Entries by Sarah Haughn

London mayor echoes Maathai: City needs to harvest rainwater, plant trees

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LONDON — London, a city wrapped in the humidity of heatwaves and rainfall, is at risk for increased flooding as the globe warms, warns Mayor Boris Johnson. Not only flooding, he says, but also droughts. England has less water per capita than Morroco, reports Reuters. In an attempt to ready England for the onslaught of […]

Nestlé granted permission to drink from Michigan wells

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DETROIT – While most of the world’s glaciers are shrinking, Nestlé’s Ice Mountain continues to expand. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) recently granted Nestlé permission to withdraw water from wells and wetlands in Evart, Michigan. According to The Detroit Free Press, the company will build a pipeline to extract 150 gallons per minute. […]

The secret lives of forests: An interview with Nobel Laureate, Wangari Maathai

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In an interview with Circle of Blue, 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai discusses the crucial role forests play as rainwater harvesters. She emphasizes the importance of taking time to educate communities and governments to understand and care for forests. Maathai is the founder the Green Belt Movement in East Africa. She was the […]

Op-ed: Not a ‘natural’ disaster

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NEW DELHI – The floods India and Nepal have suffered this season need not have wrought such havoc, an editorial in India’s Business Standard declares. Floods, often deemed mistakenly as natural disasters, are the result mostly of human misadventure in the river catchments, and the neglect of water systems. The catastrophe caused by the turbulent […]

Indonesia launches clean water, sanitation campaign

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JAKARTA – In synchrony with the United Nations’ Year of Sanitation, Indonesia is launching a campaign to improve its population’s access to clean water and sanitation, IRIN reports. According to the World Bank, 220 million Indonesians currently live without adequate services. Launched in August, The National Strategy for Community-Based Total Sanitation plans to provide 10,000 […]

Information Flow: Australian Senate Deliberates How to Save Murray-Darling

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In worried response to a rapidly desiccating Murray-Darling river basin, the Australian Senate just approved an inquiry into the availability of current supplies. The inquiry is to report back with options for emergency use in September. Coalition environment spokesman Greg Hunt hopes the push for information also provides resources — whether liquid or paper — […]

Signifying thirst: New anthology explores why water matters

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Social theorists believe that meaning exists in relation, in the exchange of words and images between people. David Elliot Cohen’s new anthology, What Matters, takes this theory to heart — bringing leading photojournalists, scientists and thinkers together to explore and celebrate the ways in which photojournalism moves humanity to care, and to act. Featured in […]

New Energy, Old Dams: Maine to Restore Penobscot River Ecosystem

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OLD TOWN, Maine – The Atlantic Salmon, a species listed as endangered in eight of Maine’s rivers, will soon have fewer migratory hurdles to handle. The Penobscot River Restoration Trust recently announced their decision to purchase three Maine river dams from the PPL Corporation. With the intent to decommission them, many hope the trust’s project […]

Janus-faced Fay brings Florida out of drought

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After nearly two years of alarmingly low water levels, the U.S. Drought Monitor has removed Lake Okeechobee from its list. The lake is at 13.41 feet after Hurricane Fay’s heavy rains, reports CBS4. The lake serves as a potential drinking source for 5 million people in Southern Florida. Sometimes, disaster relieves disaster. This recent July, […]

Colorado River Compact, impact: McCain comment garners criticism upstream

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When presidential hopeful John McCain expressed his opinion that the Colorado River Compact be renegotiated, potential voters reacted with uproar. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, many in the already water-politicked swing state of Colorado worried that the Arizona senator’s comment indicated his desire to redirect the flow of the conversation toward the river’s parched […]

The near future, like tomorrow: An interview with Alex Rivera, director of Sleep Dealer

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During an interview with Circle of Blue, director Alex Rivera discusses his recent film Sleep Dealer. He reflects on the impending future it predicts — a future of water privatization, virtual labor, and corporate surveillance. Science fiction, he believes, is a political genre that can be used to rethink not only resource extraction, but also […]

Irrigation an Irritation as Indians, Nepalis Cope with Monsoon Season

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GUWAHATI, India – This year’s monsoon season in northeastern India and Nepal brings intense flooding, submerging at least one hundred villages and displacing thousands. While the rains irrigate at least 60 percent of India’s agricultural land, they also leave in their path a wake of destruction. In the past month, Reuters reports that over 200 […]