But now, scientists say, the timing is being thrown off by desert dust stirred as global warming dries larger areas and human activity increases in those regions.

This dust darkens the surface of winter snows, warming it by absorbing sunlight that the white surface would have reflected. That causes the snow to melt earlier than in the past, running off before the air has warmed enough to spur plant growth, researchers report in Tuesday’s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“It is striking how different the landscape looks as result of this desert-mountain interaction,” Chris Landry, director of the Center for Snow and Avalanche Studies in Silverton, Colo. and a co-author of the report, said in a statement.

The researchers established test plots in the San Juan Mountains in Colorado. Some plots were left alone to collect snow and dust naturally, others had extra dust added and a third group had naturally arriving dust removed.

On average, according to the study, cleaning away the naturally arriving dust delayed snowmelt by 11 days compared to the plots that were left alone. Adding dust speeded up the melt by 7 to 13 days.  Click to see full article.

This article is from www.huffingtonpost.com.

Laurel Branch Hollow was once a small West Virginia mountain valley, with steep, forested hillsides and a stream that, depending on the season and the rains, flowed or trickled down into the Mud River about 200 yards below. The stream teemed with microbes and insect life, and each spring it became a sumptuous buffet for the birds, fish, and amphibians in the valley.

But over the past decade, the Hobet 21 mountaintop removal coal mining operation has obliterated 25 square miles of surrounding highlands. From the air, the mine is a 10-mile-long, mottled gray blotch among the green, crisscrossed by trucks and earth movers, appended by black lakes of coal sludge. Click to see full article.

This article is from www.e360.yale.edu.

Perry White shows off a photo of himself holding one of those monster catfish he reeled in late last year. He’s eaten fish from these rivers for almost all of his 47 years.

Not any more.

He recently discovered through a test of his hair that his body contains 6.5 parts per million of mercury, a poison linked to brain damage, heart disease and other health problems.

White hasn’t noticed any symptoms, but he can’t help but wonder if mercury is harming him, while hoping that this toxin will leave his body if he stays away from the fish he loves.

Eating fish contaminated with mercury is the main source of mercury poisoning in people, and coal-fired power plants rank as one of the main sources of mercury pollution.

Twelve South Carolina power plants send more than 1,469 pounds of the toxic metal into the state’s air each year. Mercury fallout from coal burning and natural sources has poisoned fish in 1,747 miles of the state’s rivers, including the Great Pee Dee.

Here at Bostick, a rural crossroads on a Florence County bluff above this river, Santee Cooper wants to build another coal-fired power plant, a $1 billion generating station to keep the lights burning along the booming Grand Strand. Click to see full article.

This article is from www.postandcourier.com.

When this water is drawn into the power plant, 21 million fish eggs, fish larvae, and juvenile fish may also come along with it — and that’s the average for a single species in just one year. In addition, EPA estimates that up to 1.5 million adult fish a year may become trapped against the intake structures. Many of these fish are injured or die in the process. Click to see full article.

This article is from www.ucsusa.org.

For every ID shirt you buy, we will donate $5.00 to Charity: Water.

PeacePaint compiles important information about the Peace and Green movements and publishes eye-catching articles, slideshows and videos.

PeacePaint people are aggressive at guerrilla marketing non-violence and ecological logic through newsletters, viral videos and merchandising. We are generous, investing all of our resources in pro-social marketing.

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About Time

Imagine a global economy offering fair opportunities to everyone and hope of a better future for all of our children. Efforts to attain that dream will do more to stop terrorism and avoid war than would any homeland security system or deadly weapon.

He will end by destroying the earth.”  -Albert Schweitzer

Why Water?

Right now, 1.1 billion people on the planet don’t have access to clean and safe drinking water. That’s one in six of us.

Who is Charity: Water?

Charity: water is a non profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations.

One in Six People on the Planet Don’t Have Access to Clean, Safe Drinking Water.

Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation causes 80% of all sickness and disease, and kills more people every year than all forms of violence, including war.

Many people in the developing world, usually women and children, walk more than three hours every day to fetch water that is likely to make them sick. Those hours are crucial, preventing many from working or attending school. Additionally, collecting water puts them at greater risk of sexual harassment and assault. Children are especially vulnerable to the consequences of unsafe water.  Of the 42,000 deaths that occur every week from unsafe water and a lack of basic sanitation, 90% are children under 5 years old.

Our planet is 70% water. 97.5% of that is saltwater.

This means only 2.5% is available for the 6 billion people on the planet today.

How Does Charity: Water Work?

Drilling a well can cost from $4,000 – $ 12,000 and many living on less than $1 a day can not afford one in their community, even if the money is combined.  With the help of exemplary organizations on the ground, we can drill wells and provide people with this basic, essential need. Charity: Water partners with local organizations in each country,  choosing partners based on expertise and the ability to impact real, sustainable change in the communities they benefit.

Many major mountain lakes and rivers

are 80-95% drained

Water managers in 36 US states predict

water shortages within the next 10 years.

America is blessed with one of the world’s

largest underground bodies of water – the

Ogallala aquifer.

It stretches across eight farm belt

states from South Dakota to Texas.

Farmers pump out water 14 times

faster than nature can refill it.

Now the water levels are down 150

feet.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-ogallala-aquifer

http://www.iitap.iastate.edu/gccourse/issues/society/ogallala/ogallala.html

The Farm Industry Wastes 1/3 of America’s Fresh Water

70% of America’s fresh water is used for farming

Up to 50% irrigation water is wasted due to unnecessary evaporation from poor irrigation equipment and techniques.

In other words, Agribusinesses waste up to 1/3 of America’s fresh water supply.

See Water Consciousness, Tara Lohan

Freeloaders in the free market:

America’s free-market forces farmers to waste water because efficient irrigation requires expensive and additional labor.

But, pumping community water is easy and cheap.

Farmers who invest money and time in water conservation will drive up their costs and

lose out to their freeloading competitors.

Most states fail to protect our ownership in our common water supply.  Many do not even

require permits for businesses that pump over 35 million gallons per year.

Corporate Pirates Secretly Steal Public Water Works

With hundreds of American communities suffering from water crises, President Bush cut crucial funding for local water projects

Water consciousness how we all have to change to protect our most critical resource. San Francisco, CA: AlterNet Books, 2008. Page 49.

A cabal of powerful multinational corporations has been quietly but relentlessly purchasing American water rights over the strenuous objections of American citizens.

Economic Democracy is the Answer

We, the people, own our water supply.  We need clean and clear systems for:

Controlling, taxing and fining industries that pollute the common water supply.

Capturing water revenues to decrease our tax burden.

Investing funds to subsidize long-term water conservation projects, from efficient farm

irrigation to clean energy generation.

Bill Jemas