The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water

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The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water

Praised as â€œan entertaining and torrential flow of a bookâ€ by Nature magazine, The Big Thirst is a startling examination of the passing of the golden age of water and the shocking facts about how water scarcity will soon be a major factor in our lives.

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 waterâ€”liquid, ice, and vaporâ€”there is a fourth, â€œmolecular water,â€ fused into rock 400 miles deep in the Earth, and thatâ€™s where most of the planetâ€™s water is found. Unlike most precious resources, water cannot be used up; it can always be made clean enough again to drinkâ€”indeed, water can be made so clean that itâ€™s toxic. Water is the most vital substance in our lives but also more amazing and mysterious than we appreciate. As Charles Fishman brings vibrantly to life in this surprising and mind-changing 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 journeyâ€”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 natureâ€”Fishman vividly shows that weâ€™ve 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. In 2008, Atlanta came within ninety days of running entirely out of clean water. California is in a desperate battle to hold off a water catastrophe. And in the last five years Australia nearly ran out of waterâ€”and had to scramble to reinvent the countryâ€™s entire water system. But as dramatic as the challenges are, the deeper truth Fishman reveals is that there is no good reason for us to be overtaken by a global water crisis. We have more than enough water. We just donâ€™t think about it, or use it, smartly.

The Big Thirst brilliantly explores our strange and complex relationship to water. We delight in watching waves roll in from the ocean; we take great comfort from sliding into a hot bath; and we will pay a thousand times the price of tap water to drink our preferred brand of the bottled version. We love waterâ€”but at the moment, we donâ€™t appreciate it or respect it. Just as weâ€™ve begun to reimagine our relationship to food, a change that is driving the growth of the organic and local food movements, we must also rethink how we approach and use water. The good news is that we can. As Fishman shows, a host of advances are under way, from the simplicity of harvesting rainwater to the brilliant innovations devised by companies such as IBM, GE, and Royal Caribbean that are making impressive breakthroughs in water productivity. Knowing what to do is not the problem. Ultimately, the hardest part is changing our water consciousness.

As Charles Fishman writes, â€œMany civilizations have been crippled or destroyed by an inability to understand water or manage it. We have a huge advantage over the generations of people who have come before us, because we can understand water and we can use it smartly.â€ The Big Thirst will forever change the way we think about water, about our essential relationship to it, and about the creativity we can bring to ensuring that weâ€™ll always have plenty of it.
Country USA
Brand Simon & Schuster
Manufacturer Free Press
Binding Paperback
ReleaseDate 2012-02-14
UnitCount 1
UPCs 001439102082
EANs 0001439102082

Country	USA
Brand	Simon & Schuster
Manufacturer	Free Press
Binding	Paperback
ReleaseDate	2012-02-14
UnitCount	1
UPCs	001439102082
EANs	0001439102082

The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water

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