water

The headlines are grabbing people's attention: CBC News: "Pollution causing more deaths worldwide than war or smoking"; CNN: "Pollution linked to 9 million deaths worldwide in 2015, study says"; BBC: "Pollution linked to one in six deaths";  Associated Press: "Pollution killing more people every year than wars, disaster and hunger, study says";  The Independent: "Pollution is killing millions of people a year and the world is reaching 'crisis point', experts warn." News outlets are referring to a report released yesterday by The Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health. The report’s authors…

Modern drinking fountains chill and filter water, and let users fill water bottles (Photo: Peter Gleick 2011) by Peter Gleick and Rapichan Phurisamban There is strong bipartisan support for expanding investment in the nation’s water infrastructure as part of a broader infrastructure effort. But there is, as yet, little agreement about what specific investments should be made. Here is one idea: expand access to high-quality and safe municipal water by improving access to drinking fountains in schools, parks, public buildings, and around public transit areas. Drinking fountains are an…

In late February 2017, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences hosted a workshop on the human right to water organized by the Cátedra del Diálogo y la Cultura del Encuentro of Argentina with several other organizations. With many colleagues from science, law, human rights, history, and religion, this workshop offered the opportunity to debate and discuss how to integrate the human right to water with public policies in water and sanitation management globally and regionally. Two days of intense discussion culminated in a declaration by Pope Francis and a formal statement (below) signed by the Pope…

Can I afford the water that comes out of my tap? It’s not a question that Americans typically ask themselves. However, a new study finds that in the next few years, many more of us might be asking that very question as we open our utility bills and realize that we’re merely accustomed to affordable water — we don’t have a guaranteed right to it. While a good amount of research on water affordability has been conducted in the developing world, the issue has received much less attention in developed nations such as the United States. Elizabeth Mack, an assistant professor in the Michigan State…

Among the different professional categories, scientists and engineers remain very highly respected by the public, at least compared to politicians, business leaders, the media, and even religious authorities. Part of this is due to the fact that success in the scientific enterprise depends on impartial analysis and independence from political ideology. And yet there are strong connections between science and policy: good policy without good science is difficult; good policy with bad science is impossible. Sure, there is plenty of bad policy made even in the face of contradictory scientific…

My new Science Magazine article “Water Strategies for the Next Administration” has just been released (embargo lifts 11am Pacific, November 3rd; the print version will appear in the November 4th issue of Science). It identifies six major water-related challenges facing the United States and offers explicit recommendations for strategies the next Administration and Congress should pursue, domestically and internationally. The article begins: “Issues around fresh water are not particularly high on the U.S. political agenda. They should be. Water problems directly threaten food production,…

I wasn’t in the room, but watching the webcast I could feel the public’s lingering dissatisfaction and distrust. It was last week's (Sept. 28) public meeting held by the Chemical Safety Board on its investigation into the 10,000 gallons of a toxic soup that poured in January 2014 into the Elk River in Charleston, WV. The river is the water source for residents of the city and surrounding communities. 300,000 residents were affected by the disaster. They did not have safe tap water for drinking, cooking, or bathing. Some still have no confidence that the water is safe to use. Headlines about…

Donald Trump speaking in Fresno, California, May 2016 Clinton on Western Water Trump on Western Water “Recognizes that the current long-term drought across much of the West poses a dire risk to the health and prosperity of Western communities and believes the federal government can and should be a better partner in supporting state and locally-led efforts to improve water security.” “There is no drought. They turn the water out into the ocean.” Explicit policy proposals: Increase federal investment in water conservation through a coordinated, multi-agency Western Water Partnership…

In a new study — the first of its kind — researchers fed water laced with fracking chemicals to pregnant mice and then examined their female offspring for signs of impaired fertility. They found negative effects at both high and low chemical concentrations, which raises red flags for human health as well. “These are preliminary findings,” Susan Nagel, the study’s senior author and an associate professor in Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health at the University of Missouri School of Medicine, told me. “But I think they suggest that we should absolutely be looking more closely at the…

Populations around the world face many severe water challenges, from scarcity to contamination, from political or violent conflict to economic disruption. As populations and economies grow, peak water pressures on existing renewable water resources also tend to grow up to the point that natural scarcity begins to constrain the options of water planners and managers. At this point, the effects of natural fluctuations in water availability in the form of extreme weather events become even more potentially disruptive than normal. In particular, droughts begin to bite deeply into human well-being…

