Letters from Chile – Doris Speaks
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Potable Water, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor May 7, 2010
To follow is a short video clip I’ve just added into Part I of the Chile series, after the fact. I’ll embed it here as well, for those who’ve already read that post and may miss this otherwise. Be sure to read Part I if you haven’t already, else you won’t understand the context for this video.
Meet Doris. Prior to the quake, before the little El Manzano community decided it was pertinent to seriously consider things they could do to build resiliency into their village, Doris was already paying attention. She took the advice of the Eco Escuela El Manzano team and got herself a hand pump, so if the lights went out, it didn’t have to mean she and her family would be without water as well. Hence her describing the fact that the community had TWO hand pumps to supply water after the quake hit.
Now the whole village wants to get a hand pump. Imagine that.
I’m uploading this after 15 hours without power. Some mischievous people nearby cut cables during the ‘wee hours of the night’ – taking a good length of them so they could sell the copper wire they contain. Quakes, cable theft, energy crisis – whatever. Low tech hand pumps are saviours here where all water must otherwise come via powered pumps.
Comments (0)Podcast: Buy Water Rights, Sell Riverina’s Future
Conservation, Dams, Gabions, Irrigation, Land, Limonia, News, Plant Systems, Podcasts, Potable Water, Regional Water Cycle, Rehabilitation, Swales, Trees, Water Contaminaton & Loss, Water Harvesting — by Patrick Blampied April 29, 2010
Last week Permaculture consultant Nick Huggins spoke to Anne Delaney from the ABC Riverina Breakfast radio program in Wagga Wagga, NSW. Listen here:
Nick Huggins Talks to ABC Radio About Riverina’s Water Blues
A backgrounder: Two Permaculture consultants, currently drought proofing a property in Livingstone, are calling for an end to the Australian Government’s water buy-back scheme, saying turning off the taps rather than helping farmers repair degraded landscape is selling the Riverina’s future short.
Comments (9)The Story of Bottled Water
Conservation, Consumerism, Economics, Potable Water, Water Contaminaton & Loss, Water Harvesting — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor April 12, 2010
Free Range Studios have been doing an outstanding job of boiling important topics down into user-friendly sound bites that encourage the viral spread of thought-provoking information. We’ve seen The Story of Stuff, The Story of Cap and Trade, and now I introduce you to the latest in the series – The Story of Bottled Water:
This might be hard for the average world citizen to understand, but I remember, after growing up in a land flowing with pristine water supplies (New Zealand) and then heading overseas, being rather surprised – even shocked – to be introduced to the concept of buying water. Coming from the heart of an island covered in stream- and river-laden mountains and valleys, the thought of surrendering my hard-earned cash for a bottle of water seemed obscene.
To me it was just one small step away from companies selling us the very air we need to breathe.
Comments (3)Letters from Sri Lanka – Sarvodaya Builds Sri Lanka’s First Eco-Village
Aid Projects, Biological Cleaning, Building, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Eco-Villages, People Systems, Potable Water, Society, Village Development, Waste Systems & Recycling, Waste Water, Water Harvesting — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor February 4, 2010
Part VII of a series – If you haven’t already, please read Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V and Part VI before continuing. This series is part of my work for the Sustainable (R)evolution book project.
One of 55 eco-friendly homes nestled amongst newly established gardens
An hour or so south of the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo is the fishing district of Kalutara. Although only one of many regions hit by the 2004 Tsunami, post-disaster relief efforts here were unique in that Sarvodaya determined to use the situation to create Sri Lanka’s first eco-village.
Comments (11)Street Orchards for Community Security
Biological Cleaning, Community Projects, Conservation, Food Forests, Food Plants - Perennial, Land, Potable Water, Regional Water Cycle, Rehabilitation, Roads, Soil Conservation, Storm Water, Trees, Urban Projects, Village Development, Waste Systems & Recycling, Waste Water, Water Contaminaton & Loss, Water Harvesting — by Brad Lancaster January 19, 2009
© Brad Lancaster, www.HarvestingRainwater.com
 Fig. 24.The heat island effect. An excessively wide, exposed, solar-oven-like residential street in Tucson, Arizona absorbs the sun’s heat during the day like a battery, then radiates it out at night. This local warming effect has raised summer temperatures in Tucson by 6°F (3°C) since the 1940s, which contributes to global warming since the higher temperatures result in people using air conditioners more, which are powered by electricity generated through the burning of coal. Note that no shade trees are planted in the public right-of-way along the street, leaving street and sidewalk baked. All runoff is drained off site leaving the development dehydrated. Reproduced with permission from “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 1" |
My view of public streets was radically changed when I heard ecovillage designer Max Lindigger tell a story of an insightful walk he took with his grandfather. “Look there,” said his grandfather, pointing to condominiums being built on the once forested slopes above his village in the Swiss Alps. “That’s where we grew and gathered food during the war. The forests were common land, a reserve of community resources. What commons remain? Where will we grow and gather our food in the next catastrophe?”
I then looked at my Sonoran desert city of Tucson, Arizona and asked myself, “Where are my community’s forests, our commons? Where would we get our food in times of need?”
Comments (5)The Muffin Tin and the Sponge
Conservation, Potable Water, Regional Water Cycle, Roads, Storm Water, Swales, Waste Water, Water Contaminaton & Loss, Water Harvesting — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor January 10, 2009
Two simple ways of illustrating how to plant the rain
Brad Lancaster, author of the award-winning books “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond” and info-packed website www.HarvestingRainwater.com, demonstrates how we can get the most from the rain by planting it in the soil, then accessing it with living pumps of plants. These are simple concepts that help turn scarcity into abundance.
Humanure Handbook – Free Download
Compost, Conservation, DVDs/Books, Fungi, Potable Water, Rehabilitation, Soil Biology, Soil Conservation, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Waste Water, Water Contaminaton & Loss — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor September 18, 2008
With chapters like ‘Crap Happens’, ‘Deep Shit’ and ‘A Day in the Life of a Turd’, this is sure to be an interesting book, albeit possibly not one to read over lunch?
With this wonderful substance piling up in all the wrong places (after all, we’re running out of clean water, and yet we’re crapping in it…), this taboo topic deserves a lot more attention than it gets. The book is now into its 3rd Edition.
- Download E-book ($10)
- Buy a hard copy ($25)
- Download Chapter by Chapter (free)
- Read Online (free)
Water Worries
Biological Cleaning, Conservation, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Potable Water, Regional Water Cycle, Rehabilitation, Structure, Waste Water, Water Contaminaton & Loss, Water Harvesting — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor September 12, 2008
Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink. – Samuel Coleridge (1772-1834). The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, II
If you look down on our earth from space, the predominant colour is blue. The surface of our earth is approximately 70% water. In that respect, perhaps our planet would have been better called the Ocean, than the Earth. Yet, excepting expensive, energy intensive and environmentally problematic desalinisation techniques (PDF), we cannot use it for our daily personal water intake requirements.
Comments (0)Ground-based action funding
Aid Projects, Potable Water — by Geoff Lawton October 21, 2004
Due to an inspiring collaboration between Rainforest Information Centre and Permaculture Research Institute teaching a permaculture design certificate course in Australia, a surplus profit of $AUS1, 500 we have been able to direct towards permaculture extension in Jordan. The same amount was also directed to a Rainforest Information Centre in Ecuador.
Five women actively involved in permaculture home garden development in Jawfa and Jawasari, poor Palestinian refugee villages in the Dead Sea Valley.
Click for more…
