The Future of Water

WATER NEWS

Boil water advisory issued for White Rock & part of South Surrey

August 21st, 2010

Residents of White Rock, BC are being told to boil their water after tests detected a low level of coliform bacteria in the city's water supply. The Fraser Health Authority's David ... More »

Water & Oil
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010
Why is it that the appalling BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has moved us to horrified concern while an ongoing environmental catastrophe of equal consequence, happening in our own back yard, fails to inspire similarly charged emotions and contemplation of our actions as a species?

The Alberta Tar Sands are one gigantic slow motion oil spill, the MOST destructive project on Earth. It seems that because this deliberately perpetrated disaster (which is fuelling the US and Asia while causing cancer and death in Canada) is not a dramatic accident, we allow it to continue almost unnoticed.

Let’s connect the dots.
- A pipeline (Kinder Morgan) currently transports 300,000 barrels of crude oil from Alberta to a port in Burnaby each day.
- The number of ships carrying crude oil out of Port Metro Vancouver has increased by 77% over the last year.
- Oceanographer, Peter Baker, warns there is little room in Vancouver’s port for manoeuvring these huge ships whose draft is so great that they have to enter and exit the harbour on high tide. A spill would spread outward on the tide and become unmanageable.
- Pipelines proposed for carrying oil from Alberta to a port in Kitimat for foreign export would endanger 1000 BC streams and rivers with spills and leaks that are impossible to contain or to clean up.
- These pipelines would increase tanker traffic by 220 tankers per year in BC’s sensitive coastal waters.
- The Harper government has re-written legislation to potentially enable oil drilling off the coast of British Columbia, doubling the risk to our ocean and shorelines.
What kind of culture are we that we numbly observe this organized destruction?
How have our values and intelligence become so degraded that we do not recognize and reverse the unnecessary consequences of this behaviour and the power brokers that mastermind it?
What will it take to prompt us to step up to our role as CREATORS of a healthy and happy world?

Posted in The Future of Water, Vancouver Water
Canadian Rivers Day
Thursday, June 10th, 2010
June 13th is Canadian Rivers Day. Take action for laws that will protect BC from oil spills. In 2010, honouring BC’s watersheds holds particular importance, because BC’s river ecosystems face unimaginable threat. West Coast Environmental Law is calling on British Columbians to stand up for the 1,000+ rivers at risk of harm and devastation from the crude oil pipeline and supertankers project proposed by Enbridge Inc. This proposed pipeline will move tar sands oil across countless rivers and streams in northern BC, from Alberta to Kitimat, to supertankers travelling coastal routes near the delicate estuaries and outlets of numerous rivers on their way to Asian markets.

Federal and provincial regulation cannot prevent oil tanker and pipeline spills and leaks in BC – and they have failed to stop such spills in the past. We need laws that will protect British Columbia’s coastal and inland waters.
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Pine River BC pipeline oil spill, August 2000,  photo courtesy of Wayne Sawchuk
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Consider the recent disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, or the Exxon Valdez closer to home, to comprehend the scale of massive destruction that is possible.

For Canadian Rivers Day please make a donation to West Coast to help ensure that the integrity of BC’s rivers becomes safeguarded through the law.

Enbridge recently filed its application with the National Energy Board (NEB), and it will be reviewed by a joint review panel comprised of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency and the NEB. NEB is made up of a number of people who are appointed by the federal government, primarily representatives from industry. The panel for the Enbridge project has 2 of these permanent members of the NEB sitting on it and one temporary member appointed just for the Enbridge project, a First Nations representative from Ontario with a history in the mining industry.

Statistics show that 99% of the projects submitted to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency have been approved, even if significant adverse environmental and socio-economic effects were found.

On June 21, 2002, Canada’s government issued a proclamation declaring that the second Sunday of June would be celebrated annually as Canadian Rivers Day.

It is time for our government to walk the talk.

The Enbridge pipeline will cross over 1,000 British Columbian streams and rivers, passing through the headwaters of the Fraser, Skeena and Mackenzie watersheds. Potential spills and leaks into our waters will affect communities and wildlife far beyond the point of the rupture; in a river’s fast moving waters, spilled oil is practically impossible to contain or to clean up. For example, the toxic effects of an oil spill into the Fraser river system could be felt for hundreds of kilometres, stretching through at least 77 communities, including 39 First Nations, and ecosystems along the entire length of the Fraser River and into the Pacific Ocean.

Alberta tar sands development ranks as one of the most damaging energy projects on the planet.

And every British Columbian stands to be affected by dirty oil.

Thwarting the expansion of tar sands infrastructure into BC – and thereby constraining Canada’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions – is a top priority at West Coast Environmental Law. We continue to work tirelessly for reforms to environmental assessment law and practice on major development projects such as the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline proposal to transport tar sands oil across Northern BC – and for a permanent, legislative ban on oil tankers on the north coast – to legally ensure that there will be NO TANKERS IN OUR NORTHERN COASTAL WATERS.

This article reproduced courtesy of West Coast Environmental Law

Photo Credits:

Banner Picture: Sakhalin Environment Watch
Skeena River, China Bar: Evan Spellman Earth Light Photography
Pine River Oil Spill: Photo courtesy of Wayne Sawchuk
South Fraser Canyon: Gregory Melle
Map: Courtesy Living Oceans Society

Used under Creative Commons license.
Posted in News & Initiatives, The Future of Water
The Story of Bottled Water – just released
Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010
The Story of Bottled Water – a 7 minute animated film exposing the truth about bottled water has just been released. This short film shows how ‘manufactured demand’ pushes what we don’t need and destroys what we need most. Watch it now – share it with everyone you know.

