time for my ecology final

An amazing and factual book about rivers and their role in feeding, providing energy, transport, commerce, and removing waste in our world. I have a much lower view of the "greenness" of hydro-electric power and Ethanol, and am convinced we need to act to protect our aquifers, rivers, and water sources.

Another environmental book.

This book is about something near and dear to me: the fate of freshwater on this planet.

The book is very readable and accessible. The author's prose has a great rhythm and they connected their thoughts, ideas and arguments very well. The author didn't jerk from one subject to the next. I liked the set up of the chapters. There were chapters that were split into sections. Each section reinforced and backed up the main idea of the chapter. Each section coherently blended into each other.

Fresh water is already a precious resource. When this book was written in the 2000's the water crises were beginning to show their heads. In this decade (the 2020's) the water is literally drying up. The author does not sugarcoat anything: water is running out. This book addresses how freshwater is running out, historical water use and trends by cultures across the world and how the modern world can hope to use and manage water going into the future.

Spoilers: we're in trouble and about to be very thirsty.

There are absolutely no sources cited!! How can this be credible in the least? It's full of statistics that aren't referenced.

While a great many books have been written about oil and justifiably so the impact of depleting water supplies and water mismanagement is not written about nearly as much as it should be. The author gave me a good understanding of what is going on, how we got to this point and what will happen if we don't address how we go about serving our need for water at the same time as managing the resource properly. The book won;t leave you smiling but hopefully it will leave you thinking about the issue and what you can do to help.

Great book!
We can live without oil, but we can’t live without water.
Fred Pearce, author of Rivers Run Dry, has traveled and studied water in 30 countries and has been writing about water issues for over 20 years. His analysis of how we are committing what is termed hydraulic suicide with our water footprint is terrifying and calls all of us to action. It is a compelling book documenting the destruction of this resource as well as highlighting efforts being done to reclaim fresh water.

The outlook is not good. Already we have examples of wasted water resources, like the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan where the Russians tried to grow cotton in the desert using water from the Aral. Today the Aral is completely dry. The constant salt exposure gives the Aral sea residents high incident of anemia, 95% in children. Some of the fishing towns near this area haven’t seen water in decades. Other areas of note are the poisoned springs of Palestine and the Jordan River, where Israeli control of the water supply has only fed conflict between Israelis and Palestinians and access to water continues to be a major negotiating issue between Israel and its neighbors. Israel uses 2/3’s of its water supply to raise crops that generate 2% of its GDP and exports these products of oranges and tomatoes. Look at what the textile industries in India have done to the Indus River and its neighbor Pakistan. Geography dictates that India can cut off Pakistan’s access to the Indus.

In the last couple of weeks we have learned of the creation of a new lake in the Tunesia desert called Lake Gafsa. It is believed to have been caused by a tremor fracture of an underground reservoir. When it first appeared it was blue and now it has turned green and filled with algae and authorities are concerned that the water is carcinogenic because of its proximity to phosphorous mining in the region. Warnings have not stopped locals from swimming and drinking the water.

In our own country we have the disappearing of the Colorado River, whose reservoirs were once the lifeblood of seven states.

The Rio Grande now ceases to exist shortly after it passes El Paso. The Colorado no longer makes it all the way to the Pacific as it once did. Phoenix and Scottsdale take 1/5 of the flow of the Colorado. Arizona pumps 2X’s the water from the Colorado that is replenished from rain.

What is especially troubling is cases like the Colorado or the Rio Grande where every last drop is spoken for because changes in one area of the river can have multiple effect downstream. Conservation isn’t the only answer. We need better management of our waters and wetlands not just dams.

I want to highlight the most recent news regarding the algae growing in Lake Erie and its effect of access to clean water in Southeast Michigan and Toledo. We don’t have to travel the world to see the mismanagement of our resources and the need for clean water. I challenge each of you to become more aware of why and how we need to better manage this major resource by reading and discussing this book and others on the topic of Clean Water.

