Las Gaviotas by Gunter Pauli.mp4

Paolo Lugari and his team at Las Gaviotas in Colombia started regenerating the rainforest in 1984. Gunter and Paolo met for the first time that same year. This video offers some insights and background with exclusive video footage presenting the case of Gaviotas by Gunter. This is a prime case of The Blue Economy, zero emissions and social development, working only with what is locally available, generating social capital. For info please look at http://www.zeri.org

Drought-Stricken Aussies Forced To Drink Salt Water

Drought-Stricken Aussies Forced To Drink Salt Water
Source: http://twitter.com/ecosphericblog


In Australia, the world's driest inhabited continent, 10 years of drought has decimated fresh water supplies available on land. As a result, Aussies are turning to the salt water ocean that surrounds them for hope, but success could be costly.

Australia's five largest cities have embarked on a massive $13-billion plan to build desalination plants that can remove the salt from seawater and make it potable (Toronto Sun).

Melboure Water, a utility owned by the Victorian Government, serves a population of over 4 million people, the second most populous city in the country. The utility currently reports that their water storage supplies are at 34 percent.

To address their dwindling supply, Melboure Water has been piloting desalination feasibility experiments for over a year.

Water, water everywhere...

Some Australian residents are angry about the desalination projects, especially because they're already seeing higher utility bills as a result. Environmentalists are concerned that the plants, capable of sucking millions of gallons of seawater from the surrounding oceans every day, require too much energy, and will only accelerate climate change.

With the devastation BP's Gulf oil spill is causing on American shores, there are also concerns about whether it's actually safe to drink desalinated sea water.

Most of the Australian plants utilize reverse osmosis, a method that involves pressurization, filtration and chemical treatment at several stages of the process in order to bring the water up to Australian Drinking Water Guidelines.

A sign of the times?

Just because Australia is a uniquely isolated country doesn't mean their water supply problems won't be mimicked by other nations in the future. Aussie officials are convinced that the decade-long drought was deepend by climate change, and other countries, including the United States and China, are worried that this looming threat might affect their citizens next.

"We consider ourselves the canary in the coal mine for climate change-induced changes to water supply systems," said Ross Young, executive director of the Water Services Association of Australia, told the New York Times. He described the $13.2 billion pricetag as "the cost of adapting to climate change."

Raining In The Main Hollidays In Britain

An observation over 21 years living in Paignton.

Holiday main seasons down comes the rain. It can be dry for weeks on end and as soon as the motorists arrive in their drives the rain arrives. Now it could be a coincidence but it happens too often IMO.

So what changes have occurred that might be responsible for causing it to rain?

1. Sometimes along our particular part of the coast we are privileged to be visited by some unusual clouds rolling along the coastline. They do not cross over the hot dry coastline beyond the black tarmac road. So one side is shrouded in mist, the other side is a bright sunshine day with clear air. This can last for many hours as the mist rolls around like washing in a tumble dryer and is channelled along the coast.
2. Where the trees meet the sea mist rolls inland and hugs the wooded areas but goes no further than the tree line does. Walking in the trees on these particular days the temperature is several degrees below that outside of the trees and the air is saturated with water, the trees are dripping and the ground is moistened.
3. When the mist finally vanishes it remains shrouding the trees and the trees milk the remaining water from the air over several hours more
4. Thermals rising from the hot tarmac road can be seen as you drive along it. You can see the wavy thermal pattern as the heat rises. These thermals rise high into the atmosphere and form an invisible barrier against ocean born humidity. These same thermals cause the same barrier along desert coastlines and are undoubtedly responsible for the inherent lack of rainfall in these areas.
5. Trees transpire vast amounts of water into the atmosphere and in doing so remove the thermal barrier that prevents cloud and mist from crossing onto the land. They lower the temperature and as warm moist air rises it is cooled causing a downdraught which causes warm air to rise in a density flow and indeed this can be seen happening at times when dew point has been reached.
6. The holiday traffic involves a massive increase in vehicles cruising along the hot roads. These obviously provide some shadow and while they are moving along they remain cooled by the moistened air flowing over them from the exhaust emissions of other vehicles so an overall reduction in temperatures due to traffic is offset against the heat generated by the engine and the friction from the transmission, brakes and tyres.
7. The exhaust emissions contain collectively a vast amount of warm water released into the atmosphere along with particles which rise due to the heat from combustion. These gasses quickly cool transferring the heat into the atmosphere and fall back towards the ground while the dry hot air rises again generating the same flow and return system that the trees perform.
8. This additional water from exhausts also blocks out some of the suns energy and like the trees removes the thermal barrier so moisture from the ocean can again cross onto the land and fall as rain, and rain it does with incredible regularity.

So the old adage said to holiday makers with regularity “you have brought the bad weather with you may have a lot of truth in it after all.