Water Wars

by Alyssa Pandolfi, Second Nature Intern

I've come to realize that this No Impact stuff is a lot harder than I anticipated.  Consumption proved to be pretty easy once I curbed my shopping habits.  Taking the T everyday and walking to when possible were things that I already do.  I buy organic, local food and I eat vegetarian, so that takes care of food.  Outside of work, I spend countless "volunteer" hours working with my student group (Husky Energy Action Team - HEAT) to move towards our ultimate goal of climate neutrality for Northeastern University.  However, when it came to yesterday's electricity challenge and today's water challenge, I am finding it a bit harder to lessen my impact.  To start, writing this blog entry is requiring electricity.  In order for our organization to function, we need to use electricity.  To do work for my student group I NEED electricity.  For Colin Beavan to publicize, promote, and further the significance of No Impact Week, he needed to use electricity.  To me, it is important to conserve electricity whenever possible, but renewable energies are the things that we need the most.

Water usage, on the other hand, is something that we can all do our best to try to lessen.  On Tuesday night, I saw a film called Blue Gold:  World Water Wars, which highlighted the problems associated with water privatization and how it will affect the future of global water distribution.  The film was actually frightening--hydrologists are predicting that there will be all out wars over water in the future (not to mention those already occurring, as in Darfur).  Seeing this film and the potential futures that await us, I am definitely motivated to reduce my water usage as much as I can.  For starters, tonight I am going to set my kitchen timer to 5 minutes for my shower.  AH!! Hot showers used to be my winter saviors, but not anymore!  Over the next few weeks (not just for today's "water" theme), I'm going to take a water usage inventory and see what else I can target.