On I-65 between Birmingham and Montgomery is an impressively large water tower resembling a peach. Chilton County is Alabama’s peach central. Adjacent fruit stands and establishments like the Peach Tower Restaurant radiate a unified civic vitality.

Clanton, Alabama

Clanton’s big peach is 120 feet tall, and holds 500,000 gallons of water — but it ain’t the biggest. The Peachoid in Gaffney, SC, is larger and double the volume. Read more

Why do they put smiley faces on water towers? It doesn’t necessarily make me feel more happy. I mean, there are many other options for water tower art. At least writing the name of the town would provide some utilitarian benefit… you would know exactly where you are. Maybe, due to the tight municipal budgets, the smiley face art is all cities can afford at that point.

The happy water tower giant that lurks in our communities

This could possibly be a good Master’s degree thesis paper… “the psychological affects of smiley face water towers on community happiness”, or something like that.

So why can’t city planners and civil engineers get a little more creative in terms of how water storage tanks look and are designed? Read more

Shower exerciser platform, money-saving shower and 5-liter shower. These awesome inventions are already available to any eco-concerned neat nature-lover!

Bend it harder. South Korean designers came up with a shower for those who can not bring myself to do exercises. To make the shower tap sprinkle water, you have to complete a number of different sets of exercises. Unlike in the gym, you’ll have to convince not only yourself, but also a built-in computer sensor that monitors your real effort. Read more

California is not the only state having difficulty with moisture, as cities in Texas — which have suffered from three years’ worth of drought themselves — continue to struggle to provide enough safe, fresh water for residents.

In fact, one of them, the north Texas city of Wichita Falls, is awaiting word from state officials for permission to reuse wastewater — including some from toilets — for drinking, The Associated Press reported.

The city of about 104,000, located near the Oklahoma border, has not seen substantial rains for a couple of years; over the past three, rainfall in the area is about 34 inches below normal. Read more

“Maybe ignorance is bliss, but we can’t be ignorant any more. The consequences are too dire for human health and the health of the planet.” Photographer Ed Burtynsky is contemplating climate change, an unheralded but ever-present character in his latest book and film, Watermark, a clip of which he showed at TED2014 in Vancouver. And the mild-mannered artist is fired up.

Pivot Irrigation #11, High Plains, Texas Panhandle, USA, 2011.

“There is a fundamental flaw in democracy, where career politicians vie for power in the next election and long-term thinking has somehow disappeared,” he told me last week. “The only chance we have is that we elect more people who are capable of making difficult changes. If we allow the people with special interests, whether that’s big pharma, big oil or big agra, to shape all the policies to their own benefit and not for the long-term survival of our species, then we’ve created our own bed. We’re allowing this to happen; we need to stop it.” Read more