Overview
In When the Rivers Run Dry, Fred Pearce takes us on a journey across the world exploring the great sources of water and how humans have interacted with them down through history. Pearce uses stories of his travels to provide an effective structure for the book and push the reader through what would be boring statistics by themselves. Three-fourths of the book focuses on the problems while the remaining fourth describes and suggests a few possible solutions.

Strengths
* Pearce's passion about the topic seeps into every page of the book. His stories of destruction and ruin left in the wake of water mismanagemen and left me appalled at our current situation and longing for a solution to it.
* The author seems to have traveled to every country on earth just to research this book. The global scope of the book is staggering and illuminating at the same time.
* Pearce manages to describe the crisis without coming across like a doomsday prophet. Though he obviously has a message he wants to communicate, I appreciated that he did not let his passion obscure his reason.

Weaknesses
* At times, Pearce can have "mono-vision" when looking at the world through the lens of the water crisis. This is most evidently seen when he attributes the fall of the Incan and Khmer civilizations directly to their mismanagement of water. That could very well have played a part, but to attribute it solely to a water crisis ignores the complexity of a civilization's failure. Many factors probably played a part, not just one. A more subtle way this shows up is when he assumes that some of the shrinking water resources are directly attributable to human mismanagement. We know so little about the cycles of the earth that I'm not convinced that humanity is the only responsible party.
* As I read the book, I began to wonder whether Pearce was simply on a mission to warn us of the impending doom hovering over humanity and then leave us out to dry. But to my relief, the last few chapters offer suggestions for improving the situation. He details current and ancient methods and provides some beneficial suggestions that will challenge the way we have always done things. However, they did leave me hungering for more definable and workable solutions.

Thoughts
From a Christian perspective, this is an important book. All I often hear about the environment is that we were created to rule it and subdue it, and all these evil environmentalists try to do is keep us from doing our God-given duty. Although these statements have some truth in them, the creation mandate is far more nuanced than how many describe it. Unbounded capitalism is not God's intention. Part of Adam's duty was to rule the earth, but ever since the curse, humanity has largely ruled like a tyrant. We often forget that God placed Adam in the Garden of Eden specifically to care for it (Gen. 2:15). Harmony between humans and nature existed in the Garden Eden, and the curse did not wipe that concern away from God's mind. Jesus came to renew all things, including the whole cosmos. Yes, this will not be achieved until the New Creation, but since when should that stop us from pursuing that ideal right now?

I often feel that Christians let their eschatology obscure the Creation Mandate. Many have the attitude that since this world is going to burn up, it doesn't really matter how we use it. When this attitude connects with American capitalism, the results can be disastrous. Development at any cost is seen as the highest good. I have not developed a full theology of the environment here, but I think it is high time Christians stopped hiding behind the Rapture and started pursuing the good of the earth. God commands us to create new things and to work the earth and fill it, but this work must be in harmony with the creation He called "good" before man came on the scene. Could this focus obscure a concern for souls? Of course, and so can every other thing in the world, but that doesn't mean you ignore it. Thankfully, some Christians have addressed these issues. But I fear that they are largely ignored.

This book taught me a lot I did not know about our world. Cloistered away in America, I have never felt the desperation for clean water than many people feel on a day-to-day basis. I feel inconvenienced when the water comes out of the tap lukewarm and I have to wait for it to cool down, never thinking that many are dying from polluted or nonexistent water. Solutions to this crisis are not easy and often take on a political slant. But we must not sit back and do nothing either. Many people's lives depend on it.

That was a long review, and if you read the whole thing, then let me know your thoughts.

http://jonbiddle.tumblr.com/post/1609...

Not good.

