuliPeru# Eating potatoes in Juli, Peru. http://picasaweb.google.com/ryan.gaia/PUNOAndJULITouristStuff# Our trip to Ollantaytambo and MachuPicchu, Peru. http://picasaweb.google.com/ryan.gaia/OllantaytamboAndMachuPicchuPeru# A visit to the village of Siusa, Peru. http://picasaweb.google.com/ryan.gaia/SiusaPeru#

Water Wired posted this on 7/5/2010. Although there may be plenty of training programs in US and EU universities that tackle  potable water issues for developing countries, this is the only local educational solution that I have ever seen.  It is well worth a look.

SELF PROMOTION ALERT!! http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/consumer&id=7521887

An interesting post from Water Wired:  Historian   Douglas Brinkley , author of the excellent chronicle of Hurricane Katrina,   The Great Deluge ,  wrote an   Op-Ed   for the   Financial Times   last week (you may need to complete a free registration to read it) titled,   To Save the Gulf, Free the Mississippi . Brinkley wants  BP  to deposit $20B in an escrow account, along with an additional $8B letter of credit. Besides paying claims, this fund would also finance a scheme to remove oil from Louisiana's wetlands. He advocates literally opening the floodgates and allowing the  Mississippi River  to flush the wetlands of oil. Here are the relevant paragraphs: But BP’s escrow billions should not go merely to paying lost wage claims to the charter boat operators, fisherman, motel owners, and seaside restaurateurs whose livelihoods have suffered. The money will also be needed for the US Army Corps of Engineers to open up the floodgates at the mouth of the Mississippi River and