NOT Whipped By Water

I did a tiny bit of activism today, other than my usual culture jamming on Facebook. I wrote a letter to Georgia Trend magazine. It is in response to a column by the publisher, in regards to Georgia's water problems. The column beats on some very tired and antiquated clichés:

1) Growth is good, and is needed to revive the economy.

2) A plentiful supply of fresh water is necessary for an ever-growing economy.

3) No mention of water conservation (such a typical little corporate attitude).

4) A mythical technological fix is proposed, such as desalination plants and miles of piping. But this columnist goes into outer space by suggesting we can FREEZE the water and transport it on trucks from the coast to north Georgia. (So funny!).

And here is the freakin' article: "Whipped by Water?" by Neely Young.

You know, every time I fire off a letter like this it makes me feel better. It makes me feel like I've got a good swing in at the Earth Destroyers. Yeah, I know, violence is bad, but I am trying to defend a big rock floating through space that can't defend itself. Yes, maybe I'm flipping.

Here is my letter:

Dear Editor,

A recent column by Neely Young on Georgia’s water issues had an interesting title — “Whipped by Water?” I can think of better titles like, “Whipped By Government Incompetence,” “Whipped By Greed,” and “Whipped By Unchecked and Unplanned Growth.”

In his article, once again a member of the business press is singing the old hymn about more growth. Do we really want to turn Georgia into a people-packed nation like Bangladesh? In our quest for eternal growth, won’t we hit diminishing returns at some point? What we should focus on instead is quality of life and a sustainable economy, not reckless overshoot for the benefit of Georgia’s elite.

It is tiring to see Mr. Young and his ilk always reaching for the magic technological fix. The idea of hundreds of ice trucks traversing around Georgia is so preposterous that it staggers the imagination. Wouldn’t it take a tremendous amount of energy to freeze all that water?

Allow me to propose a less dramatic fix: How about if Georgia businesses retrofitted their buildings with water-saving devices? Wouldn’t that be cheaper than desalination plants and hundreds of miles of piping? If we are “whipped” by anything, it’s the stubborn building owners and developers who fight most water conservation efforts, including low-flow toilets.

What we do need in Georgia is a new paradigm that recognizes that there are limits to growth and limits to nature. What we also need is serious sacrifice and commitment, and not more techno fantasies.

Sincerely,

The Goose

A Pope and a Coke

Okay, I had to read it twice. The Pope is touring Africa this week and aboard his Pope Plane he says that condoms are not the answer to the AIDS epidemic in Africa, and can make the problem worse. WHAT???

So, the Pope wants to condemn the entire African continent to this horrible disease called AIDS. My uncle died of AIDS, and I can assure everyone that the last days of an AIDS victim are horrible beyond belief.

This comes from a fellow activist friend of mine:

You know what stuns me about this article is that the Pope said that the Catholic Church is the largest provider of HIV health care. If he would drop the prohibition against condoms and allowed the use of a HIV killing spermicide, HIV cases would drop dramatically. His stance on this makes no sense! I work as a hospice nurse and I can tell you that patients with terminal HIV suffer horribly. He could do a great deal more to enhance the Church’s “compassion.”

And not to mention Africa's exploding population, which is condemning millions to abject poverty. So, what the Pope suggests is a "responsible and moral attitude toward sex" to fight the disease. Yeah that's nice, but what happens to the people who do not comply with the Catholic church's sense of hyper-morality? Oh yeah, they get punished. They had it coming to them, just like those poor alter boys.

Then, later this week ....

After reading about the executives from AIG, I've realized that business executives are so locked in their little worlds that they have no idea how stupid they sound when they talk to the press. Enter Coke Chairman Neville Isdell. In trying to boost their environmental image, he wants to make more clean water available to the world. You mean Coke's going green? Hell no, he's just looking out for his own self interest.

To summarize, Isdell is part of a group that wants President Obama to appoint a water czar and spend $1 billion a year to finance new clean water projects and programs.

Hello? The problem is an exploding world population. That's probably a good thing for Isdell — it means more Coke drinkers. And, yes, Coca-Cola Co. uses a LOT of water in their beverage businesses. So, I doubt they really care about human suffering — they just want a market.

Here are some chilling facts provided by the World Health Organization:

Nearly 885 million people around the Planet do not have access to safe drinking water today, and 2.5 billon don't have access to water for basic sanitation.

