Climate Change Water

Water scarcity is the next big climate crisis. Water stress – not just scarcity, but also water-quality issues caused by pollution – is already driving the first waves of climate refugees. Rivers are drying out before they meet the oceans and ancient lakes are disappearing. It’s increasingly clear that human mismanagement of water is dangerously unsustainable, for both ecological and human survival. In The Last Drop, award-winning environmental journalist Tim Smedley meets experts, victims, activists and pioneers to find out how we can mend the water table that our survival depends upon.

When a black snake threatens to destroy the Earth and poison her people’s water, one young water protector takes a stand to defend Earth’s most sacred resource.

Matthew Moseley has a passion for long-distance swims in sometimes-treacherous waters. Stroke by stroke, Moseley invites you on his journey, as he encounters expected and unexpected adventures along the way. He shares his unique connection to the rivers, lakes, and oceans he swims and the historical and literary luminaries who deepened his appreciation of life in, on, and around water. Facing his greatest test of endurance yet, he also confronts the harsh new reality of the climate crisis in the American West.

The scenario we are facing is scary: within a few decades, sea levels around the world may well rise by a meter or more as glaciers and ice caps melt due to climate change. Large parts of our coastal cities will be flooded, the basic outline of our world will be changed, and torrential rains will present their own challenges. But this is not the first time that people have had to cope with threatening waters, because sea levels have been rising for thousands of years, ever since the end of the last Ice Age.

The Ogallala aquifer has nourished life on the American Great Plains for millennia. But less than a century of unsustainable irrigation farming has taxed much of the aquifer beyond repair. The imminent depletion of the Ogallala and other aquifers around the world is a defining planetary crisis of our times. Running Out offers a uniquely personal account of aquifer depletion and the deeper layers through which it gains meaning and force. 

In Climaturity, Marc Cortez advocates for a transparent climate discussion where half-truths are completed, climate science limitations are put into context, and politicians are held accountable for spending taxpayer dollars. Climaturity offers a new perspective on the climate controversy through the pragmatic lens of a long-time renewable energy industry veteran. Part science, part satire, and part snark, he takes a stand against the climate panic movement.