Four weeks doesn’t sound like a long time, but by making small changes every day for a month you will be able to tackle the task of Going Green with ease.

WEEK 1

Day 1: Start with you paper.

While there are many household items you can recycle, start with a commonly used material. Recycling paper is easy because it does not require anything much else but sorting. Simply contact Mondy Paper Pick-up and find out more about their paper pickup scheme.

Day 2: Bring your own bag.

Elimination the need for plastic shopping bags is a great way to reduce waste and will save you money. There is no need to buy one of those reusable bags that the shops have for sale, as you probably have a suitable bag at home already.

Day 3: Turn of the tap.

Make sure that all your taps completely close every time you use them. Leaking taps waste litres and litres of water unnecessarily. Change your habits and don’t let taps run in the bathroom, while you are brushing your teeth, shaving or in the kitchen, when preparing food.

Day 4: Eliminate paper/plastic cups from your life.

Have your favourite coffee mug or reusable water bottle on hand at all times. Use these instead of paper/plastic cups and reduce the amount of waste you produce.

Day 5: Walk

Fin at least one neighbourhood destination you can travel to on foot. This will help you save petrol and the environment by walking there instead of firing up you ‘petrol guzzler’.

Day 6: Switch it off.

When you leave for work in the morning or a night on the town, save money and energy by turning off your non-essential lights. Also turn off lights when leaving a room, placing reminders on your light switches can help you remember until you get into the habit of doing so.

Day 7: Dine in.

If you frequently eat out or get take aways try to cut back at least one or two meals out of the week. Preparing your own food reduces food container waste immensely.

Why not let your rainwater harvesting system pay for itself?
By using your harvested rain water instead of municipal water, you not only save money on your water bill but also on your sewerage costs. Municipalities charge for sewerage based only on the volume (number of kilolitres) of water that you consume. You are charged for the amount of water that has run through the water meter and the same goes for your sewerage charge. If less water runs through your meter and rather from your full water tank, the lower your water AND sewerage charge will be.
What to do with all that rainwater in your tank?
• Pump it through your whole household
• Toilet flushing
• Laundry washing machine

The installation can be as simple as a pump connected to the tank and a brass tap to connect your hose to. You can then use rain water for irrigation or to wash the car.
A better installation of course will be our Grand Opus installation. If you connect it to your toilets, you can save even more water by installing a Water Rhapsody Multi-Flush system.
It is not a romantic notion to harvest rainwater, but a noble cause if you use that water instead of municipality water.

How the average capacity of dams is calculated:
Each dam has a full supply capacity expressed as a volume in Mega liters (Ml). The percentages that are reported weekly represent the volume of water left in each dam, expressed as a percentage of that particular dam’s full volume.
The volume for each dam is different. One cannot add up the percentages and divide by five.
The volume left in all the dams (example 96 906 Ml) is then expressed as a percentage of the total volume (277 401 Ml) if all the dams were full. Therefore 96 906 Ml divided by 277 401 Ml gives 34.93%.

Have your rainwater harvesting system installed by Water Rhapsody and become independent of supply dams. Contact us for a quotation.

This is the content of a short speech given on Friday night in Cape Town by Lewis Gordon Pugh OIG (a.k.a. the Human Polar Bear) about the proposed fracking for gas in the Karoo, by Shell.

He received a sustained standing ovation !

Ladies and gentlemen, thank for the opportunity to address you. My name is Lewis Pugh.

This evening, I want to take you back to the early 1990′s in this country.  You may remember them well. Nelson Mandela had been released. There was euphoria in the air. However, there was also widespread violence and deep fear. This country teetered on the brink of a civil war. But somehow, somehow, we averted it. It was a miracle!

And it happened because we had incredible leaders. Leaders who sought calm..  Leaders who had vision. So in spite of all the violence, they sat down and negotiated a New Constitution.

I will never forget holding the Constitution in my hands for the first time.

I was a young law student at the University of Cape Town. This was the cement that brought peace to our land. This was the document, which held our country together. The rights contained herein, made us one.

I remember thinking to myself – never again will the Rights of South Africans be trampled upon.

Now every one of us – every man and every women – black, white, coloured, Indian, believer and non believer – has the right to vote. We all have the Right to Life. And our children have the right to a basic education. These rights are enshrined in our Constitution.

These rights were the dreams of Oliver Tambo. These rights were the dreams of Nelson Mandela. These rights were the dreams of Mahatma Gandhi, of Desmond Tutu and of Molly Blackburn. These rights were our dreams.

People fought – and died – so that we could enjoy these rights today.

Also enshrined in our Constitution, is the Right to a Healthy Environment and the Right to Water. Our Constitution states that we have the Right to have our environment protected for the benefit of our generation and for the benefit of future generations.