And rather than addressing our serious global population problem, corporations have created yet another "think tank" that is trying to tell us that the answer is JUST SPEND MORE MONEY TO MAKE MORE CLEAN WATER for the billions of ever multiplying people.

How about, instead, we work to stabilize world population, so that communities will not outgrow their local water supplies? Naw, the corporations wouldn't like that. They believe that population can grow infinately. And they want to sell those infinite billions COKE PRODUCTS.

Give me a break.

Rain Barrel Project

All of us must do what we can to conserve resources and reduce our footprint on Earth. I made a small baby step in that direction yesterday by purchasing a rain barrel kit. More detailed instructions can be downloaded from the Cobb County, GA Water Department, which is the county where I live.

I was so excited that as soon as I got home I began work immediately. In following the instructions I wish to share two lessons learned:

• Make sure you get all the plastic shavings out from the drilling. Otherwise they may clog the faucet.
• When you put the screen mesh over the drain cover, make sure you leave plenty of extra overlap. Otherwise the screen will come out of the zip tie when you try to put the assembly in the hole.

Once installed in my backyard, I tested the rain barrel by spraying water on the roof. Viola! It worked. However, I quickly had a big surprise — as the rain barrel begin filling it started leaning forward and almost fell. I remedied the problem by adding another brick near the front.

The drain plug (the little black thing at the bottom) allows you to drain out all the gook at the bottom on occasion. This is stuff that settles below the faucet.

This is perfect for my garden, which is downhill from the rain barrel. All I need to do is hook up a hose and I can easily irrigate my vegetables.

Below are instructions:

Obtain the following materials:

• a sturdy barrel
• mesh screen
• plastic faucet
• steel washer
• o-ring
• long zip tie
• plastic elbow
• plastic drain cover
• down spout flex elbow
• #1 or #2 plug

Tools/Equipment needed:

• drill
• 7/8” paddle bit
• 5/8” paddle bit
• jig saw
• scissors
• channel lock

Step 1. Cut an opening in the top of the barrel the size of the drain cover.

Step 2. Cut a piece of mesh screen slightly larger than the drain cover. Secure the mesh screen
to the drain cover with the zip tie. Insert the drain cover into the opening on top of the
barrel.

Step 3. Drill one hole at the bottom to drain the barrel. Put the plug in the bottom hole.

Step 4. Drill a hole for the faucet, approximately 6 inches from the bottom.

Step 5. Placing a large steel washer over the faucet threads. Slide an o-ring over the faucet
threads. Place the faucet into the hole in the barrel and screw a plastic elbow onto the
assembly from the inside of the barrel.

Step 6. Cut the downspout to just above the rain barrel. Attach the downspout flex elbow to the downspout.

Step 7. Slide the rain barrel under the spout lining up the mesh screen opening with the spout. Spray water on the roof and check to make sure the rain barrel and mesh opening are in
the right location.

Step 8. Optional: paint your rainbarrel using Krylon Fusion paint.

Step 9. Use water collected with rain barrel for gardening purposes.

Open Letter To Gov. Sonny Perdue

This is in response to a prayer service held in Georgia where the governor asked God to break the drought. Yeah, I now, funny.

Dear Governor Perdue,

I wanted to thank you for praying for rain. The next day it rained a 1/4 of an inch at my house. Since you definitely get results, I was wondering if you could add a few more items to your prayer list:

• Pray that the state will keep its promise to allow hybrids to use the HOV lanes, instead of hassling them at inspection stations.
• That business, government, and environmentalists will all work as a team to promote water conservation.
• Help the state legislature to develop an environmental ethic (yes, I know that would be a miracle).
• Convict state and county politicians to focus on quality of life and long-term sustainability, instead of always keeping the growth pedal pushed to the floor.
• Pray that our state leaders, including yourself, will be given the wisdom to promote a regional mass transit system.
• That more cities and counties would adopt Cool Cities.

I know that you are busy traveling around the world trying to encourage more industry (i.e. more people) to come to Georgia. No problem, I understand, but if you could squeeze in my requests, I would be extremely grateful.

