The Footprint Of Your Bottled Water

First of all here you are a report about the footprint of bottled water consumption: click here. Second, when we buy something I think we should take into account the point of departure of the product so that way the thought would become part of what is called "responsible consumption".

Among the products with an important footprint is not only the bottled water but also off-season fruit. We could say that eating the off-season fruit has become second nature but if we take into account that such fruit has been brought from Equator to Spain for example, that could be something bad as it has surely been brought by plane (a really important machine for generating CO2 emissions). If we speak in general terms, a ship emits 0.002 Kg of CO2 per kilometre and ton transported. The same distance and weight for a train is 0.069, 0.11 for a truck and 2 for the plane. It is, for the same distance a plane pollutes 1000 times more than a ship, I don't know if you get the idea... Because of this I raise, the spanish government plans are focused on promoting the railway network and sea routes. Time will tell.

And speaking about bottled water another question would be: why not using glass bottles as we did some years ago? I don't know if in other countries has happened but here in Spain, a twenty years ago, it was something usual to get a discount for returning an empty glass bottle when you bought a new one (filled up with the product of course). It is true that the majority of the bottled water which is sold is bottled in plastic and because of that we should get in contact with the company which makes the product asking for a change  respect to the bottling. The glass bottles are 100% recyclable, in other words, we could use the same material for ever in practical terms (the quantity of missing material is trivial compared to plastic) and the quantity of energy and material necessary in the process is far less than making plastic bottles. The moral today would be: The more glass-bottled water you use the tinier your footprint will be.

And finally, please, keep in mind this is not an apology for consuming bottled water, keep in mind we should drink tap water but just in case we need to buy bottled water for any reason, be responsible and opt for glass bottles as far as possible of course.

And now a nice story to summarise the impact of plastic bottles on our environment and pockets.

I Want To Be Optimistic...

...but every day it is more difficult.

Not Another Nature Film from WWF on Vimeo.

WWF's Living Planet Report 2010

A Very Interesting Idea: Rerverse Combustion

Have a look at here.

If I Pug Can Do It So You Can Do It

Don't wait for the change, you are the change. The change will come when everyone of us changes.

Thanks Charles for the link.

What's Up With Wind Mills?

Some times people wonder if so many windmill is something good. It seems that some of them don't like that some trees are cut down to put into place those machines or once working kill some birds hitting them with their sails.

Of course, that's not my cup of tea but now I bring up a question: People who think that about wind mills have ever thought about how the oil is extracted from the bottom of the sea? Has any one of them thought about all the dangerous situations from the point of extraction to the point of manufacturing? Oil is a big deal in relation with all the aspects in its handling. Here you are three examples: One, Two and Three. One more thing: How to find oil. I think nobody will think that oil is looked for like water diviners (people with a stick and so on). Nothing to have with that. You have to produce detonations in the bottom of the sea to find oil and... What supposes that? Everybody knows that the sound wave travels in the air at 340 m/s but in the water ir travels at 1400m/s, I think you get it... It becomes a killing wave because several hundred meters around it many animals can be seriously injured even killed (try to speak about that to divers...) . You have one example with cetaceans. Many of them are beached because the wave destroys either their ears or their entrails. And speaking on cetaceans that's not the only problem, they also have to face the sonar of the submarines but this seems to have a near solution. Any way, the ocenas are so big that... Out of sight, out of mind.

Swedish people, as nordic and good observers they are, say that birds become adopted to the wind mills. It seems that there are some reliable studies that confirm the question, thing that very, very probably won't happen with marine fauna and oil related explosions. There's no perfect system to produce energy, at least at the moment, but in general, wind power has more good thigs to offer than bad.

My point of view is that we are living in an age of transition and at the same time of destruction. I think things are not changing at the speed needed and maybe destrucition is ahead. Meanwhile, we have to deal with a mix of sources of energy and wait for what should be the solution: fusion power and hydrogen batteries.

P.S. Take into account that this post was written in January 2007. Some time later, I read that the idea of getting all the energy we need from the sun of the desert could be real but this is staff for another post, don't you think so?. Maybe nanotechnology has the key ;)

Building a Wind Farm Out at Sea

More information here.

Don't drill me guy!!

Thus, speaking of drills, you have to know that in the next years, it is going to get invested nothing else than a little figure: 3.500.000.000€. And you will ask yourself... what for? Only for drilling the Artic. It seems that the Artic hasn't enough problems as to face another one . It likes me...

Along some time, lots of experts say that fusion energy is the future, as it is a clean and inexhaustible energy source. In that way I say that: what are the authorities waiting for more investments and efforts in this type of energy? No much time ago I read in the newspapers that we need, at least, a decade to run the invent. My question is as follows: why not invest the incredible 3.500.000.000€ on fusion energy instead of drilling the artic? I think if we invested that quantity in this type of energy, we could reduce the decade. My father once said: if you want... you can. Nothing else.

Good night.


N.A. I think no spanish people will have been astonished when they read the title. In english the expression or idiom doesn't exist. When you say in spanish that, you are saying to the speaker: stop speaking, don't tell me more silly/annoying things, I'm not interested in. What I wanted was to make a play on words in spanish.