Frugal and Energy Efficient Living

Nobody likes to haul water, but I must say there is something cathartic about it. I love to take long showers and wash the car or boat, but not every day. This map illustrates very well how we abuse our natural water resources.
http://chartsbin.com/view/1455

Note that the US and Canada both use more than 7 times the water per capita as the UK. Ironically, there are vast areas of the US suffering from severe droughts and it rains every other day in Britain. Begs the question "Why such a discrepancy?".
I think history has much to do with it. Britain, coming through two world wars, with the great depression in between and followed by several years of food rationing, was trained to be frugal across the board.
Meanwhile, in N. America, the post war period brought enormous prosperity, indoor plumbing became ubiquitous and electricity was cheap and fossil fuels were acceptable and seemingly inexhaustible.

This map shows consumption by percentage available. We use 15% of available water, yet parts of the country are in drought. This is partly due to draining huge aquifers that took millennia to fill and partly to do with redirecting river waters, but mostly due to human arrogance.
http://chartsbin.com/view/1473

Here's another link to what's going on in San Diego
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1127&pid=24858