Sincerely,

The Goose

More added by my friend and colleague Jo:

• Make Ga. DOT continue to allow 2 person carpools as they try to widen 20 East and not kick them off, (which obviously will be most of the carpools) only allowing 3 person carpools. Help me to understand that this is just another way for the highway lobby with HOT ( paid) lanes and less carpools to make money while increasing the number of autos on the road, thus the demand for more roads.
• Help me to remember my own ignored and forgotten early Executive Order to conserve water in all state facilities.
• Inspire me to spend the "Go Fish," $18 million bucks to make sure there is some water to fish in, as in a real state water plan, as requested by Carol Couch, not just the cheap sham as proposed now.
• Help me to stop fiddling while Atlanta goes the way of the Anasazi and the deserted cities of temples, etc. in Mexico. Tell me how Atlanta is going to support twice as many people when the population doubles in 2030. According to the AJC, you must have already settled that with God, since Atlanta is not even preparing for losing its collapsing resource, which is already showing early signs of eutrophication, and demonstrating what will begin happening at the end of the the "life" of the Corps lakes. Ask God how much longer 50 year old lakes will last. (They all have a predicted life span when built and will silt up and die within 60 to 90 years or so.)
  
• Ask God to permanently provide enough money for tanker trucks of water for the present millions plus the expected additional millions. Ask him to make sure that we don't have to stand in line more than 2 hours a day and that we have enough old milk cartons to fill and flush our toilets once a day and to bathe at least once a week, etc., etc.
• Ask God to inspire Ga. Power to begin buying all its lake water power from the power grid instead of releasing (how much?) millions of gallons twice daily from our lakes for peak power production.
• Ask God if he is really going to provide all the water we need if we just keep fiddling and praying, or if we do a rain dance, too, if that will help, so we can just keep having our tax funded economic development agencies, with your help, keep beating the bushes to bring in more people.
• Please thank God for allowing you to predict that Atlanta's economy (waterless or not) is fine and will continue to be fine. That alone is a miracle, so you must have a direct line to him to allow you this miraculous vision.

Atlanta Water Crises Is ALL About Growth

The metro Atlanta water crises continues to get worse. I'm afraid that Georgia's political leaders are handling the situation even more poorly than I expected. Not surprisingly, Georgia politicians are either too stupid or too scared to admit that the problem IS ALL ABOUT POPULATION GROWTH. Instead, our leaders are blaming the water shortage on the Army Corps of Engineers and those poor little mussels in Apalachicola Bay.

In my frustration a few weeks ago, I sat down and hammered out letters to my county water director and two local newspapers. Much to my pleasant surprise I got a response from the director and both of my letters were published.

According to the water director of Cobb County, GA, a building moratorium would be challenging due to the strong personal property rights provided by the State of Georgia Constitution. In regards to my idea to deny re-zonings that result in higher density, he said that was "on the table" with the Cobb Board of Commissioners. However, a few days later, my Commission Chair, Sam Olens, was quoted in the press as saying, something to the effect, that denying re-zonings was not worth the lawsuits.

So anyway, the politicians of Georgia are addicted to growth -- for them it is like crack cocaine. As for the citizens of Georgia, every time we conserve a gallon of water all we are doing is helping rich developers get richer.

Here is the letter that was published in my small town newspaper, the Powder Springs Messenger on Nov. 1:

Dear Editor,

While I am glad to do my part in conserving water, I find it troubling that city and county governments are continuing to issue new building permits and continuing to rezone for higher density.

Various elected officials are quick to blame the Endangered Species Act and the Army Corps of Engineers for our current water woes. However, the truth is that our water problems are the result of poorly managed growth and poor resource planning. Droughts are a natural part of nature, but turning north Georgia into a “concrete jungle” is not natural.

Now, we the citizens are asked to sacrifice and compromise our quality of life while the relentless development continues. This is not fair. All of us citizens should demand an immediate building moratorium until the water crises has passed. Otherwise, the buckets in our showers and the bricks in our toilets are only helping to provide for more growth.

The Goose

Here is my letter published in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution on Oct. 25:

Dear Editor,

I see that Chairman Sam Olens has joined the song and dance of other politicians by blaming metro Atlanta’s water woes on the Army Corps of Engineers [Feds must help us to weather drought]. What he fails to mention is that even if the Corps reduced their discharges, it would only delay the inevitable.

If the chairman is serious about conserving water he should use his positions as Cobb County Commission chair and Atlanta Regional Commission chair to promote a metro-wide building moratorium and deny any rezoning that increases density. As long as the metro area continues to explode in growth, all our personal conservation measures will simply be offset. The chairman’s statement that the region’s population growth is not the cause of our current situation is ludicrous.

We citizens have seen enough finger pointing — now it’s time to see local leaders who have the courage to make difficult decisions.

The Goose