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Every now and then we stumble across something that really puts what we do into perspective. That happened recently when we read the Pacific Institute’s “Water Conflict Chronology” report. This report, which began in 1980 to better understand the connection between water resources, systems, and international security and conflict, details nearly every conflict involving water dating back to 3000 B.C.

The results are staggering. Looking at a study like this underscores how important it is that we value the water we have and work to ensure everyone around the world has access to the same vital resources we do. Something most of us take for granted each day is the same thing that has the potential to cause major conflicts around the world.

As we look at this study we should all be sure to think about the impact the next time we turn on the faucet, shower, or hose and realize how lucky we are and how valuable our water is.

Clean your car with just one glass of H2O - By: Ecolo President, Pierrick Bouquet

According to the International Car Wash Association, washing your car at home or in the driveway uses between 80 and 140 gallons of water. Also, washing your car at home releases contaminated water directly into the environment or into storm drains intended for rainwater causing pollution in rivers, streams and oceans.

Soon, water rationing and restrictions on car washing may come our way. In fact, some municipalities have already banned home car washing with a hose, enforcing the ban with citations and possible imprisonment for violators.

Ecolo Green Car Wash is a response to this problem, providing services and products that use the equivalent of JUST one glass of water to wash a car.

This product works and we certainly hope you use it (find out more at our website - www.ecologreencarwash.com). But this product or any other like it won’t succeed unless we change our behavior first. This isn’t just about saving water washing your car. It’s about preserving the future by changing the way you act in your everyday life.

Click on the image to join our Ning network and learn about how to leverage social media for water conservation

I’ve been on the water conservation circuit lately expounding on the benefits of using social media to help save water. I just returned from working with the gracious folks at the North Texas Regional Water Symposium, sponsored by Dallas Water, North Texas Municipal Water District. and Tarrant Regional Water District.

It was an engaged crowd of nearly 200 water professionals, and they were a pleasure to work with. My social media presentation, “Giving Your Consumers a Voice: Conservation and Social Media,” raised many great questions. It’s always difficult to continue a meaningful conversation in a conference setting. So I’ve decided to launch a Ning network that maybe one of the narrowest niches going: Water Conservation & Social Media. You can join the conversation at h2osocialmedia.ning.com.

The idea here is to use social media to share best practices in using social media to help water conservationists help consumers save water.

The network features blogs, video, photos, a chat room and relevant Twitter streams focused on promoting wise water use. We’ll talk about ways you can sell social media upstream to management. We’ll explore best practices in creating a doable social media strategy given tight financial and personnel resources. We’ll share ideas on how to activate your network. And we’ll all commiserate about our trials and tribulations of working in this new and powerful communications environment.

So if you have an interest learning how social media can help promote water conservation, and you’re open to sharing your efforts, please join us at h2osocialmedia.ning.com.

It’s FREE. And just imagine what it might cost you if you don’t join the conversation.

Water - Use It Wisely invites you to check out its new video series, “Tinkling with Ryan.” The series provides regular entertaining takes on water conservation news and tips. In the first episode, Ryan shows you how easy it is to install a water-saving shower head. Believe me, if this guy can do it so can you.

The following is a guest blog feature courtesy of Conservation Covers…

To Pool Owners,

It always astounds me that the largest WASTES of water and electricity in the home are ignored. And by largest we really mean the largest – your pool.

By simply covering your pool you reduce pump and chemical usage by 75%, instantly reducing water evaporation to ZERO!! The swimming pools in California, Arizona and Texas lose its full volume of water every year through evaporation. A 20,000 gallon pool will evaporate 18,000 gallons throughout the year. Obviously, 18,000 gallons of water is extremely valuable yet its loss is usually ignored when we speak about droughts and water-saving measures.

Also ignored is the eight kilowatts of energy it takes to power the motors that filter a pool. Eight kilowatts a day is almost 3,000 kilowatts a year. By applying a pool cover, this kind of usage can be cut 70-80% because heat and light can’t enter the pool. That means the pool filter only needs to run for two hours a day instead of eight.