I LOVE THIS MEETING! DAY 3 included several very interesting comparative physiology sessions. Image of birds from Wikipedia Eldon Braun (University of Arizona) spoke about how birds have a unique way to prevent water loss and thereby dehydration. In mammals, the kidneys are responsible for recovering water from the urine. However when birds are well-hydrated, the urine enters the colon and moves backwards up the gastrointestinal tract to facilitate water reabsorption prior to voiding the urine. Hiroko Nishimura (The University of Tennessee) spoke about work she had done over the years…

As readers of this column may already know, earlier this week the Pacific Institute and I announced an important and exciting change: on July 1st after 28 years as co-founder and President of the Institute, I will be moving to a new position as President Emeritus and Chief Scientist. A wide search for a new president has been launched. I’m neither resigning nor retiring. In my new role, I will continue to do research and writing on global climate, water, and sustainability issues, and I will continue to speak out on science and policy issues in public forums, with the press, and on social…

One of the Great Crises we face in today's world is the stability and security of the water supply. In America, most people don't have any problems getting water, to the extent that we tend to waste it, and few people even know where there water comes from. Every now and then there emerges a startling and troubling problem with water. A river catches fire, a plume of visible pollution observable from space spreads across a lake, or an entire city worth of children are poisoned with the contents of the city water supply. Works Progress Studio has been engaged for a while in a project called…

My state is screwed up, and the epicenter of the fallout from the dysfunctional mess that is the Michigan state government is the city of Flint. As you probably recall, around the holidays a story that had previously been mainly a Michigan story broke nationally in a big way. It is the story of how a combination of the imposition of an emergency manager on the city, epic incompetence at the level of the state and local government, and outright denial of a problem for several months by the veyr state agency (the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality) charged with making sure that things…

Since its founding in 1987, the Pacific Institute has worked to understand the links between water resources, environmental issues, and international security and conflict. This has included early analytical assessments (such as a 1987 Ambio paper  and this one from the journal Climatic Change) of the risks between climate change and security through changes in access to Arctic resources, food production, and water resources, as well as the ongoing Water Conflict Chronology – an on-line database, mapping system, and timeline of all known water-related conflicts. In 2014, an analysis of the…

By Peter Gleick, Brett Walton, J. Carl Ganter Water was a Top Risk on the 2015 Global Agenda In early 2015, participants at the World Economic Forum, a who’s who of the political and business elite, ranked water crises as the top global risk. Water was also a key factor in the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a blueprint for international development over the next 15 years. Ensuring safe drinking water and sanitation for all by 2030 is one of six water goals for the SDGs. In December at the UN climate change conference in Paris,…

Michigan is a frustrating state to live in these days. Our state government has just shown itself to be epically incompetent in its handling of the Flint water crisis, which I've written about a couple of times before. Our legislature repealed our mandatory motorcycle helmet law, and as a result in this state motorcycles are more donorcycles than ever. Our state has historically had low vaccine uptake, to the point where outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases are too common, with pertussis returning with a vengeance. We have naturopathic quacks (but I repeat myself) trying to cure their…

(Photo: Peter Gleick 2008) The recent severe drought in the Western United States -- and California in particular -- has shined a spotlight on a range of water-management practices that are outdated, unsustainable, or inappropriate for a modern 21st century water system. Unless these bad practices are fixed, no amount of rain will be enough to set things right. Just as bad, talking about many of these bad practices has been taboo for fear of igniting even more water conflict, but the risks of water conflicts here and around the world are already on the rise and no strategy that can reduce…

For years, scientists have described climate change as a slowly emerging public health crisis. But for many, it’s difficult to imagine how a complex planetary phenomenon can impact personal well-being beyond the obvious effects of natural disasters, which climatologists say will happen more frequently and intensely as the world warms. That disconnect is what piqued my interest in a new study on old infrastructure, heavy rainfalls and spikes in human illness. Drinking water quality is among the many adverse effects that climate change is expected to have on human health. But what exactly does…

Heather Cooley, Kristina Donnelly, Peter Gleick Last week, the Pacific Institute published the first comprehensive analysis of the impacts of the drought on California crop revenue and agricultural employment through 2014. The study showed that during the recent drought California’s agriculture sector experienced record-high crop revenue and employment. Crop revenue peaked in 2013 at $33.8 billion, the highest level in California history, and declined only slightly to $33.4 billion in 2014 (all economic data have been corrected for inflation). Statewide agriculture-related jobs also reached a…