Fellow South Africans, let us not dishonour these rights. Let us not dishonour those men and women who fought and died for these rights. Let us not allow corporate greed to disrespect our Constitution and desecrate our environment.

Never, ever did I think that there would be a debate in this arid country about which was more important – gas or water. We can survive without gas….  We cannot live without water.

If we damage our limited water supply – and fracking will do just that we will have conflict again here in South Africa. Look around the world. Wherever you damage the environment you have conflict.

Fellow South Africans, we have had enough conflict in this land – now is the time for peace.

A few months ago I gave a speech with former President of Costa Rica.  Afterwards I asked him “Mr President, how do you balance the demands of development against the need to protect the environment?” He looked at me and said : “It is not a balancing act. It is a simple business decision. If we cut down our forests in Costa Rica to satisfy a timber company, what will be left for our future?” But he pointed out : “It is also a moral decision. It would be morally wrong to chop down our forests and leave nothing for my children and my grandchildren.”

Ladies and gentlemen, that is what is at stake here today: Our children’s future. And that of our children s children.

There may be gas beneath our ground in the Karoo. But are we prepared to destroy our environment for 5 to 10 years worth of fossil fuel and further damage our climate?

Yes, people will be employed – but for a short while. And when the drilling is over, and Shell have packed their bags and disappeared, then what? Who will be there to clean up? And what jobs will our children be able to eke out?

Now Shell will tell you that their intentions are honourable. That fracking in the Karoo will not damage our environment. That they will not contaminate our precious water. That they will bring jobs to South Africa. That gas is clean and green. And that they will help secure our energy supplies. When I hear this – I have one burning question. Why should we trust them?  Africa is to Shell what the Gulf of Mexico is to BP.

Shell, you have a shocking record here in Africa. Just look at your operations in Nigeria. You have spilt more than 9 million barrels of crude oil into the Niger Delta. That’s twice the amount of oil that BP spilt into the Gulf of Mexico. You were found guilty of bribing Nigerian officials – and to make the case go away in America – you paid an admission of guilt fine of US$48 million.

And to top it all, you stand accused of being complicit in the execution of Nigeria’s leading environmental campaigner – Ken Saro-Wira and 8 other activists. If you were innocent, why did you pay US$15.5 million to the widows and children to settle the case out of Court?

Shell, the path you want us to take us down is not sustainable. I have visited the Arctic for 7 summers in a row. I have seen the tundra thawing.

I have seen the retreating glaciers. And I have seen the melting sea ice.  And I have seen the impact of global warming from the Himalayas all the way down to the low-lying Maldive Islands. Wherever I go – I see it.

Now is the time for change. We cannot drill our way out of the energy crisis. The era of fossil fuels is over. We must invest in renewable energy. And we must not delay!

Shell, we look to the north of our continent and we see how people got tired of political tyranny. We have watched as despots, who have ruled ruthlessly year after year, have been toppled in a matter of weeks.

We too are tired. Tired of corporate tyranny. Tired of your short term, unsustainable practices.

We watched as Dr Ian Player, a game ranger from Natal, and his friends, took on Rio Tinto (one of the biggest mining companies in the world) and won.

And we watched as young activists from across Europe, brought you down to your knees, when you tried to dump an enormous oil rig into the North Sea.

Shell, we do not want our Karoo to become another Niger Delta.

Do not underestimate us. Goliath can be brought down. We are proud of what we have achieved in this young democracy – and we are not about to let your company come in and destroy it.

So let this be a Call to Arms to everyone across South Africa, who is sitting in the shadow of Goliath: Stand up and demand these fundamental human rights promised to you by our Constitution. Use your voices – tweet, blog, petition, rally the weight of your neighbours and of people in power.

Let us speak out from every hilltop. Let us not go quietly into this bleak future.

Let me end off by saying this – You have lit a fire in our bellies, which no man or woman can extinguish. And if we need to, we will take this fight all the way from your petrol pumps to the very highest Court in this land. We will take this fight from the farms and towns of the Karoo to the streets of London and Amsterdam. And we will take this fight to every one of your shareholders. And I have no doubt, that in the end, good will triumph over evil.

Matthew Du Plessis: “Fracking” doesn’t mean what it used to mean. In the good old days, it was a wholesome substitute for an unprintable expletive – used to its highest glory and fullest effect in the television series Battlestar Galactica. Hearing Starbuck curse was an object lesson in the poetry of vloeking. It was from the heart. The new meaning of “fracking” doesn’t come from the heart. Instead, it’s a punch to the gut. The word “fracking” is a convenient abbreviation of the phrase “hydraulic fracture”. I’ll tell you more about that in a second.

