If you insist that bottled water is better than tap, even after you watch this, send me your money and I’ll mail you back my special “Mountain Spring” bottled water.

The Cove is an nominee for best documentary in the upcoming Academy Awards. I received this message from Ric Barry who heads up the campaign to save the dolphins. Donate to the cause. Watch the awards ceremony.

From Ric Barry:

This is a heads-up that our work, as featured in the blockbuster documentary The Cove, will be coming up at the Academy Awards telecast this weekend!

You can watch us vie for the Best Documentary Award on Sunday night March 7th at 8pm Eastern Time (US). The event will also be streaming live online at: www.livestream.com/academyawards

We are beyond excited about what this means to the Save Japan Dolphins Campaign! More than ONE BILLION people are expected to view the Oscars. And the Oscars are the most-watched television show in Japan!

We need to take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to:

* ramp up efforts around the world to press Japan to end the slaughter and stop all sales of poisoned dolphin meat;
* get hundreds of thousands of people in Japan to go see the subtitled version of The Cove. (An Oscar win could ensure that The Cove opens in more theaters, with greater media coverage and pubic impact);
* increase our monitoring of the cove in Taiji, and bring over journalists, celebrities, and members of the public to stand firm against the dolphin killing.

Please give us as generous a contribution as you are able.

I hope you can help me translate the powerful message of The Cove into an end of the dolphin killing in Japan.

Your donations make it possible for me to get back to Japan, and for us to reach out to the hundreds of media outlets that will be focused on the Oscars next Sunday.

You probably won’t see me on the red carpet next Sunday, and I’ve never owned a tuxedo. But I will be there in the auditorium, waiting for that white envelope to be opened for Best Documentary, and knowing what it could mean for the dolphins and people of Japan.

Even if we don’t win, the publicity from being nominated has been huge.

But we do need funds to get our message out to the media, and we need follow-up to get the Japanese version of The Cove movie out in Japan, where it will do the most good.

Please donate and support our efforts to save the dolphins.

I’ve witnessed people in Japan watch this film and learn of our efforts for the first time, and many are as shocked as we are. Most have no idea that the killing is even happening and don’t support it continuing. These people hold the hope for building internal pressure in Japan to stop the slaughter.

Thanks for being part of our historic campaign, for watching and keeping fingers crossed on March 7th, and mostly for your constant help for the dolphins!

Ric O’Barry
Campaign Director
Save Japan Dolphins

P.S. Give what you can today! All of our travel and organizing costs money.

P.P.S. Learn more by going to our blog at savejapandolphins.org/blog.html.

Derek goes “Inside the Bottle” and exposes the billion dollar fib we’re been made to swallow. To learn more visit: www.bottledwaterfreeday.ca

Some people make a business out of getting around the law, regardless of the affect it has on you or your health. The intent of the Clean Water Act is to protect water from getting contaminated. Unfortunately, the act mentions “navigable waterways” which leaves a loophole. That means that companies can dump whatever toxins they want into “non-navigable” waterways, like the Avondale Creek in Alabama. At one time in its history, the creek was probably a great place to swim on a hot southern day. But no more. The McWane Company of Alabama took advantage of the loophole and dumped lead and zinc into this little creek. And because the creek isn’t a “navigable waterway,” the company can truthfully claim on their website that it has:

“implemented environmental practices that in many instances exceed U.S. standards, producing performance that is among the best of the industries in which we operate. McWane strives to improve our performance every day, so that we are part of protecting our environment for generations to come.”

But McWane isn’t the only company. I’m not singling them out. It’s just that they were mentioned in the New York Times today. There are lots others, do you know of any in your area.

The Clean Water Act needs to be fixed to eliminate the loopholes. The act confuses the Supreme Court as to what water is protected exactly. You or I could probably figure this out, even without a law degree. But the law is all about wording!

Read Rulings Restrict Clean Water Act, Foiling E.P.A. from the New York Times. Then take action to get your representatives to fix the act.

