Scott Harrison, the founder of charity:water, is always working on new creative ways to raise awareness about water issues. In February, Scott teamed up with twitter to organize a Twestival: the first ever world-wide festival organized through Twitter! Over 200 cities hosted the event and collectively raised $250,000 for charity: water. This money will be used to complete 55 water projects in Ethiopia, India, and Uganda.

His latest act of unbridled creativity included an exhibition of photographs in NYC's Chelsea Market. Scott prominently placed various photographs of kids holding bottles of contaminated water and juxtaposing them with kids drinking clean water. A simple comparison, yet it speaks volumes about the situation of millions and what we can do to help!

Yellow canisters are strewn about to show what kind of containers people in Africa use when they walk for miles to a water source. These containers double as donation boxes and all proceeds will go directly to water projects! A wishing well is also part of the ensemble and passersby can drop in a coin or two, make a wish, a help bring clean drinking water to communities.

Btw, did you know it's world water week? This whole week we will be blogging and featuring awesome water-related happenings around the world.

Posted by David Zetland at http://aguanomics.com/

Water Chats -- McCloud

I met with Debra Anderson and Brian Stewart in McCloud, a small "town" just east of Mt. Shasta.

McCloud is blessed with an amazing water supply: Water springs flow straight from the ground, gushing more clean, cold, volcanically-enhanced (!) water than the community can ever hope to drink.

And that's the problem...

Nestle wants to bottle that water and sell it to people elsewhere in the State.

Well -- the problem is NOT that Nestle wants to bottle the water but the terms under which Nestle wants to do so [Prior posts].

Debra, who is president of the McCloud Watershed Council, spoke with a mixture of concern and outrage over the handling of McCloud's water -- worrying that the local population is too enamoured of a deal that promises the "good old days" [i.e., the company town security that the saw mill provided] and/or has not considered how Nestle may choose to interpret a contract [here] that gives it a lot of leeway.

Brian is involved in local politics but spoke as a "general member of the public."

Listen to our one-hour and six minute [23MB MP3] chat to learn more about how a community of 1,200 people reconciles political, economic and environmental concerns as it tries to maintain and improve its quality of life. [By amazing coincidence, a caller asked about McCloud when I was on KALW a few days later. I was very happy to have enough knowledge to answer his question.]

Bottom Line: There are costs and benefits to every decision, and McCloud's people are wrestling with a decision that could enhance or destroy their way of life.

Last week, California’s Governator Schwarzenegger declared a statewide environmental emergency. This is the third consecutive year California has experienced a drought. Some counties have already decided that water rationing is the best option. The Governor is still only ‘threatening’ with water rationing. He has asked everyone living in cities to reduce water use by 20%. It is very difficult to gage how much of one's water usage is 20%. We need some serious changes, soon!

Watch the announcement here.

5 Reasons why this problem sucks for CA residents:

1. No more “Singing in the Rain” shower performances.

2. Pools can only be refilled with grey water.

3. The entire state is going on a diet since there isn’t enough water to produce food for everyone.

4. No more slip-and-slide birthday parties.

5. Waterman just lost his job.

3 Reasons why this problem rocks for CA residents:

1. The state plans to expand public utilities projects

2. and hence jobs will be created

3. People will finally start caring about this precious resource

Drought is a really serious problem that will impact food production, employment and the livelihoods of entire communities.

The first Twestival (twitter festival) ever will take place on February 12 to help raise money for charity: water. Over 100 cities will be hosting a Twestival which means there is a good chance that one of them will be in your city!

The idea is to mobilize caring citizens across the world for a worthy cause! All proceeds will go directly to charity: water projects. It takes about $ 4,000 to drill a well and provide a community with clean drinking water. Please, be part of the solution and support Twestival in your city.

Visit http://twestival.com/ to see if Twestival is coming to your city.

Scott Harrison is the founder of charity: water and also happens to be quite cute! He started charity: water 2.5 years ago and has since provided more than 600,000 people with clean drinking water. Check him out!

There is also a contest to design the offical Twestival t-shirt. For details, check out http://desiredhearts.com/twestival/.

The most ambitious environmental project of the new year is being built right here in San Francisco! David de Rothschild is assembling a boat from water bottles and other recycled materials. David is a huge environmentalist, heir to a banking fortune, founder of Adventure Ecology and, according to “earthfirst,” the number one green hottie (my colleague Lauren agrees). He’s been all over the world on his quest to bring attention to environmental devastation.

His plan is to set out sail in March from the SF bay and make his way across the Pacific Ocean to Australia. He will make several stops to document the environmental impact of nuclear waste, garbage, and global warming. The first leg of his journey, and the most interesting part to me, will be through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This patch is located right above Hawaii, it's the size of Texas and contains millions of tones of garbage. The currents pick up trash thrown into water and carry it to this area where it has been accumulating and growing for a while. The decomposing materials are dangerous for marine life and many animals like turtles swallow this garbage and choke.

I’m glad David agrees that bottled water is a waste of resources and super damaging to the environment. How many Texas sized garbage patches will it take before we start making real changes?