Posts Tagged ‘Water’

Solving the mystery of my doubled water bill would’ve been easier if I had a way to monitor my usage. I smell a conspiracy….

Learn about BP’s latest strategy to stem the tide, and see how they’re seasoning their data to make it more palatable to the public.

You’ve spilled some food, and don’t know whether it’s better to clean the mess with paper towels or a kitchen sponge. The embodied energy of simple decisions may surprise you.

Today, a juxtaposition of two very related, but conflicting “strategies” regarding our attempts to extract oil from under the ocean. Of course, if you’ve been paying attention to the news, you’ll know that an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded on April 20th, killing 11 people before sinking into the ocean.  Now, the [...]

This is what happens when a climate scientist engages in a little DIY solar pool heating project: Since the area of each of the two collectors is about 1.5 sq. meters, this means about 800 Watts per sq. meter of heat flux was being usefully generated by the collectors. I’m guestimating that this would be [...]

In belated honor of Valentine’s Day, we’re going to go ahead and answer the age-old jazz question: “How much do I love you? I’ll tell you no lie; How deep is the ocean?  How high is the sky?” Well I’m glad she asked. Turns out, the ocean is pretty darn deep.  That’s a whole lotta [...]

We recently had some heavy rain, and the wooded path behind my house showed sinuous trails where the water carved its way between the leaves.  Thankfully, this path is not normally a river bed, but water is a powerful if fleeting force of nature. All that water ran down the path, into the stream, and [...]

For the last few years, I’ve been perplexed about why more people have not connected the dots between the Toyota Production System (Lean) and the sustainability movement.  As I’ve dug deeper, I found that the Leanies really ARE thinking about concepts of energy efficiency, waste reduction, and pollution prevention, as these are natural side effects [...]

Lots of good infographics to be found across the web, intending to explain complex issues bite-sized visual chunks. We start with “Global Warming Skeptics vs The Scientific Consensus” from the Information is Beautiful blog.  Despite the clear agenda by the designer, it does a nice job of introducing the various debates surrounding man’s impact on [...]

In a rare bit of ecological good-news, a study published by the US Geological Survey found that even though population of the US has increased 30% since 1980, our water consumption decreased by 5%!  That’s not even a per capita number, it’s an overall reduction due to conservation.  Take a look: I took the liberty [...]