If you drink bottled water, you might be concerned with the composition of the plastic bottle that the water comes in. The Straight Dope has a great article you should read: What’s up with compostable plastics?

An excerpt from the article:

So what’s compostable plastic good for? It’s made from a renewable resource, namely corn, but that doesn’t necessarily make it environmentally friendly. Writing in Scientific American in 2000, Tillman Gerngross and Steven Slater pointed out that manufacturing PLA required more fossil fuels than it takes to make most plastics, canceling out the environmental benefit.

They weren’t completely down on the stuff, though, and pointed out two benefits you might not suspect. First, much of the energy needed to turn corn into plastic could be obtained by burning the stalks and leaves, known as stover, which are normally discarded. Second, they argue, we don’t reallywant PLA to biodegrade — just the opposite. The big push these days is on figuring out ways to sequester carbon so it doesn’t enter the atmosphere as CO2, one of the major greenhouse gases. What better way to do that than grow corn, which sucks CO2 out of the atmosphere, then use the corn to make plastic, which can be buried underground after use?

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying this is accepted scientific advice. But it’s not out of the question that years from now the environmentally responsible thing may be to use all the plant-derived plastic packaging you can and then throw the stuff away.

If you are really concerned, you’ll give up drinking bottled water. Then you won’t have to worry about the origin and future of the plastic bottle.

Thanks to The Wanderer for the pointer to The Straight Dope.

This story, from Inside the Bottle, highlights action taken by students on campuses in Ontario, Canada.

February 22, 2010, OTTAWA –Campus organizers from across Ontario are racing to see whose campus can go bottled water free first. The Ontario Bottled Water Free Campus Challenge is a challenge initiated by more than 20 Ontario campuses that are actively working to restrict bottled water while promoting accessible public water infrastructure on campus.

Over the last 12 months three Canadian campuses—The University of Winnipeg (Manitoba), Memorial University (Newfoundland & Labrador) and Brandon University (Manitoba)—all signed water declarations to end the sale and distribution of bottled water and promote public water on campus. To date no Ontario campus has banned bottled water.

For the rest of the story, go to the Inside the Bottle website.

Kohler—the plumbing fixture company—has pledged to give Habitat for Humanity $1 in products for every quiz taken on its Save Water America site. So far, they’ve donated over $1.5 million dollars worth of water-saving products.

Habitat for Humanity is a non-profit group whose goal is to end poverty housing and homelessness. They build houses in all parts of the world, including the USA. They build and rehab houses which they then sell to partner families for NO profit.

Take the quiz now and help Habitat!

Watch this video. Then go to the One Drop website and make a commitment. You can see what other people like yourself are doing around the world to help solve the global water crisis.

When I read about the Waterpod recently, I thought of Waterworld, a film about life after the flooding caused by global warming. The Waterpod was created to explore sustainable living aboard a floating community. It was floating around Manhattan last year. This video gives a glimpse of life on board. Although there is a Waterpod website, it’s not clear whether this project will sustain itself this year and float to different destinations as it did last year. Help them out! Get them floating again!

Did you ever stay in a hotel that places cards in your room that encourage you to reuse the towels and sheets during your stay? It gives you a warm, fuzzy feeling that your stay is helping the environment. You are saving water! When I walk around such a hotel and see an extraordinary number of lights on—and kept on all night—I wonder whether the hotel is really all that committed to saving the environment. Or is the hotel just trying to attract green customers?

In the 1980’s the term greenwashing was invented to refer to the practice of hotels that promoted linen reuse but did not also have other strategies for recycling. Green is good. Don’t get me wrong. But it is deceptive to spend more money promoting products as green than actually making sure the company is green or that the product itself is green.

That’s one of the reasons why I posted Is Bottled Water Green? some time back. Focusing on whether the bottle itself is better than some other bottle totally misses the point that bottling water is not an environmentally friendly practice to begin with.

Do you have any examples of greenwashing?