Green, Environment News 14 February 2018

 

A round-up of this week’s environmental, green and ecofriendly news and updates.

 

 

I’ve been travelling over the past couple of weeks, part business, part pleasure. As I write this, I’m in the beautiful city of Cape Town in South Africa. It is in my opinion, one of the most beautiful cities in the world. There is magnificent Table Mountain on one side, and beautiful beaches on the other. There are fabulous restaurants, friendly people, great sightseeing and loads of history.

But there’s a problem. The city is running out of water. There is a very well-done publicity campaign – the city needs to drastically reduce water usage. Because if it doesn’t, the taps will run dry on April 12 – and that’s not far away.

It hits you as soon as you land at Cape Town Airport – if you visit the restrooms, the toilets flush (thank goodness!) but the washbasins are dry – you use water-less hand sanitizers instead.

It’s really interesting, seeing how people are dealing with the situation. People are being good about not flushing toilets until they really have to. There are buckets in the showers (even in the posh hotels) to collect the water that would otherwise go down the drain. That water gets re-used for cleaning or flushing. You wet yourself, then switch off the water to lather up your hair and soap yourself, then turn on the taps again to rinse.

Hotels are no longer changing bed linen as frequently – I’m here for 7 days and the linen will stay the same. That’s great – it not only saves water for laundry, but there’s also less detergent going into the drains. It’s great to see how much water you can save when you really try.

save water with an aeratorBut of course industry still needs water, and so do hospitals and emergency services. Hotels are seeing many cancellations due to the bad publicity – and CapeTown relies heavily on tourism. And people are buying bottled water – lots of it. And we all know how lousy bottled water is for the environment.

But the water reduction campaign seems to be working. “Zero Day” as it’s called (the day the taps run dry), has been pushed back from April 12 to May 11, due to individuals doing their bit, and also the agricultural sector reducing their use.

water privatization dropIt rained the other night – not a lot, but some – and everyone was delighted. People were out in the street, smiles everywhere.  It’s really wonderful to see how everyone has been pulling together, and really trying to conserve our precious resource.

But it’s a sobering reminder of how much we take water and other resources for granted. If Cape Town runs out of water (and if there’s no decent rain soon, it’s still likely to happen), it will be the first major city in the world to run dry. People will need to stand in queues (lines) to get a daily ration of water. And if that isn’t available, there could easily be riots and violence – after all, we can’t live without water.


 

When it’s cold outside and you need to drive somewhere, your car’s engine needs to warm up.

What’s the best way to do that?

Should you idle your car, or drive off straight away?

And what about diesel or hybrid cars? Here’s what you need to know.

 


 

ecofriendly thanksgiving say I love youHappy Valentine’s Day!

If you’re buying gifts, make sure they’re eco friendly and kind to the planet.

See my Recommendation of the Week in last week’s newsletter for great suggestions!


 

scotch broth or barley soup recipeComfort food – aahhh, lovely!

See my recipe for traditional barley soup (aka Scotch Broth) – and find out its connection to a traditional Irish cottage, here.

 


 

Global Green News:

As I’m in Cape Town, I was fascinated to read that the Cape region could become a desert in the not-too-distant future. Rainfall has always been unreliable, but climate change is making it worse.

The area produces most of South Africa’s wine, as well as large amounts of agricultural crops.

There are many parallels with California.

US Green News:

protect species to avoid 6th mass extinctionSouth Africa is an incredibly beautiful and vibrant country which offers fabulous wildlife safaris. Sadly, it also offers “canned hunting” – captive-bred lions put into a fenced-off area for trophy-hunters to kill. It’s ghastly. Most customers are Americans who pay a lot of money to come to Africa and kill for a trophy in the shortest time possible with no danger and little effort.

Now, the world’s largest hunting club, Safari Club International (SCI) will no longer allow captive-bred lion operators to advertise or market at its annual convention. Many other US hunting groups have also banned advertising for canned hunting. Hooray! This should help reduce demand for this horrible practice.


 

What do you think? Let me know in the comments below.

Please spread the Green word and share this info.

And if you’re on Twitter, get a daily green tip by following me – @EcoExpert1 . See you there!


Tags

climate change, eco friendly news, ecofriendly, environment news, green, Green News


  • If only some people would try some of these water saving tips especially in the shower, rain water containers etc and especially stop using a hose to clean their drives we could save so much water. Well done as always.

    • Thanks Kathy, and I agree with you, we can all save more water than we do – and like you, it really annoys me when I see people using a hose instead of brush or broom to clean pathways, grrr!

  • I follow some bloggers that live in Capetown and it seems that many are doing what they can and many more affluent people seem to think it doesn’t apply to them. Many are still wasting water. Even here in rainy Portland, Oregon, we are working on being conservative with our water. Again, it’s those that are conscientious. The rest go merrily about their way and remain oblivious, for now. We’ve had very little moisture this year in comparison to years before so I am quite concerned here as well. Thanks for the update.

    • That’s absolutely right Marlene – aerial views of the more affluent areas of Cape Town certainly show green and lush gardens. Perhaps they have their own boreholes as a source of water or collect rainwater – or perhaps they just don’t care. Interestingly, it’s not just the wealthy, it’s also the very poor who aren’t all participating in the water reduction campaign. But for different reasons. So yes, it’s left up to the conscientious, as you say.

      Gosh, how incredible that Portland hasn’t had as much rain as usual. And I’m guessing that there isn’t a lot of water storage capacity in Oregon, because it hasn’t been needed so much in the past. So many of our assumptions and infrastructure planning are needing to change now due to climate change. Thanks for letting me know, that’s interesting!

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