The Big Thirst by Charles Fishman The water coming out of your kitchen tap is four billion years old and might well have been sipped by a Tyrannosaurus rex. Rather than only three states of water, liquid, ice, and vapor, there is a fourth, "molecular water," fused into rock 400 miles deep in the Earth, and that's where most of the planet's water is found. Unlike most precious resources, water cannot be used up; it can always be made clean enough again to drink, indeed, water can be made so clean that it's toxic. Water is the most vital substance in our lives but also more amazing and mysterious than we appreciate. As the author brings to life in this narrative, water runs our world in a host of awe inspiring ways, yet we take it completely for granted. But the era of easy water is over. Bringing readers on a lively and fascinating journey from the wet moons of Saturn to the water obsessed hotels of Las Vegas, where dolphins swim in the desert, and from a rice farm in the parched Australian outback to a high tech IBM plant that makes an exotic breed of pure water found nowhere in nature, he shows that we have already left behind a century long golden age when water was thoughtlessly abundant, free, and safe and entered a new era of high stakes water.
Centennial by James Michener Written to commemorate the Bicentennial in 1976, James A. Michener's magnificent saga of the West is an enthralling celebration of the frontier. Brimming with the glory of America's past, the story of Colorado--the Centennial State--is manifested through its people: Lame Beaver, the Arapaho chieftain and warrior, and his Comanche and Pawnee enemies; Levi Zendt, fleeing with his child bride from the Amish country; the cowboy, Jim Lloyd, who falls in love with a wealthy and cultured Englishwoman, Charlotte Seccombe. In Centennial, trappers, traders, homesteaders, gold seekers, ranchers, and hunters are brought together in the dramatic conflicts that shape the destiny of the legendary West--and the entire country. A specific focus is water. . .
Chinatown by Roman Polanski Jack Nicholson gets sucked into land scandals and water wars in 1930s LA.
Every Drop for Sale by Jeffrey Rothfeder As oil was the crisis of the twentieth century, water is the crisis of the twenty-first. Less than .0008 percent of the total water on Earth is fit for human consumption, but global consumption of fresh water is doubling every twenty years. Water has become perhaps our most precious commodity -- a life-sustaining but increasingly rare and privatized resource. A dramatic gap exists between those who have adequate water for survival and those who don't, and tensions over water in some areas of the world hover just below open war.
A Thirsty Land by Seamus McGraw The most comprehensive--and comprehensible--book on contemporary water issues, A Thirsty Land delves deep into the challenges faced not just by Texas but by the nation as a whole, as we struggle to find a way to balance the changing forces of nature with our own ever-expanding needs. Part history, part science, part adventure story, and part travelogue, this book puts a human face on the struggle to master that most precious and capricious of resources, water. Seamus McGraw goes to the taproots, talking to farmers, ranchers, businesspeople, and citizen activists, as well as to politicians and government employees. Their stories provide chilling evidence that Texas--and indeed the nation--is not ready for the next devastating drought, the next catastrophic flood. Ultimately, however, A Thirsty Land delivers hope. This deep dive into one of the most vexing challenges facing Texas and the nation offers glimpses of the way forward in the untapped opportunities that water also presents.
The water coming out of your kitchen tap is four billion years old and might well have been sipped by a Tyrannosaurus rex. Rather than only three states of water, liquid, ice, and vapor, there is a fourth, "molecular water," fused into rock 400 miles deep in the Earth, and that's where most of the planet's water is found. Unlike most precious resources, water cannot be used up; it can always be made clean enough again to drink, indeed, water can be made so clean that it's toxic. Water is the most vital substance in our lives but also more amazing and mysterious than we appreciate. As the author brings to life in this narrative, water runs our world in a host of awe inspiring ways, yet we take it completely for granted. But the era of easy water is over. Bringing readers on a lively and fascinating journey from the wet moons of Saturn to the water obsessed hotels of Las Vegas, where dolphins swim in the desert, and from a rice farm in the parched Australian outback to a high tech IBM plant that makes an exotic breed of pure water found nowhere in nature, he shows that we have already left behind a century long golden age when water was thoughtlessly abundant, free, and safe and entered a new era of high stakes water.
Centennial by James Michener
Written to commemorate the Bicentennial in 1976, James A. Michener's magnificent saga of the West is an enthralling celebration of the frontier. Brimming with the glory of America's past, the story of Colorado--the Centennial State--is manifested through its people: Lame Beaver, the Arapaho chieftain and warrior, and his Comanche and Pawnee enemies; Levi Zendt, fleeing with his child bride from the Amish country; the cowboy, Jim Lloyd, who falls in love with a wealthy and cultured Englishwoman, Charlotte Seccombe. In Centennial, trappers, traders, homesteaders, gold seekers, ranchers, and hunters are brought together in the dramatic conflicts that shape the destiny of the legendary West--and the entire country. A specific focus is water. . .
Chinatown by Roman Polanski
Jack Nicholson gets sucked into land scandals and water wars in 1930s LA.
Every Drop for Sale by Jeffrey Rothfeder
As oil was the crisis of the twentieth century, water is the crisis of the twenty-first. Less than .0008 percent of the total water on Earth is fit for human consumption, but global consumption of fresh water is doubling every twenty years. Water has become perhaps our most precious commodity -- a life-sustaining but increasingly rare and privatized resource. A dramatic gap exists between those who have adequate water for survival and those who don't, and tensions over water in some areas of the world hover just below open war.
A Thirsty Land by Seamus McGraw
The most comprehensive--and comprehensible--book on contemporary water issues, A Thirsty Land delves deep into the challenges faced not just by Texas but by the nation as a whole, as we struggle to find a way to balance the changing forces of nature with our own ever-expanding needs. Part history, part science, part adventure story, and part travelogue, this book puts a human face on the struggle to master that most precious and capricious of resources, water. Seamus McGraw goes to the taproots, talking to farmers, ranchers, businesspeople, and citizen activists, as well as to politicians and government employees. Their stories provide chilling evidence that Texas--and indeed the nation--is not ready for the next devastating drought, the next catastrophic flood. Ultimately, however, A Thirsty Land delivers hope. This deep dive into one of the most vexing challenges facing Texas and the nation offers glimpses of the way forward in the untapped opportunities that water also presents.