First, let me set the scene. Picture, if you will, the Groot Karoo. Graaff Reinet. Ostrich territory. Dusty, scrub-covered terrain. Angora goats. Sheep. Boreholes. All right. Now hold that image as you cast your mind halfway around the world to where Big Energy has turned its attention from the PR disaster in which oil is engulfed, to the relatively unexplored miracle of natural gas.  Until recently, it was very difficult to get to, but new drilling methods are able to clear a way down.

“Hydraulic fracturing” involves injecting vast amounts of chemically treated water into the cavities created in the drilling process, the pressure of which then fractures the rock formations around it, allowing the gas trapped in the shale to be harvested.

It turns out that many of the land owners who have leased their property out for this process are having a bit of a rough time. Sure, the actual equipment is about the size of a small van – hardly takes up any space at all. But it squirts some apparently rather dodgy chemicals into the ground. Which trickles down into the groundwater – and if the land is serviced by boreholes… well, you can imagine.

But if you can’t, the documentary film Gasland shows footage of people turning on the taps in their home, letting the water flow, and then bringing a lit match near to the running water. Have you ever seen running water, coming out of a tap, catching fire? Watch Gasland. In some instances, we’re talking fireballs.

In the film there’s also footage of farm and domestic animals with hair falling out, testimony from families who have developed serious and chronic illnesses, and energy executives insisting that there’s nothing wrong with the water – yet in the same breath refusing to drink any of it. Of course, the companies involved in the fracking deny there’s any risk to the public. They’ve got studies to prove the chemicals they use cause no harm to the water, the environment or to humans.

Our Karoo. Which lies atop a vast – and evidently gassy – shale formation. They’re lining up for it! Shell International and oil and gas company Falcon already have a licence to scout for gas. And potentially flood the Karoo’s groundwater with tasty chemicals.

Radio Interview on SAFM 104 – 107 with Karabo  14hr30. 18 January 2011

TRANSCRIPT NOT VERBATIM

Are we doing enough to control flooding?  On the line we have Jeremy the founder of Water Rhapsody.  Welcome Jeremy, are we doing enough to control flooding?

J Flooding should not be seen as a bad thing.  Water that reaches the sea from rivers is not wasted water.  Estuaries need floods to be able to function as estuaries. Rivers need to have the mouths to the sea scoured from flooding which makes a flood a good thing.  Estuaries are places where sea fish swim during floods to breed and spawn to procreate more, and because of over extraction of water from rivers, there is between three and four percent of fish left in the sea that there was 100 years ago.   Dam building has been the reason for over extraction.  Remember that a river is a biosphere, which is the maximum number of eco systems.  As soon as water rain falls on roofs, this water runs to streets and the combined water into a river.  The engineers in their wisdom then build a canal to get the flood water from one place to another as rapidly as possible moving the problem which moves the problem from one place to another, and in so doing deliver this water directly into the sea instead of an estuary.  This kills all frogs, fish shell fish etc, and any birds and other animals that live in the biosphere and these all simply go away.

Why are dams built?

J Dams are built for agricultural irrigation and for use by humans in cities.  I am not in favour of dam building as a means of flood control.  Dam building only makes losses worse.  During periods of normal rainfall over perhaps ten or so years, the minor floods are controlled by dams.  Then up comes a 20 or 50 year flood, and the dam makes no difference.  In the mean time people have settled on the banks of the river, and so the rule should apply, that you should not build on a flood plain. In South Africa there are no more places to build dams.  We are dammed out.  Dams are not necessarily the way to go to augment supply.  There are other ways to augment supply, and to control flooding.

So Jeremy what are the methods to augment supply and control flooding?

J Well if everyone harvested rainwater, and roads were made Porous, then the flood water flowing from roofs would run into rain tanks, and people would be able to draw on this water during the rainy season pumped into houses so that they need not draw on municipal water and have an emergency feed at all times.

It would not be a popular decision to do away with roads?

J I did not mean that we should do away with roads, but I said to build roads in such a way that they are porous, in that the water that falls on roads should not run off, but go through the road and into the water table. With just these two, city flooding would be controlled.

Stored water in rain tanks, surely that would help the poor?

J           I wholeheartedly agree with you.  Everyone should have the chance to harvest rain water to alleviate the plight of the poor.  They too could have insurance against outages.  The outages that exist all over South Africa are as a result of over extraction.  Boreholes are drying up, and they have now collapsed.  If everyone had rain tanks this could not have occurred.

How does the system work?

J Rainwater falling onto roofs falls into gutters, and into downpipes where we sieve the water and introduce this water into a ring main into which all the downpipes are teed, runs into water tanks.  The water is pumped into the house in such a way that when you switch on a tap, the pump starts, and when you switch the tap off the pump stops. Mains water from the municipality is seamlessly introduced to augment the rainwater, so that one never runs out of water.  If like Beaufort west, the water is switched on every 36 hours, one could live normally from the water supplied from the municipality into the tank.

