Welcome to LadyJR.com! If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

AuSable river flood waters by sunrisepenny

Michigan is known as The Great Lakes State, but we could easily be called «The Water State». 10,000 lakes? Please. Michigan has over 11,000 lakes (15,000 if you count the little ones!). All that water - FRESH water - means that Michigan has a big responsibility.

Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation (MCWC) is holding a fund-raiser and reception this Sunday (Nov 16) in Traverse City to launch a campaign to protect the public trust in the waters of the Great Lakes Basin. MCWC will be showing the film FLOW: For Love of Water (trailer below), an award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century - The World Water Crisis. On hand will be filmmaker Irena Salina along with former Governor Milliken, Terry Swier, Jim Olson and Dave Dempsey.

Another upcoming event focused around water is the latest Water Festival. It will be held December 12-14 in Traverse City and is a fusion of music and learning - learn about it in this Absolute Michigan video featuring May Erlewine!

Iron River Paddle by lexup

You may be thinking, what is the deal with Traverse City and water? I'm thinking that, and thinking that made me think about a childhood friend of mine, J. Carl Ganter and the amazing project he has build called Circle of Blue. Circle of blue is an international network of journalists, scientists and communications designers that is telling the story of the global freshwater crisis - a crisis that Michigan appears destined to play a central role in.

mLive points out a cool startup that could have a surprising impact:

The Mattawan-based Select A Flush this morning unveiled the device that allows users to easily retrofit a toilet. The company expects to sell 200,000 to 250,000 of the devices in the first year at a cost of $24.95 each, as opposed to $300 or more for a dual-flush toilet that adjusts water flow based on whether a full flush or partial rinse is needed.

...Select A Flush President David Bauer and his uncle, John Bauer, devised their device amid a growing global market for water conservation. The cite data showing a huge market potential, with 180 million to 300 million toilets in the U.S. alone that are candidates for their device.

While it's not anything that impact our earthly water needs, University of Michigan astronomer Ted Bergin has identified giant molecular clouds are light-years in size that eventually collapse to form stars and planets. Check out the podcast titled Space clouds contain enough water to fill oceans at Earth & Sky for a fascinating look at the formation of planets.