What Does California Water Conservation Have to Do with Swedish Furniture?
- David Beckman
- Senior Attorney & Co-Director, Water Program, Los Angeles
- Blog | About
- Posted September 3, 2009 in Health and the Environment
California's three-year drought has done plenty to shake up the state. Farmers are struggling to bring in their crops, and wildfires are raging in these extra-dry conditions. But the drought is also doing something else to Californians.
It has gotten people thinking about water in new ways.
I have worked on water issues for fifteen years, and never before have I seen so many disparate voices making connections between drought, climate change, and how we use water in our daily lives.
Here's one unlikely source. Last week, the LA Times' had a post by Emily Green in its At Home Blog about what global warming scientists have to say about California's energy and water use. This is a blog devoted to design, architecture, and gardens that usually covers Swedish furniture or bedroom sets that cost a few times more than I make in a month.
But in this installment, Green thoughtfully explored a central way Californians can combat global warming: by cutting down on their water use. To get water to LA taps or garden hoses from way up on Northern California takes an enormous amount of energy--energy that is largely generated by burning fossil fuels. If we reduce the amount of water we use, then we not only adapt to the region's desert climate, but we also reduce global warming pollution.
The LA Times At Home Blog is an example of a new medium bringing climate and conservation tips to a new audience. But old media sources are also getting more in the act.
On Sunday, the Sacramento Bee ran an op-ed I wrote about the enormous opportunity California has to tap into a new source of water: the rainwater that runs off our pavements by the billions of gallons. New construction and landscaping techniques--called low impact development--has the potential to capture this resource and help California adapt to our changing climate.
The drought--and the growing awareness that global warming will only make California drier--is making people open to new ideas. I am glad that conservation, green landscaping, and efficient energy use are among them.
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Comments
Paul Lauenstein — Sep 3 2009 03:47 PM
Good article. Here in "water rich" Massachusetts, a densely populated state that actually receives less rain per capita than Nevada, we are drying up rivers so people can water their lawns.
In my home town of Sharon, we have trimmed our water use from 575 million gallons per year to about 450 mgy over the past four years, helping our environment and saving over $70,000 per year in electricity to pump the wells and chemicals to treat the water.
Emily Green — Sep 3 2009 07:19 PM
What a nice mention, thank you. I can't afford the Swedish bedroom sets either. Some background about environment reporting on water seeping into the Home section blog. I joined the LA Times as a reporter in 1999 and wrote on a number of environment issues, which are archived on my blog www.chanceofrain.com . When the LA Times "Home" section was launched in 2002, I accepted a transfer from a roving reporting beat to the soft furnishings section expressly to write about the environment in a News You Can Use context. The focus of that was almost always water conservation, air and water pollution issues associated with common garden practices and profiles of animals that made my garden more interesting than most trendy restaurant openings. A quirky philosophy within the Home section always accommodated it, though a few passing editors had eccentricity deficits about it. I left the paper in late 2006 to return to straight up environment reporting, but then an old colleague from the Times recruited me back to the blog and back to garden/water writing earlier this year. It's odd, I admit, but not quite as odd as it seems! Thank you so much for the nice mention and may we conservationists turn up in good furnishings, bad furnishings, city dumps... wherever we might possibly do some good. All best, Emily Green
John Humphreys — Sep 4 2009 07:16 AM
When we have the Wall Street Journal blaming the Endangered Species Act and the lowly smelt for drought affecting thousands of farmers, it is good to read a cogent plea for water conservation. We sure are making California a pilot for "Hot, Flat and Crowded"