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45 votes
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New Orleans officials seek to build a freshwater pipeline as saltwater wedge inches closer
11 votes -
Saltwater is pushing its way up the Mississippi River
22 votes -
‘We can’t drink oil’: How a seventy-year-old pipeline imperils the Great Lakes
31 votes -
What is saltwater intrusion and how is it affecting Louisiana’s drinking water?
17 votes -
Road hazard: Evidence mounts on toxic pollution from tires
30 votes -
Rafting the most polluted river in Australia
15 votes -
Utah officials sued over failure to save Great Salt Lake: ‘Trying to avert disaster’
23 votes -
China's ancient water pipe networks show they were a communal effort with no evidence of a centralized state authority
36 votes -
As Hurricane Idalia caused flooding, some electric vehicles exposed to saltwater caught fire
14 votes -
A mysterious murder in the peyote guardians’ sacred desert
6 votes -
How a Japanese-run wastewater treatment plant in Mexico shamelessly polluted until the site was shut down
7 votes -
“Mating glaciers to replace water lost to climate change”
14 votes -
US President Joe Biden: Don't give Wall Street control of our public water systems
New advisory report pushes disastrous privatization schemes Link to the article This week, President Biden’s National Infrastructure Advisory Council issued a report recommending the privatization...
New advisory report pushes disastrous privatization schemes
This week, President Biden’s National Infrastructure Advisory Council issued a report recommending the privatization of the nation’s water systems.
The chair of the advisory council is the CEO of Global Infrastructure Partners, an infrastructure investment bank with an estimated $100 billion in assets under management that targets energy, transportation, digital and water infrastructure.
The report recommends, among other things, that the federal government “[r]emove barriers to privatization, concessions, and other nontraditional models of funding community water systems,” and open up all federal grant programs to support privatized utilities.
Food & Water Watch Public Water for All Campaign Director Mary Grant issued the following response:
Water privatization is a terrible idea. President Biden should have never appointed an investment banker to chair an advisory council for the nation’s infrastructure. Wall Street wants to take control of the nation’s public water systems to wring profits from communities that are already struggling with unaffordable water bills and toxic water.
Privatization would deepen the nation’s water crises, leading to higher water bills and less accountable and transparent services. Privately owned water systems charge 59 percent more than local government systems, and private ownership is the single largest factor associated with higher water bills — more than aging infrastructure or drought.
Instead of relying on Wall Street advisers, President Biden should support policies that will truly help communities by asking Congress to pass the Water Affordability, Transparency, Equity and Reliability (WATER) Act (HR 1729, S 938). After decades of federal austerity for water, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was a step forward, but it provided only about seven percent of the identified needs of our water systems. The WATER Act would fully restore the federal commitment to safe water by providing a permanent source of federal funding at the level that our water and wastewater systems need to ensure safe, clean and affordable public water for all.
Certain resources/commodities/services like water, food, electricity and health should remain in public domain. I don't understand the askance that is associated with this view.
Once these fall to the profiteering domain, we will be sucked dry and forced to accept abnormal standards as normal to gain access to these which in first place should be in public domain protected in public interest by public representatives.
These resources will be and are used by IMF and sister organisations that are usually called "banks" as leverage to get their debts serviced or sold as AAA+ securities.
They tried that with real estate but that burst since a physical house doesn't just disappear which leads to emergence of derelict patches within the estates. This would certainly destroy the demand and the dead estate would translate into toxic securities by just being there and not disappearing. Similarly things that are too volatile will also not be accepted as essential by the public as was the case with electronics/net. So that's not worth it.
But what if the resource or commodity is essential, which means it has sustained demand, as well as it is volatile enough which means it vanishes after its monetary utility. Now that's "gold". Theoretically its value will not only be retained but it may even increase with no downside. Perpetual profitability.