Posted in News & Initiatives, The Future of Water
Water as Consciousness
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
It is fascinating to consider that the reason your brain is 95% water is because water is the ultimate receiver and carrier of information. A single drop of water can store many terabytes* of information. This suggests that the watery content of your brain makes it a far more powerful information processor than any computer. This thought inspires drinking more water!

Water has memory

Even more fascinating are increasing new revelations that water is the medium of consciousness.

Evidence suggests that the malleable structure of water is far more significant than our preoccupation with its chemistry. The geometric clustering of water molecules are altered by the subtlest of influences. Hundreds of thousands of information panels constitute these geometric structures. They register energetic imprints from substances, activities and the frequency of thought to which water has been exposed. This attribute is sometimes referred to as the ‘memory’ of water.

A remarkable film called Water – the Great Mystery** interviews world class scientists about these fascinating properties of water, one of whom refers to its impressionable structure as the ‘alphabet’ of water.

Human emotions change water

Evidence shows that any substance that contacts water leaves a trace upon it. However, human emotions are the strongest influence. Water constitutes, migrates and interpenetrates everything. All is connected by water. We can change our world, via water, by the conscious use of thought and feeling.

Our ancient traditions of using ‘holy’ water spring from this knowledge. The frequency of prayer corrects the water already inside the body. Water is the information carrier that changes the blood, tissues and reflects the very character of human consciousness.

The Earth, our planetary body, is a giant container of water. It, too, responds to the quality of our thoughts and feelings. Love increases the frequency that imprints upon water.

Primordial intelligence

Interestingly, it is water we seek to determine the presence of life (consciousness!) on other planets. Water brings a pre-existing impulse to life. It creates the structure of DNA and proteins. Every seed and embryo begins in water, the carrier of the biological intelligence that is the determiner and means of change.

Dr. Emoto’s water crystals

Water’s response to human thought have been popularly demonstrated by Dr. Masaru Emoto’s frozen water crystals. These crystals reveal how water structures itself according to the imprint of human thought and activity. Beautiful symmetry occurs when water is exposed to loving and uplifting influence.

Russian physicist demonstrates the influence of human thought on water

Russian physicist, Konstantin Korotkov, has developed a technique using ‘bioelectography’ that can register light emmissions from living things, including water. His instruments ‘see’ biophotons which indicate the health and vitality of the subject from which they emanate, whether it be a human or a drop of water. Korotkov’s studies also show that subtle changes of intention alter the strength and quality of light emissions from humans and water.

Collective intention experiment for water on March 22

Author, Lynne McTaggart, has organised a group of scientists for The Intention Experiment, a series of experiments demonstrating the transformative power of collective intention.

All three of the above researchers are convening at Lake Biwa in Japan on March 22, 2010 (World Water Day) for a Clean Water Experiment. You can join the live experiment here.

Our love and gratitude can transform water – our bodies, our minds, our planet.

*A unit of computer memory or data storage capacity equal to 1,024 gigabytes
** We highly recommend viewing this wonderful 2 hour film on youtube.

Posted in Energizing Water, The Future of Water
Water Footprints – Changing the water/energy connection
Monday, March 15th, 2010
Conventional technologies use water to create energy and energy to move water.

Hydro-electric power is harnessed in British Columbia by the sheer volume and force of water from our mountainous watersheds. Most of the world, however, is not blessed with our rain forests and snow-packed mountains. They use power plants that boil water – lots of it!! Water is turned to steam, which drives turbines, which run generators, which create electricity.

Oil, coal, nuclear and large solar thermal power plants also require cooling – with water!

Depending on the location, no less than one to eighteen gallons of water are needed to deliver one kilowatt hour of power. That’s enough to run an air conditioner for one hour. Producing the energy required to run a laptop requires, on average, about 200 gallons of water a year.

In California, 49 percent of all water withdrawn in the state is used for energy. In turn, about 20 percent of California’s energy consumption is used to redistribute water. No wonder Schwarzenegger likes coming up here…!

Much of this water is returned to rivers or the ocean but not before killing billions of fish and wildlife every year. A huge amount simply evaporates and is lost from the dwindling fresh water supply when it precipitates into the ocean.

Closer to home, billions of gallons of water are being used to extract oil – an archaic method of fuel – from Alberta’s tar sands resulting in the most devastating ecological disaster on our planet.

Bio-fuels also take a tremendous toll, requiring vast amounts of land, toxic chemicals and water to produce.

As we wake up to the consequences of having depended upon these technologies, it is hardly reasonable to expect large corporations like General Electric, that engage in energy production and the exploitation of water resources, to be the drivers of the new consciousness and restorative mechanisms that will be needed to bail us out of our predicament.

New minds are emerging with new science that is superseding the standard models of physics and replacing old energy technologies.

Non-consuming, non-invasive and inexpensive energy alternatives exist and need our support to be developed and utilized.

Individually and collectively, which water-energy consuming habits are we willing to change? Are we ready to be leaders, caretakers for the well-being of our world?

Clearly it will be each of us re-connecting, re-sensitizing our daily touch upon our world that will shift the collective awareness into the healing mode that our planet and human family so desperately need.

Posted in The Future of Water