A relatively new field of concern, especially for those of us on the Peninsula, is that of water use. With the warming climate, our snowpacks are not lasting the same length of time, and of course, our drinking water comes from snowpack and rivers that are fed by that snow pack. An area of study is emerging that focuses on the use of water, both in the products we buy (did you know that one cup of coffee used 140 liters of water), and the use of water in our homes. In this interview, done on Living On Earth, a weekly radio show on environmental issues, David Gellerman interviews first Derk Kuiper, who founded the Water Footprint Network (link on the left side of this page), along with Michael Kobori of Levi-Strauss (yes the jeans manufacturer), on how they are focusing on water use in the making of jeans. It’s a good learning experience for kids to teach them to think about their water use. In PT, our monthly water bills come with a graph of our last 12 months of water use. We make tradeoffs every day in use of our watershed, given that our paper mill uses millions of gallons of water weekly to make it’s products.
Water Footprinting: http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=09-P13-00035&segmentID=2
Filed under: Climate Change |
