Solutions
Skrivet av Live Earth 23 december, 2009 - 09:35
A women using her water storage tank in Guinnee-Bissau. Photo: Paul Akkerman
Rain falls unto roofs and then runs off. And then? You could catch it and drink it. Any suitable roof surface -- tiles, metal sheets, plastics, but not grass or palm leaf -- can be used to intercept the flow of rainwater and provide a household with high-quality drinking water. Rainwater harvesting systems have been used since antiquity, and examples abound in all the great civilizations throughout history.
Skrivet av Live Earth 21 december, 2009 - 12:02
Every Monday we profile a Dow Live Earth Run for Water partner organization that works toward providing solutions to the nearly 1 billion people who lack access to clean, safe water. To donate to one of these projects, visit liveearth.org/give.
Project WET is an award-winning global non-profit organization celebrating its 25th year in 2009. Since its beginning, Project WET has dedicated itself to the mission of reaching and empowering children, parents, teachers and community members of the world with water education. Project WET achieves its mission by:
Skrivet av Live Earth 15 december, 2009 - 07:30
A team of 5 drilling a well in Bolivia
If you want to make a borehole (the quickest way to make wells), you have two options. The first is hiring a big machine, which will arrive on a truck from the city, and gets the business done in a few hours. For at least $5,000 up to $20,000. Quick, easy, but far from cheap. The second is doing it by hand, using a manual drilling technology. It takes longer, it is heavy work, but it also gets the job done. For about $500. Now there is an interesting difference in price, don't you think?
Of course, manual drilling does not work everywhere. Clay, sand, and compacted sand are ok, but rock or large stones are not ok. But it just happens to be the case that hundreds of millions of people live in areas which have just the right soil types. One such country with the right soil type is Bolivia. It is home to two different manual drilling technologies, the EMAS method (which we will meet in one of the next blogs) and the Baptist method.
Skrivet av Live Earth 14 december, 2009 - 09:10
Every Monday we profile a Dow Live Earth Run for Water partner organization that works toward providing solutions to the nearly 1 billion people who lack access to clean, safe water. To donate to one of these projects, visit liveearth.org/give.
For 20 years, Water.org has been empowering communities in Africa, Central America, and South Asia to meet their own water and sanitation needs. Co-founded in 2009 by Matt Damon and Gary White, Water.org is the result of a combination of WaterPartners, founded in 1990, and H20 Africa.
Skrivet av jgeeslin 9 december, 2009 - 05:00
The massive lack of clean drinking water around the world affects nearly one billion people.
Skrivet av Live Earth 8 december, 2009 - 07:30
Do you like chlorine? I do. Although I might not particularly like the taste of it, it is by far the easiest and cheapest way to disinfect water and make it drinkable, and it probably helped to save more lives than any other single chemical substance on Earth. Using simple techniques, it can be produced and sold locally in developing countries.
In the USA, chlorine began to be widely used as a disinfectant in the early 1900s, and it is credited with playing a key role in increasing Americans' life expectancy from 45 in the early 1900s to about 76 years at present, an increase of 50%. No more cholera, typhoid fever, and dysentery. Today, 98% of all drinking water purification in the USA uses chlorine. Very useful stuff to have around. So what about its use in developing countries?
Skrivet av Andy Sternberg 7 december, 2009 - 14:35
Every Monday we profile a Dow Live Earth Run for Water partner organization that works toward providing solutions to the nearly 1 billion people who lack access to clean, safe water. To donate to one of these projects, visit liveearth.org/give.
Blue Legacy International was founded in late 2008 by Alexandra Cousteau to “tell the story of our Water Planet and shape society’s dialogue to include water as one of the defining issues of our century by illustrating the interconnectedness of all water issues.” A non-profit organization Blue Legacy develops and distributes traditional and new media projects that inspire people to take action on critical water issues in meaningful ways.
Skrivet av jgeeslin 3 december, 2009 - 13:10
Live Earth Run for Water partner Invisible Children launched another powerful program to raise funds and awareness for the children of Uganda affected by this horrendous war. With your help, the Schools for Schools program will help rebuild schools in war-torn northern Uganda.
The program pairs participating schools to a “cluster” or a group of schools working to raise money for a specific school in northern Uganda. As of today they have raised over $260,000 and counting!
Skrivet av jgeeslin 2 december, 2009 - 10:30
Video from the forum is now available to watch below
Today the Obama Administration is holding its first-ever Youth Clean Energy Forum with youth leaders from around the country. The event will be hosted at the White House on Wednesday from 4 - 7pm EST, and will also be webcast to young people across the country at here.
Skrivet av Live Earth 30 november, 2009 - 12:36
Say you are a poor farmer in a rural area in a developing country. Then your best bet out of poverty is to make more money. From where? From the field. You need to grow stuff. And because growing things need water, you need access to water. Water is money.
One options is to wait for the rain. It is a stressful option, because the rain might come too late, it might not come at all, or it might come all at once, all of which are bad. The other options is to take control over the water you need. That means getting a pump. What kind of pump? One that is affordable, available, and repairable. Ergonomic, and easy to operate.