55 votes -
America is using up its groundwater like there’s no tomorrow: Overuse is draining and damaging aquifers nationwide
48 votes -
The indigenous groups fighting against the quest for 'white gold' in South America
11 votes -
Taliban bringing water to Afghanistan’s parched plains via massive canal
32 votes -
A state official refused to release water for West Maui fires until it was too late
27 votes -
Recorded interview with Hawaiian indigenous community leader re the fires, ecology, climate change, water, history, politics, culture and current needs
13 votes -
Judge rules in favor of Oklahoma against big chicken producers in poultry-pollution lawsuit
17 votes -
Global mass of buoyant marine plastics dominated by large long-lived debris
6 votes -
Chemical companies’ PFAS payouts are huge – but the problem is even bigger
11 votes -
Greenland's largest glacial floating ice declined 42% due to global warming, scientists determine
16 votes -
Thames Water is considering measures to cut down the water used by some UK datacenters, including fitting flow restrictors or charging operators more at peak times
16 votes -
Paris olympics swimming events to be held in cleaned up river Seine, public swimming to become legal
13 votes -
What's in the subway water that drips on your head? A semi-scientific inquiry.
28 votes -
How “Big Ag” pollutes America’s water, and makes money doing it
13 votes -
How California’s weather catastrophe turned into a miracle
20 votes -
Solar panels on water canals seem like a no-brainer. So why aren’t they widespread?
32 votes -
Germany's MAN Energy Solutions installs world's largest seawater CO2 heat pump for district heating at the port of Esbjerg, Denmark
7 votes -
Atmospheric rivers can cause catastrophic flooding and landslides but are crucial for water supply. In an era of increasing whiplash between flood and drought, can we learn to embrace the rains?
5 votes -
Ghost town disappears as California lake fills for first time in years
19 votes -
‘An insane amount of water’: What climate change means for California’s biggest dairy district
14 votes -
Meltwater is hydro-fracking Greenland's ice sheet through millions of hairline cracks – destabilizing its internal structure
10 votes -
Interview with computer science professor Shaolei Ren about the environmental impact of artificial intelligence
https://themarkup.org/hello-world/2023/07/08/ai-environmental-equity-its-not-easy-being-green A few months ago, I spoke with Shaolei Ren, as associate professor of computer science at University...
https://themarkup.org/hello-world/2023/07/08/ai-environmental-equity-its-not-easy-being-green
A few months ago, I spoke with Shaolei Ren, as associate professor of computer science at University of California, Riverside, and his team about their research into the secret water footprint of AI. Recently, Ren and his team studied how AI’s environmental costs are often disproportionately higher in some regions than others, so I spoke with him again to dig into those findings.
His team, which includes UC Riverside Ph.D. candidates Pengfei Li and Jianyi Yang, and Adam Wierman, a professor in the Department of Computing and Mathematical Sciences (CMS) at the California Institute of Technology, looked into a path toward more equitable AI through what they call “geographical load balancing.” Specifically, this approach attempts to “explicitly address AI’s environmental impacts on the most disadvantaged regions.”
Ren and I talked about why it’s not easy being green and what tangible steps cloud service providers and app developers could take to reduce their environmental footprint.
4 votes -
Measuring the amount of lead (Pb) consumed when drinking from lead crystal glassware. Is it safe?
5 votes -
We made an epic fireworks display to explain the science of fireworks
8 votes -
Study says drinking water from nearly half of US faucets contains potentially harmful chemicals
49 votes -
Why is desalination so difficult? An overview of seawater desalination: Removing salt to make drinkable water from the ocean.
15 votes -
Spanish authorities are seeking €90 Million in damages from a Swedish mining company for a major toxic spill near the famed Doñana National Park in 1998
11 votes -
We might have accidentally killed any life we collected in samples on Mars nearly fifty years ago
43 votes -
Fukushima contaminated water set to be released into the ocean
13 votes -
Humans have used enough groundwater to shift Earth’s tilt
9 votes -
Supreme Court rules 5-4 against Navajo Nation, stating that United States has no "duty" to "supply tribes with adequate water"
73 votes -
Rampant groundwater pumping has changed the tilt of Earth’s axis
34 votes -
The crop that’s sucking the Colorado River dry: Hay swallows triple the water used by everyone in the region to shower, water lawns, and do laundry
34 votes -
Who here knows about water softeners?
I’m building a new home and we have hard water around here. I want to save our brand new plumbing and fixtures from being loaded up with deposits from day one. I’ve never used a water softener...
I’m building a new home and we have hard water around here. I want to save our brand new plumbing and fixtures from being loaded up with deposits from day one. I’ve never used a water softener before. What’s the best route to go?
10 votes -
The Huussi toilet in Finland's pavilion at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale disposes of waste without any water
7 votes -
Patagonia helps Samsung redesign washing machines to help reduce microfiber pollution
46 votes -
Feeding a Greek Hoplite - Ancient rations
21 votes