This year’s Blog Action Day topic is water, and I find it hard to ignore.

Water is the first thing I drink in the morning and the last thing I drink at night.

At my house we gave up bottled water about two years ago, and I’m very pleased about all the plastic we’ve saved. We’re lucky where I live to have clean water from the tap, and we have a large filter tank in the refrigerator.

This year however, I spent a lot of time and attention watching the water in the Gulf of Mexico, wondering if it would ever be clean again. I still worry about the sealife there, and the wildlife in the marshlands on the perimeter of the Gulf. The ocean covers approximately 71% of the Earth’s surface. We need to show some respect.

Sadly, the old adage is still true for many – ocean, ocean, everywhere and not a drop to drink.

In developing countries, drinkable water is hard towards impossible to find, and developed nations are doing the same thing to their natural resources.

Polluted rivers and streams are undrinkable and produce contaminated food sources, as well as polluted river deltas and fishing areas in the ocean at the end of the rivers. Hey guess what, we’re talking about the United States, too! How can this happen? It’s as simple as pesticides and other untreated nastiness draining off of large hog farms into the Mississippi River. Read more: 11 Facts about Pollution

Want to do something? I’ve added a link on this page to the UN Petition for Blog Action Day 2010. Join us! And thanks for reading.

It’s now been more than a month since this oil rig exploded, killing 11 people and in my mind demonstrating clearly that even the best minds in energy science do not have the equipment or plan in place for responding to the worst-case scenarios in deep-water drilling.

We’re still having a hard time keeping coal mining safe, and that’s been going on for decades. I’m personally shocked that the government would provide permits for drilling in an area where even the government doesn’t have adequate underwater vehicles. It’s apparently just too darn deep.

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On Hardball with Chris Matthews, I saw Sylvia Earle of National Geographic say,

We (the USA) haven‘t made the investment to have a garage filled with submarines, a garage filled with remotely-operated systems, (nor in) the talent to be able to go down independently of industry and respond. (video above)

In other words, the oil industry HAS to fix it because they are the only ones that HAVE THE TOOLS.

That is petrifying.

I am furious because I feel so helpless. I have worked hard to live an environmentally friendly life. But a worse case scenario in the Gulf could potentially ruin my visit to a North Carolina beach. Do you see how huge this thing is? This is right in our backyard, DC. Not cool.

The truth is that together we could have prevented this, and we can prevent another incident like this if we all do our part to get out of the oil slick. Go green. Ask for alternative energies. A wind farm will never cause problems like this. Solar panels don’t even have to change the landscape of your neighborhood. Recycle. Buy from farmers’ markets. Use public transportation. Every little bit helps.

Above all, write your Representative and Senator in Congress and let them know that offshore drilling needs to stop now.

Three cheers to Penn State students working to ban the water bottle on campus.

If you’ve never been to Penn State’s main campus, let me assure you it’s a substantial operation. Making a change like this would make a significant impact. The campus is basically a small town of people under 25, supported by another small town of people interested in the University: professors, restaurants, bookstores, dorm-decorating shops, etc.

I’m really amazed by the extremes our culture has gone through with water. But the facts are out there. If you want super-filtered water, you can now easily filter it yourself with any number of products, and there’s no need to buy multiple individual bottles, which either need to be recycled, which costs money and energy; or which end up in landfills, which is flat-out pollution.

As a taxpayer, your money already goes to water purification plants, so there really should be more attention paid to how that water comes out and how the pipes are kept up.

More on the Penn State movement at Treehugger.

Today, the Alliance for Climate Protection, League of Conservation Voters, National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club launched the “Reality” Coalition, a national grassroots/advertising effort to establish that in reality, there is no such thing as “clean coal.”

The reality is that there’s not a single home or business in America today powered by clean coal,” said Brian Hardwick of the Alliance for Climate Protection. “If coal really wants to be part of America’s energy future, the industry can start by making a real commitment to eliminating their pollution that is a leading cause of global warming.”

The “Reality” Coalition will launch a multi-million dollar ad campaign, running in print, broadcast and online media and supported by the website, www.ThisIsReality.org.

The “Reality” Coalition’s main point is that there are no clean coal plants in the U.S. at this time, and until there are, stop talking like we have them.

The coal industry has spent hundreds of millions promoting ‘clean coal’ technology, but in reality, there is not a single large-scale demonstration project in the United States for capturing and safely burying all of coal’s CO2 emissions,” Vice President Gore said. “The industry must make good on its promise if they truly want to do their part to solve the climate crisis. Until that happens, coal cannot be called ‘clean’.”

Here is Reality’s first TV ad. Find ways to support their cause at www.ThisIsReality.org.

Global warming is an urgent, but solvable problem. That’s why I’ve joined the We Campaign, a powerful nonpartisan movement of concerned citizens that was founded by Nobel Prize Laureate and former Vice President Al Gore. We’re already a million strong — and growing each day.

They have a very compelling video that shows the need for action:

The We Campaign is working to ensure that elected leaders make the climate crisis a priority. Visit: http://www.wecansolveit.org/. Here, you can learn about solutions to global warming, take action steps and even find events happening in your community. Although it’s not too late, global warming is very serious and there is no time to lose. So please don’t any longer wait to get involved — sign up today: http://www.wecansolveit.org/

Together, we can solve the climate crisis.

Making a change? Make a list.

I’ve just read a great reminder about John Kotter’s 8 errors frequent in organizational change efforts. I’ve always liked to turn these around into a ‘to do’ list, instead of a ‘don’t’ list…

1. Prevent complacency.
2. Create a sufficiently powerful guiding coalition.
3. Accept the power of a new vision.
4. Communicate the new vision clearly.
5. Let no obstacles stand in the way of the new vision.
6. Create short-term wins.
7. Declare victory when it is won, and not before.
8. Anchor changes firmly to the corporate culture.

As my fellow blogger Jason points out, these ideas can be useful for whatever change you’re making, whether your ‘organization’ is a relationship or a mega-corporation.

Working at my record store, and hanging out at nightclubs promoting shows, I ran into a lot of kids that worked on ‘street teams.’ Basically, if you were a big enough fan, and really wanted to be a part of the music biz — and I mean REALLY — the band’s label would send you stacks of stickers, postcards, CD samplers and flyers to distribute around town. Street teams are supposed to be the grassroots tentacles that know the local areas (which stores are cool, which skate shops will let you stack CDs for handing out) better than a label does, and then when the band makes it big, the street team will get their pay backs. We hope it happens for them.

The problem is there are tons of street teams for tons of up-and-coming bands and our record store always had lots of leftover CD samplers of no-name bands that we couldn’t pay people to take away.

The success was there however. And somebody somewhere made some money using street teams. And now, those people are old and don’t want to go running around town, but they are willing to post something on their blog. Or at least, these folks are hoping I will.

Darn, I just did.