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 Water
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Photo: Christian Alexander
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Cape Town Avoids Day Zero, But the Water Woes Aren't Over
Cape Town’s "Day Zero" (the complete running out of water) is likely to be barely averted this year as result of intensive water-saving efforts. Water use has been cut down through cooperation by Capetonians, education efforts and strict enforcement by city officials--a city map used green lights to highlight households that met the targets and, controversially, expose those that did not. Cape Town's efforts have served as a model for other Mediterranean cities with drought problems such as Brisbane, Australia, and Los Angeles. In addition to water reduction efforts, the city is determined to go even further to manage its water.
As Earther noted, that while the city received 98 percent of its water from a system of mountain dams, "Cape Town is now turning to the area’s significant underground aquifers. But as local municipalities are moving ahead with drilling, ecologists and environmentalists are concerned that the city’s current plans put both the unique biodiversity of the region and the aquifer’s long-term sustainability at risk." City documents reflect a plan to extract a combined 120 megalitres (32 million gallons) of new water a day from the Table Mountain and Cape Flats Aquifers over the next few years.
Why This Matters: Scientists and environmentalists are sounding the alarm about the potential impacts of tapping the aquifers. The extraction plan, they argue, threatens both the biodiversity of the region and the long-term viability of sourcing water from the aquifer. Emergency water permits issued by the national government allow local municipalities to bypass standard environmental review procedures in setting up drilling sites. The city, on the other hand, is promising to replace the water it extracts from aquifers through managed aquifer recharge (MAR), a well-established method for recharging aquifers for water storage and later reuse.
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 Land
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A family overlooks Indian Creek, an area slated for reduction within Bears Ears National Monument.
Photo: Bob Wick, via Outdoor Alliance
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Patagonia Calls BS
The outdoor retailer Patagonia updated its landing page late last week to call attention to misleading statements by the Trump Administration about their motivation for slashing the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante Monuments. We reported here that documents obtained by the New York Times in early March showed the Administration's true intention to greatly expand mining. Patagonia criticizes the Administration for ignoring the overwhelming support from the majority of Americans for retaining the monuments original size, and for misleading statements. In a blog post, a Patagonia VP explained,
"Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke was quoted as saying 'We also have a pretty good idea of, certainly, the oil and gas potential—not much! So Bears Ears isn’t really about oil and gas.' But it was about oil and gas. Looking over the maps of the original monuments when compared to the redrawn versions that exist today, it’s obvious that the design of each was motivated by access to these resources, and many of the decisions that were made were put in motion long before the administration ever opened up a public comment period."
Why This Matters: It seems clear the Administration was trying to hide the truth about why it decided to slash the size of these monuments. They cloaked their decision in conservation terms like “heritage,” “glorious natural wonder,” and “protection” when they announced the reductions. Regardless of the words, the Administration deeds have been incredibly consistent -- they have loosened standards and opened more federal lands and ocean territory for mining and extraction. So why lie about these monuments? No one who supports conservation is buying their false claims anyway.
What You Can Do: To learn more about Patagonia's efforts to fight the Administration, click here.
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Patagonia's Landing Page
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 Energy
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Sunny Outlook for Solar Jobs
Solar industry jobs are growing in some unexpected places, according to a new report by the Solar Foundation. Not surprisingly, California is by far the top state with the largest number of jobs But new growth in 2017 was all over the map, from the Intermountain West to the Northern Great Plains, from the Southwest to the Mid-Atlantic, and into the Northeast and Southeast. Utah added the most jobs, growing to more than 6,000 solar workers, followed by Minnesota, Arizona, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Ohio and North Carolina. On a percentage basis, Delaware and Minnesota took top honors, with each achieving around 50 percent growth in solar jobs over the previous year.
The Bay Area is at the top city for solar jobs. and other California cities take up half the top slots. But metro areas in other states also do well such as New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts/New Hampshire, Arizona, and Nevada. To see an interactive map of where the solar jobs are by state, and even by Congressional district, click here.
Why This Matters: Renewable energy jobs make up an increasing slice of the jobs in the energy sector. And there are a lot of people who work in solar: 250,271 in 2017, by the Solar Census' count. There has been a slight decrease -- its down 4 percent from 2016's number -- but the jobs take a variety of forms, ranging from manufacturing to project development, to sales and installation. And in the five years from 2012 to 2017, solar employment added 131,000 jobs, an impressive 110% overall or 16% annually. That means solar jobs grew nine times faster than the overall U.S. economy, and one in every 100 new jobs was a solar job. In addition, the solar industry workforce is quite diverse -- 27% are women and 32% are minorities.
To Go Deeper: The Solar Foundation website has great information about where to train for solar jobs, where to find them in your state, and other resources for those who want a career in solar.
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 People
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Recreating What John Muir Heard
Gordon Hempton is an acoustic ecologist who has used his skills to recreate the world that naturalist and conservationist John Muir heard over 100 years ago and documented in his writing. As Earther noted, Muir "left behind an under-appreciated legacy of writings about the sonic beauty of nature. His most famous quote, “the mountains are calling and I must go” hints at his love for sound." Hempton isolated sounds Muir wrote about throughout Yosemite National Park without modern sources of sound pollution like traffic jams and commercial jets.
Muir once wrote in his journal that he heard “snow melting into music and Gordon Hempton set out to record these natural sounds that John Muir would have encountered. Hempton came upon some melting snow in Yosemite's caves and recorded the natural symphony as well as the sounds of the park's Soda Springs, his favorite bird the water ouzel, and the Merced River. (click on the links to hear it for yourself)
Why This Matters: Noise pollution is not just a problem in urban centers but it's also crept into the most remote natural areas. Studies have found that noise pollution doubled sound levels in 63% of protected areas and caused a 10-fold increase in 21% of them. As Science Magazine noted, "The excess noise can do more than just annoy park visitors. It can also undo the benefits of spending time in nature, like improved mood and memory retention. For plants and animals, the ruckus can disrupt entire communities. Some plants need silence for seed dispersal—revving cars can scare away rodents that might otherwise do the job. Animals need silence to hear predators approaching or to communicate with their mates: A bird whose song would normally travel 100 meters would, with a 10-fold increase in noise, have its melody stifled to a 10-meter radius."
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 Sustainability
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Which University Would Win a "Green" March Madness Tourney?
We know how many of you are excited about tonight's NCAA Men's Basketball National Championship game. But what if instead of basketball, there was a tournament for which university is the most green? Who would be vying for the title? Well, look no further. An energy and environment researcher/blogger named Matt Chester came up with a whole new competition -- a "March Madness" tournament based on the efforts of major U.S. universities towards sustainability, energy efficiency, and environmentalism.
To summarize the full analysis would not do it justice, but suffice it to say that he looked at three sets of sustainability rankings for universities and then averaged them to give each school a score. He then seeded them in brackets and did head to head match ups of 64 schools, that included the major conference "winners," plus other high scoring schools from around the country (see the bracket below).
In terms of most sustainable conferences, according to Matt, the Pacific-12 (8 schools) and the Big Ten (7 schools), led the field, with the Ivy League (6 schools) in third. On the other end of the spectrum, most conferences, such as the Big East and the Southeastern Conferences, had only one school make the list of the top 64 most sustainable schools in the country. The "final four" of sustainability were American University, Stanford University, the University of Connecticut and George Washington University.
The Green March Madness Winner: American University
To Go Deeper: You can read the full explanation and analysis here.
And Good Luck to Villanova and Michigan! May The Best Team Win the NCAA Basketball Championship tonight!
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 Cute Animals
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Happy Easter Monday - We leave you today with cute Easter puppy photos. Thanks for reading!
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