Los Angeles Rainwater Harvesting, Hook It Up!

Angelenos sure welcome any rainfall we can get, especially in this heat. Why not harvest every raindrop, reuse and strategically direct that rainwater to save potable water costs and local water quality? We need all the forward-thinking solutions possible as LA County still has worst water quality in the state.

Here's a solution and a fabulous way to get ready for the season ahead: enroll in the City of LA's new, first-of-its-kind free Rainwater Harvesting Program.

Thanks to the City's new water-conservation initiative (hooray!) and a grant from the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission, Los Angeleno property owners or businesses in the pilot communities Mar Vista, Sawtelle and Jefferson can get hooked up with a free rain barrel plus installation or a free downspout disconnect. I wish this was happening in my hood too! Certainly this promising news could set important future standards for Southern California.

Join your community in this exciting momentum towards sustainable LA living and help spread the good word. Be one of the 600 lucky ones to participate in the pilot by signing up at LA Rainwater Harvesting Program or by calling 562.597.0205.

Resource depletion

How Long Will Our World Last?

"Most people get worried about how much energy reserves we have left, but as this graphic shows, that's the least of our problems. The real problem is the materials we use to make things.

Energy could be harnessed from eternal sources, like the sun, the wind, or the seas. But there is only a limited amount of elements in planet Earth and—what's worst—bringing them from other planets will prove impractical with our current technology (and the technology that will be available in the next century).

In the meantime, copper—which is everywhere around you—will be gone in about 61 years; antimony—widely used in medicines—will be depleted in 20 years; while indium, rhodium, platinum, or silver—which are present in many essential consumer electronics—won't last much longer. And those estimations are only valid if we manage to consume half of what we are consuming now.

So, unless we really push technology forward, dramatically increase our recycling rhythm, or something extraordinary happens first—like Apophis obliterating us or the Large Hadron Collider blows us to another dimension, or Nazi zombies getting out of their crypts to make bacon of all of us—we and our children are going to have a really hard time pushing the world forward.

I guess we will have to keep taking life one weekend at a time. "

[via Gizmodo]