Pools are actually only used an average of one to two percent of all the hours in a year which means the potential for conservation is ENORMOUS! In Los Angeles alone, 2.7 billion gallons of water evaporate every year from pools and over a billion kilowatts are used for electricity. All these savings can be reached with a lightweight cover that can be removed in 3-4 minutes for swimming.

This is an important ecological matter that needs to be addressed. Everyone who is being asked to reduce their water usage by 15-20% could easily achieve that by simply covering your pool with a UV protected cover. Spread the word, and cover your pool!

Sincerely,

Conservation Covers

www.conservationcovers.com

What’s Happening in Vegas Isn’t Staying in Vegas

If you’re anywhere near Las Vegas Friday morning, and your interested in how to use online social media for water conservation, stop by the Southpoint Hotel and Conference Center for the WaterSmart Innovation Conference. I’m presenting my fishing analogy for deploying social media at 9 am.

The Water - Use It Wisely conservation campaign was one of the first in the water-saving business to have a focused, comprehensive strategy for online social media to share its 100+ ways to save water.

Here’s how we go fishing using social media:

1. We consider the Water - Use It Wisely website as our wharf where we process the fish we catch. In this case, the process is to offer a wealth of conservation information to consumers thirsty for content, including 100+ water-saving tips.
2. To get them to the wharf, we go trolling in the sea of prospects with our blog. We lure in folks with timely information on how they can start saving water and money now.
3. To reach as many people with our blog as possible, we cast the content through a number of social media fishing lines, including Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. And we make our content easy to share by including links to Digg, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, MySpace and more.

You can review my entire fishing analogy social media presentation on SlideShare.

I am also looking forward to tailoring this presentation for the Texas Regional Water Conference in Fort Worth on Tuesday, November 11. For those of you attending that workshop, feel free to review my landing page, Sustainable Social Media 101, and send me any questions you have prior to the event. That way I can focus my presentation to your needs.

And whether you’re in Vegas or Fort Worth, be sure to stop by a say hello.

Jeans. We all love them. We all have them. In fact, most of us have a lot of them. According to a Cotton Inc. survey, the average American owns 8.3 pairs of jeans. American teens average 11 pairs of jeans. As much as I love jeans I actually come in on the low end of this survey at 5 pairs, 2 of which I haven’t worn in years.

Having this many jeans already seems a bit excessive. But when you factor in that it takes 1,800 gallons of water to grow enough cotton to make just one pair of jeans, this suddenly seems to go far beyond excess. It’s unreasonable to suggest that we no longer buy jeans or condemn those that do. After all, jeans are as much a part of America as apple pie and angry political debates.

But armed with this statistic it does seem that we should find a use for the jeans we all have soaking up space in our closets. If we’re going to use the water to grow the cotton to make the jeans, let’s put our old jeans back to use.

So in addition to asking you to follow our more traditional water saving tips we’d also like to ask that you donate your old jeans. Make them useful again by donating them to your local Goodwill and we’ll dramatically reduce our water consumption. Not only will our environment thank you but so will the person you just helped get a new pair of jeans.

Remember how your mom would ask if you’d jump off a bridge just because your friend did? Of course you wouldn’t, but now some scientists are betting that if a group of friends jumped off that bridge you might very well follow.

What does this have to do with water conservation? Well, conserving water is about adopting behaviors and it turns out it’s far easier to adopt behaviors as part of a group than on your own. As ASU professor, Robert Cialdini found out, simply changing the wording on hotel towel reuse signs can contribute to saving 7 trillion gallons of water - a theory dubbed “social proof.”

Not convinced? Check out the study here.

Even though we may not understand all of the words in this Brazilian made water-conservation PSA, we’re pretty sure we get the message.

The Water - Use It Wisely, “Family Water Audit” quiz is featured in the popular book, “The New 50 Simple Things Kids Can Do To Save The Earth.”

The book, which currently boasts more than 1 million copies sold,  was written by Sophie Javna and a host of contributors from “The Earth Works Group.” “The New 50…” is a sequel to the original title, “The 50 Simple Things Kids Can Do To Save The Earth,” originally penned by Sophie Javna’s father, John Javna in 1990.

To pick up either copy you can visit Amazon here and to learn more about the Water - Use It Wisely “Family Water Audit,” click here.