Comment

Comment by Tom McLemore on February 3, 2012 at 7:35am

Free beer?!! I'm in...where do I sign up, I already got the T-shirt on order.

In fact we are planning an event in conjunction with the Master Gardener group here in our drought stricken, miss-allocated water, section of Texas. 

BTW the ground and surface water of Texas is quite regulated. The days of pumping everything you can are over.

Comment by Wayne Hall on February 3, 2012 at 7:34am

When you grow up on a sand bank, you appreciate the value of every drop of water. Water conservation is a way of life, every home has a cistern (rainwater tank) and drinking water was only available when Mother Nature gave rain. The village I grew up in was first established in 1785 and even after 200 years there is still no running water (i.e. city water). How many people know how to take a bath with a half gallon of water or can brush their teeth with less than half a cup of water. The joy of a long hot shower is when it rains in the summer and we go outside with the soap.

Aquaponics allows communities like ours to grow food and still conserve water, getting value for every last drop. 

In my books The Aquaponics Gardening Community and The Aquaponics Association rock for taking part in WWD so that as many people, communities, villages, cities and countries will be educated about the value of growing food the "Aquaponic" way. 

Comment by rick kennerly on February 3, 2012 at 7:27am

BTW, thinking of presentations.  Do we have any prepackaged PPTs?  I'd particularly like the Flash products that demonstrate the CHOP2 and barrel ponics process.  I think they're over on one of the AU sites.  

I'm trying to come up with a portable --well, transportable-- booth or demonstration project.   Powerpoints are easier, but things you can touch are better. 

Comment by rick kennerly on February 3, 2012 at 6:39am

Believe me, you don't want me in a t-shirt anymore.  

my greater point, which I really left unsaid, is that the water issues are all interrelated: waste, processing, ag, drinking, delivery.  If you fix waste water processing, you make processing for drinking water easier.  I agree, the topic of UN and waste water are tangents.  

Comment by Gina Cavaliero on February 3, 2012 at 6:31am

Great stuff Meg and Rick!  Be sure to get your t-shirt Rick and represent!  ;-)  We are planning on staging a coup of our Farmer's Market and turning it into a WWD event for the day.  They just don't know it yet.  Lol.  The plan is for a free Aquaponics 101 by Green Acre and other water wise contributions from vendors.  I am thinking we will have some entertainment after the market and possibly free beer.  Save Water, Drink Beer!  Lol!  

Comment by TCLynx on February 3, 2012 at 5:55am

Yea it doesn't really matter here if the UN is good or bad.  The idea of World Water Day and water/food security is really going to become paramount here on this planet and Aquaponics is certainly one of the tools that can help.

I also believe humanure is also a great tool to help but Aquaponics and Humanure should mix directly So we can Leave Joseph Jenkins to organize Humanure events from his own site.

Comment by Meg Stout on February 3, 2012 at 5:44am

LOL (re "THE Meg Stout")

Solving all the Texan/US/World water problems is well beyond my ability. But aquaponics should be part of whatever strategy right-minded people put in place to reduce our vulnerability to whatever pressures might exist - plus it's great fun!

Comment by rick kennerly on February 3, 2012 at 5:34am

THE Meg Stout?  Wow!  

Of course, the UN problem is allocation of scare resources through a nonexistent infrastructure in a drought stricken region to people who have no money, no transportation, and no government.  

I've heard it said that Water is the new Oil.   We're already having water wars in the US.  Should Ag or LA get the water from the Colorado River?  What about Phoenix?  Where I grew up, out in the dry land cotton country of West Texas, the aquifer has been falling for decades.  So everyone is upset that T. Boone Pickens is building a water pipeline from Amarillo to DFW, making the maters worse.   In Texas, you own all the water you can pump from under your land.  They never imagined such a scheme.  
 

Comment by Meg Stout on February 3, 2012 at 5:28am

I've personally been intrigued by the alternative toilet options, but I don't think we want to co-mingle the aquaponics message with the humanure discussion.

Comment by rick kennerly on February 3, 2012 at 5:17am

re: UN.  After decades of failed --and corrupt-- government run water projects, the UN tried commercializing them...in desperation.  However, there are many private water initiatives out there, too.  

Of course, I've always said that the West needed to stop sending missionaries to developing countries and start sending more sanitation engineers.   The Gates foundation started their reinventing the toilet program recently.  Good video on it: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdwvuTrycYU

 

Comment by Meg Stout on February 3, 2012 at 5:15am

Hi Malinda,

Not sure I follow your logic. That may be because I live in Northern Virginia, where municipal water is cheap, it rains adequately (usually), and we are free to collect rain water - even encouraged to do so.

Here in Northern Virginia, my neighbors are so busy commuting to work that they often don't have time to do anything other than go home and eat whatever schlock they get from the supermarket or fast food joint.

If the UN mandated water be given to the people to whom it belongs, what would their basis for that allocation be? If you go to waterfootprint.org, you can see that individuals in the United States consume more than twice as much water per capita as the world average (agricultural products we consume alone account for over 1000 gallons per person per day when rainfall, irrigation, and water pollution are considered). While it's true that we have more water resources than many other nations, 20% of our "water footprint" is outside our borders, something of a water trade imbalance.

If I believe Secretary Clinton (her 2010 world water day remarks are available on youtube), increasing population and climactic shifts will make water even more precious a resource. You and I know how water-wise and beneficial aquaponics can be. For me it hurts to see millions (and billions) of folks moving towards this water-stressed future without even knowing that aquaponics is part of the solution.

So, I've got my T-shirt on order. I've scheduled a presentation set up with my church this month (squeezed it into an "Emergency Preparedness" workshop), I've got an aquaponics workshop on the agenda the last weekend of March for the Home Grown Institute (http://thehomegrowninstitute.org/Home.html), and I've paid for a booth at the Fairfax County Earth Day celebration on April 28th.

Life is good!

Comment by rick kennerly on February 3, 2012 at 5:09am

I don't see it on their calendar yet, somebody dropped out so I'll be giving a class and have a booth at the Sustainable Living Fair 18-19 Feb http://slfhr.com/2012_schedule

Giving a talk on Aquaponics 23 Feb to a PEO group, which usually leads to a series of talks because there are several chapters here http://www.peointernational.org/ 

BTW: we should look at aligning with Heifer International.  Their focus has been on getting breeding stock of domestic animals into the hands of poor people.   With milk goats & cattle, the recipient has to donate the first off-spring to someone else in the community.  They've branched out recently and now do bee hives as well.  My bee group funds several bee hives per year ($35 each), which includes training.  Of course, barrel-ponics with a solar panel for the pump would fit right in to this program.  

http://www.heifer.org/ourwork/our-approach
 

Comment by Sylvia Bernstein on February 2, 2012 at 9:05pm

Malinda, the UN and their event is just a vehicle for spreading the grassroots message that we are trying to spread.  I understand your concerns about the UN, but think of this as an opportunity to join with this community to tell your neighbors about aquaponics, and it's benefits for local communities.

Comment by Malinda Douglass on February 2, 2012 at 8:32pm

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this.  Without a doubt we want to spread the word about aquaponics for the benefit of humankind, but a UN venue doesn't sit well with me.  If the UN really cared about water, they would ban the commercialization of it tomorrow and mandate that it be given back to the people to whom it belongs.  Aquaponics is a precious treasure that deserves to stay nurtured and protected in the grassroots with people who care about their neighbors.  It seems to me that this is the only way it will grow to become all that it can be.  Just my naive and humble opinion.  

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