Synopses & Reviews
Americans see water as abundant and cheap: we turn on the faucet and out it gushes, for less than a penny a gallon. We use more water than any other culture in the world, much to quench what’s now our largest crop—the lawn. Yet most Americans cannot name the river or aquifer that flows to our taps, irrigates our food, and produces our electricity. And most don’t realize these freshwater sources are in deep trouble.
Blue Revolution exposes the truth about the water crisis—driven not as much by lawn sprinklers as by a tradition that has encouraged everyone, from homeowners to farmers to utilities, to tap more and more. But the book also offers much reason for hope. Award-winning journalist Cynthia Barnett argues that the best solution is also the simplest and least expensive: a water ethic for America. Just as the green movement helped build awareness about energy and sustainability, so a blue movement will reconnect Americans to their water, helping us value and conserve our most life-giving resource. Avoiding past mistakes, living within our water means, and turning to “local water” as we do local foods are all part of this new, blue revolution.
Reporting from across the country and around the globe, Barnett shows how people, businesses, and governments have come together to dramatically reduce water use and reverse the water crisis. Entire metro areas, such as San Antonio, Texas, have halved per capita water use. Singapore’s “closed water loop” recycles every drop. New technologies can slash agricultural irrigation in half: businesses can save a lot of water—and a lot of money—with designs as simple as recycling air-conditioning condensate.
The first book to call for a national water ethic, Blue Revolution is also a powerful meditation on water and community in America.
Synopsis
An award-winning journalist spells out in hard-hitting reporting the many ways one of the most water-rich nations on the planet is squandering its way to scarcity, and gives the first call for a national water ethic, showing how we can conserve water and halt the crisis.
Most people have heard of a "carbon footprint," but few are aware of the "water footprint" left by the immense number of gallons used domestically, in the generating of our electricity, and in the manufacture of everything from hamburgers to household goods. Blue Revolution takes a close look at America's water consumption and exposes just how surprisingly close we are to running out across the nation. This book explores how communities and businesses from Massachusetts to Texas to California have learned to live within their means, creating sustainable water-management systems and practices that have resulted in dramatically reduced water consumption. Barnett also takes readers across the globe to learn from other countries' water solutions.
Synopsis
Blue Revolution's positive message: We have enough water to go around,
if we quickly learn to live within our water means.
An award-winning journalist reports on the many ways one of the most water-rich nations on the planet has squandered its way to scarcity, and argues the best solution is also the simplest and least expensive: a water ethic for America.
From backyard grottoes in California to sinkholes swallowing chunks of Florida, Blue Revolution exposes how the nation’s green craze largely missed water—the No. 1 environmental concern of most Americans. But the book is big on inspiration, too. Blue Revolution combines investigative reporting with solutions from around the nation and the globe. Reporting from San Antonio to Singapore, long-time journalist Cynthia Barnett shows how local communities and entire nations have come together in a shared ethic to dramatically reduce consumption and live within their water means.
The first book to call for a national water ethic, Blue Revolution is also a powerful meditation on water and community in America.
About the Author
Cynthia Barnett is a long-time journalist whose awards include a national Sigma Delta Chi prize for investigative magazine reporting and eight Green Eyeshades, which recognize outstanding journalism in the Southeast. Her first book, Mirage: Florida and the Vanishing Water of the Eastern U.S., won the gold medal for best nonfiction in the Florida Book Awards and was a “One Region/One Book” selection in thirty Florida counties. Barnett earned a master’s degree in environmental history and was a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, where she spent a year studying water. She lives with her family in Gainesville, Florida.
Table of Contents
Contents
Chapter 1 The Illusion of Water Abundance
Chapter 2 Reclamation to Restoration
Chapter 3 The Netherlands: Deluge, Dams, and the Dutch Miracle
Chapter 4 Powerful Thirst
Chapter 5 Taproot of the Crisis
Chapter 6 The Water-Industrial Complex
Chapter 7 Singapore: Of Songbirds and Sewage
Chapter 8 The Big Dipper
Chapter 9 The Business of Blue
Chapter 10 Australia: Dry Down Under
Chapter 11 An American Water Ethic
Chapter 12 Local Water
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index