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    Unquenchable: America's Water Crisis and What To Do About It
    Unavailable
    Unquenchable: America's Water Crisis and What To Do About It
    Unavailable
    Unquenchable: America's Water Crisis and What To Do About It
    Ebook620 pages8 hours

    Unquenchable: America's Water Crisis and What To Do About It

    By Robert Jerome Glennon

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    In the middle of the Mojave Desert, Las Vegas casinos use billions of gallons of water for fountains, pirate lagoons, wave machines, and indoor canals. Meanwhile, the town of Orme, Tennessee, must truck in water from Alabama because it has literally run out.

    Robert Glennon captures the irony—and tragedy—of America’s water crisis in a book that is both frightening and wickedly comical. From manufactured snow for tourists in Atlanta to trillions of gallons of water flushed down the toilet each year, Unquenchable reveals the heady extravagances and everyday inefficiencies that are sucking the nation dry.

    The looming catastrophe remains hidden as governmdiverts supplies from one area to another to keep water flowing from the tap. But sooner rather than later, the shell game has to end. And when it does, shortages will threaten not only the environment, but every aspect of American life: we face shuttered power plants and jobless workers, decimated fi sheries and contaminated drinking water.

    We can’t engineer our way out of the problem, either with traditional fixes or zany schemes to tow icebergs from Alaska. In fact, new demands for water, particularly the enormous supply needed for ethanol and energy production, will only worsen the crisis. America must make hard choices—and Glennon’s answers are fittingly provocative. He proposes market-based solutions that value water as both a commodity and a fundamental human right.

    One truth runs throughout Unquenchable: only when we recognize water’s worth will we begin to conserve it.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherIsland Press
    Release dateApr 19, 2010
    ISBN9781597266390
    Unavailable
    Unquenchable: America's Water Crisis and What To Do About It

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    Reviews for Unquenchable

    4/5

    16 ratings2 reviews

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    • 3/5
      A book about an important topic, written in highly readable prose, should get more stars. The problem is...well, there were problems. There were places where the author contradicted himself, saying one thing on one page, then the opposite later, in at least one case only two pages later, when the opposite would fit his purpose better. Two competing facts that could not both be true...and he did it more than once. There were some questionable statements, possibly not noticeable to anyone not versed in water science. He also tended to say he wasn't a true believer in the free market, but it would be difficult to tell that from his suggestions, though I will conceded that most of the suggestions would be a regulated market, though only weakly regulated. And he seemed to think water would be returned to the ecosystems by allowing farmers to sell it to industry so industry could use it...or to cities, for residential use. He pointed out a couple of cases where environmental groups such as the Nature Conservancy were able to outbid business as though that demonstrated that most of the water would be conserved, but his two examples only pointed up the inadequacy of this solution. All in all, a lot of information, some false facts, and a lot of comforting talk about markets. Okay, but nothing to write home about.
    • 4/5
      D saw this at the library and brought it home for me. It is primarily about water in the USA: where we get our water from, what we use it for, and what impact it has on the environment. Robert J. Glennon is a law professor at Arizona with an expertise in water law. Thus, he is unusually well suited to discussing the various tradeoffs that are made between cities, farmers, and environmental groups when it is time to make decisions about water rights.Although in earlier centuries, water, like trees and animals, was an abundant resource in the US, now we know that the most accessible water is finite and must change our habits and policies. Water is used for everything from farming and sewage to energy production and computer chip fabrication. Also, we use water for drinking, cooking, and washing, often in the hundreds of gallons per day (although the minimum needed is much lower). However, water is not always where the people are who want to use it, especially since many people favor sunny, dry coastal locales. River sources depend on the vagaries of rain and snowmelt, and are often drained down by diversions for various uses, or polluted with sewage or industrial byproducts by the time they reach downstream. Groundwater collects slowly from rain and runoff, and modern technology and agricultural practices draw it down faster than it can build up. In coastal areas, water is often disposed of into the ocean rather than returned more directly to the local hydrological cycle. Dams and canals often suffer from rapid evaporative and runoff loss as well as the destruction of habitat.After laying out these facts, Glennon lists various tacks that have been taken to conserve, recycle, or buy out water. This includes desalination of ocean water, purification of sewage, and the use of gray water for purposes that do not require potable water. Most importantly, Glennon advocates changes in water rights laws to allow the buying and selling of water rights and changes in zoning laws to require developers to secure water rights before building. Then it would be possible, for example, to create incentives to build expensive but more efficient irrigation techniques, or to buy a portion of stream water to reserve for salmon spawning. This all sounds good to me, although I am not certain I see how poorer municipalities will be able to compete with developers from richer areas. I hope that that can be worked out, because I agree with Glennon that a basic amount of water per day should remain a fundamental privilege of living in the U.S.This wasn't the most exciting or mind-blowing book I've read, but it was useful to see all of these issues spelled out all together. I recommend reading it and then sprinkling relevant points around your social circle.