Tapped Out: The Coming World Crisis in Water and What We Can Do About It

by Paul Simon

Former Senator Paul Simon delivers stirring eveidence of a catastrophic water crisis which will explode upon the global community unless drastic measures are taken in all corners of the world, including in our own backyards.

Genres: Nonfiction

208 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1998

About the author

Paul Martin Simon was an American politician from Illinois. He served in the United States House of Representatives and in United States Senate. He unsuccessfully ran for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination.

Librarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Greg]

Seems like Simon really needed something to collect all of his gathered statistics and projections within, and this book serves the purpose. Though I believe in Simon's overall points and goals in creating the book, he is somewhat discredited since some of his projections made @ 10 years ago haven't necessarily come true, at least in his projected timelines. Other grim projections still set in the future are made a bit questionable. But it's an overall good survey of water conservation and management problems, and it will be interesting in future when one of the specific "doomsday" scenarios comes true to see how close the estimates were. A useful book with much background information and other sources should I need this in support of some projects in my new position at TWDB.

[Rachel]

A good quick read - an overview of current and future water quality and quantity issues written for those of us who are not environmental scientists. Written by a former US Senator, it's filled with interesting anecdotes about traveling around the world. One drawback - it was written in 1998 - although it is interesting to revisit our view of the international community over ten years ago. The problems remain mostly unchanged unfortunately.