9 hours of travel one way - from taxi to ferry to waiting in line to taxi to waiting and passing from one immigration checkpoint to the next, the village of Njau is nestled far up along the country road on the Northern Bank of The Gambia.

by Sarah at ProgressiveKid

More than half of all Americans drink bottled water and about one-third of the population drinks it regularly (according to the NRDC). So Americans are thirsty. Why is this a problem?

1. What's in the Bottles

One problem has to do with what's in the bottles themselves. The Earth Policy Institute reports that 1.5 million barrels of oil per year, which is enough to fuel 100,000 cars for that same year, are required to satisfy Americans' demand for bottled water. That's because PET, or polyethylene terephthalate, the plastic used in water bottles, is derived from crude oil. And, according to the Earth Policy Institute article "Bottled Water: Pouring Resources Down the Drain," by Emily Arnold and Janet Larsen, this oil is being used to make some 2.7 million tons of plastic each year for bottling water around the globe.

 

The Christian Science Monitor just published a great article on a grassroots approach to climate change called Low Carbon Diet: A 30 Day Program to Lose 5000 Pounds. It’s an illustrated workbook that guides individuals and small groups through a 22-step program to reduce their CO2 footprint. The author, David Gershon, spent a couple of decades researching how to get people to change their behavior concerning the environment—and the conclusion he reached is: if you work with a small peer support group, you are much more likely to actually do something different. (as in, Weight Watchers/AA meets Global Warming). He created a program call “Eco Team” which got a lot of praise for its effectiveness at shifting consumption behavior. Then he created the Low Carbon Diet based on the Eco Team program to specifically tackle climate change. Apparently, they’re getting great results. You can read the Monitor article at: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1228/p14s01-sten.html