Caller:            Andrew : I agree with everything Jeremy has said.  I have stored 17500 litres of water at my house.

Caller:            Dennis:  Can one drink rain water?

J This is Hobson’s Choice.  If one looks at the quality as in Hartebeespoort where the municipality openly tell you that you may not drink the water and Eastern Cape in the Port Alfred region, where they have bored for water in the dunes, one quickly realizes that the water quality is sea water.  Furthermore if one filters rainwater with a filter from H2O the water is perfectly safe to drink

Out of time; thank you Jeremy for coming on air to tell us about flood control.  Jeremy is the founder of Water Rhapsody, and if you want to get hold of Water Rhapsody their web site is www.waterrhapsody.co.za

The climate of the world varies from one decade to another, and a changing climate is natural and expected. However, there is a concern that the human industrial and development activities of the past two centuries have caused changes over and above natural variation…

What is climate change?

Climate change is the natural cycle through which the earth and its atmosphere are going to accommodate the change in the amount of energy received from the sun. The climate goes through warm and cold periods, taking hundreds of years to complete one cycle. Changes in temperature also influence the rainfall, but the biosphere is able to adapt to a changing climate if these changes take place over centuries. Unfortunately, human intervention is currently causing the climate to change too fast. (Climate models predict that the mean air temperature over South Africa will increase by an estimated 2°C over the next century.) Plants and animals may not be able to adapt as quickly to this rapid climate change as humans can, and therefore the whole ecosystem is in danger.

What causes climate change?

The global climate system is driven by energy from the sun. Several gases in the atmosphere act to trap the energy from the sun, thus warming the earth. These gases are called greenhouse gases and the process is the greenhouse effect. Without this there would be no life on earth. Human activities over the last 200 years, particularly the burning of fossil fuels (oil, coal, natural gas) and the clearing of forests, have increased the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This is likely to lead to more solar radiation being trapped, which in turn will lead to the earth’s surface warming up – called the enhanced greenhouse effect.

How does a changing climate influence South Africa?

Higher temperatures will influence the rainfall, but it is still uncertain how the annual rainfall will change. It could increase in some parts of the country, and decrease in other parts. The following will be influenced the most:
Water resources,Human and animal health,Maize and wheat, Grazing livestock, Forestry, The coastal zone, Fisheries, Biodiversity.

What can we do to slow the process down?

The enhanced greenhouse effect can be slowed down by following two guidelines: (1) Increase sinks and (2) decrease sources of greenhouse gases. A sink is a process which removes greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. For example: growing a tree where one did not previously exist provides a sink for carbon dioxide, because the tree extracts carbon dioxide for photosynthesis. A source is a place or activity from which greenhouse gases are emitted. This can be a process such as coal burning or a location such as cultivated fields.

The Kyoto Protocol

The Kyoto Protocol is a legal instrument that is separate from, but related to the Climate Change Convention. Countries ratifying the Protocol have mainly the following obligations: (1) Developed countries are obliged to ensure that their greenhouse gas emissions do not exceed the amounts assigned to them. (2) Climate change policies must be implemented. (3) Energy efficiency must be enhanced. (4) Emissions in the waste and transport sectors must be limited and/or reduced. (5) Sinks for greenhouse gases must be protected. (6) Market instruments that are counter productive to the aims of the Protocol should be phased out. (7) Sustainable forms of agriculture and relevant research must be promoted. All these activities must be undertaken in such a way that potentially adverse effects on developing countries are minimised.

The future of climate change issues in South Africa are on the moment mainly in the government’s hands. But you as individual and citizen must start to take this up as your responsibility as well. Let us all do our part in changing the situation bit by bit. Start conserving, recycling and re-use. Interesting Literature:

“Serious water shortage in Grahamstown causes some areas  to have access to water only one hour per day. It is especially rural settlement Vukani that are being hit by this the worst.

During a public meeting earlier this week held by The Movement for Unemployed People, it became clear that the only hour water would be available is during the middle of the night. Around 50 people, mostly woman, from the Vukani Location attended the meeting. Prof. Denis Hughes, the Director for Water Research at Rhodes University acted as chairperson for the meeting. Both the Makana Municipality’s municipal manager, Me. Ntombi Baart and Mr. Dabula Njilo, director of Technical and Infrastructural Services were expected to attend the meeting to explain to the public what the state of the situation is, but none showed up.”

Die Burger, 26 Nov’10 – Anna-Karien Otto

Let this not be said from your town one of these days. Try to start changing your lifestyle and think different about water and the usage thereof. Contact Water Rhapsody to give you a quote on greywater re-use, recycling your pool’s backwash water, saving the amount of toilet flushing-water, being prepared to harvest rainwater etc. Do what you can NOW, to help prevent a miserable future for you and our country.