​Written in 2006, ​Fred Pearces's book "When the Rivers Run Dry", seems somewhat prophetic to those of us living in the Southwest United States. ​ The Colorado River, the lifeblood of the Southwest, is severely overused, and upstream demands means it no longer flows to the sea. With reduced river flows and diminished snow pack in the Rockies and Sierra Nevada mountains, water supplies in the Southwestern states are severely stretched. As 2015 news accounts describe, California has been in a drought for several years, and significant water restrictions have been issued statewide. But water issues reach well beyone just the Southwest United states. Many other regions are suffering similar impacts​, as Fred Pearce describes in his book​. ​

Locally, Southern California's Salton Sea, as well as Lake Mead and Lake Powell in the U.S. Southwest, are shrinking rapidly. On a more global scale, the ​Aral Sea in Asia, once the world's 4th largest lake, has all but disappeared. ​​​​​Southwest Bra​zil is undergoing a terrible drought​, as are parts of China, Australia, Spain, Syria, Iraq, Africa, etc. And as leaders have tried to solve the problems by damming rivers, creating man-made lakes, ​creating huge irrigation projects, matters seem to just be getting worse. Water is wasted​ through inadequate water infrastructure, groundwater aquifers are incapable of being replenished, wells are running dry world-wide, and what water which does reach groundwater sources often is so po​l​luted as to be useless for consumption or agriculture. Dams created to prevent flooding prove incapable of fulfilling their mission, resulting in devastation to towns, villages, and downstream population. We hear of some of these situations, over time, but the totality and impact of the problem ​often ​doesn't register​. But this book certainly drives the point home.

In addition to the various places around the world suffering from water shortages, ​Pearce describes numerous and well detailed examples of failed water infrastructure projects, increased pollution of fresh water supplies, and the folly of a number of gone-bad water resource improvement policies. ​As world population increases, water resources are being over used, and it only takes a few years of lower rainfall, lower snowpack in mountains, shrinking glaciers, or poor water management decisions to push regions into crisis. The beauty of the book is that the chapters are ​very short, ​examples are clear and ​to the point, and extremely easy to read. It's truly a book for the layman, easy to understand without being superficial.

​It may be an exaggeration to compare this book and its impact to Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring", but as Carson's book highlighted the problems of pesticides and DDT, kickstarting the environmental movement at the end of the 20th century, Pearce's book highlights water pollution and shortages as the defining crisis of the twenty-first century. Hopefully, this book and others like it will raise attention and resources to address the water crises around the world.

​When beginning the book, the examples make you feel that the earth can barely supply enough water for its current population​. But Pearce leaves us with some hopeful prospects for the future​. The good news is that ​water is the ultimate renewable resource. We never destroy water. We may mismanage it, pollute it, waste it, but sooner or later, it will return one day. The difficulty is in ensuring that the water we need will be there​,​ when and where we need it. Pearce shows where we mismanage water, and where we have the potential for doing better.​ ​The solution in most cases is not more and bigger engineering schemes, giant desert canals or megadams. These projects tend to be hugely expensive, and cause as many problems as the solve.​ ​

​Recreating flood plains, recovering ancient water delivery systems, ​selected dam removals, ​drip irrigation techniques, porous pavement initiatives in major cities, natural steps to refill aquifers, capturing monsoonal rains, ​rooftop rain capture, ​etc.​ are all effective tools to improve our precious water supplies. But of course, fixing the problem requires being AWARE of the problem, and "When the Rivers Run Dry" brings the problems, along with some solutions (and a promise for more intelligent water usage in the future), to light.

3.5

The next wars won't be about oil. They'll be about water. Doubt that? Read this book.

When the Rivers Run Dry is a litany of abuses to our planet's fresh water systems. If Fred Pearce ticks them off in stultifying succession, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee-style, it's not his fault: he's listing only some of the worst examples in making his point.

Add this to the tectonic shifts that humanity should make—away from a carbon-based, growth economy, for instance—but won't, until nature shifts us, the hard way.

Pearce is an experienced science writer, and keeps a cool head. That the book is powerful and maddening is due to his letting the facts speak for themselves.

Fascinating and frightening book. Footnotes would have elevated this to a 5 star book, and not required the reader to take so much at face value.