I absolutely agree with Ms. Stephanie Thomas on the ideas of being selective about our crops in order to conserve water. At the moment we are at the beginning of a 10 year drought. The truth is Texas cannot keep up with our demands of water for our crops and green grass. This has me wondering if there is an alternative to our situation. An Example that Ms. Thomas used, a farmer was forced to water crops that wouldn’t grow just so he could get federal crop insurance. This farmer had spent $25,000 just to water his 175 acres on crops that couldn’t really benefit anyone.  This has me puzzled why the government is forcing commercials to water unsuccessful crops, because if you really look at it. It seems like what used to be a profitable field, had now become a money pit. I can see this problem growing more than just an agricultural watering problem but an economic problem as well. Business and corporations will definitely strafe away from Texas if we can’t stop wasting water because they will spend more money buying water, thus reducing their profits.

                I think handing out citations is a great start to make people more aware of Texas current water situation. A technique that telephone service provider use are caps, they put caps to limit a certain amount of traffic on their data service lines, and if one were to go over that cap then they are charged for overages. What if Texas started capping people for usage? Could this solve our water crisis? But then the idea of putting a cap on water seems wrong, because we would also be limiting on drinking able water. Like Ms. Thomas said, we are limited on time and we need to act fast.

Austin is going Green!

Recently Sol Design Lab founded by Beth Ferguson just installed a solar charging station in front of Perry-Castañeda Library or PCL for short. This charging station allows anyone to charge their electronic devices such as laptops, cellphones, scooters, ipods ...ect

I feel that in the next couple of years we will start to see these solar charging stations more frequently. These solar charging station outlets are alternatives to outlets that are powered by Nuclear Energy, Coals, and Petroleum.  It would really cool if someone could replace all of the outlets in our homes, schools, and work places to be powered by solar energy. If I am not mistaken, solar panels help reduce our utility bill but there is a downside. It cost a lot to install and make our current generation of solar panels. Another note is that the most efficient solar panel can only convert about 18% of the sun into usable energy. These charging stations would be ideal for an electric scooter, it makes sense to have these near libraries for scooter users for late night studying or just traveling in general. I think Ferguson is stepping in the right direction, but I don't think students are willing to stand there and wait for their ipods and laptops to be fully charged.