Peter Gleick on the History and Uncertain Future of the World’s Water

KQED's Forum

KQED

News Commentary, News, Politics

4.2 • 727 Ratings

🗓️ 26 June 2023

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

At a United Nations water conference in March, amid increasing global water conflicts and climate crises, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres sounded an urgent alarm. “All of humanity’s hopes for the future depend, in some way, on charting a new course to sustainably manage and conserve water,” he said. But what would a new course look like? Renowned water expert and scientist Peter Gleick seeks to answer that question in his latest book “The Three Ages of Water”. The book explores the complex relationship between humans and water throughout history, from ancient civilizations to the modern, scientific “Second Age of Water” when we “learned to manipulate the natural hydrologic cycle” but also did great harm to the planet. We’ll talk with Gleick about his call for a revolutionary “Third Age” of responsible water stewardship. Guests: Peter Gleick, senior fellow and co-founder, Pacific Institute; author, "The Three Ages of Water" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:46.5	Thank you. From KQED. From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal.
0:50.3	For 35 plus years, Peter Glick has been one of the nation's most interesting scientists, thinking about the water systems feeding the modern world.
0:59.2	He's done it from right here in the Bay Area, largely through the nonprofit he found at the Pacific Institute.
1:04.1	He's won a bunch of big awards, including the MacArthur, and he's got a new book out, The Three Ages of Water, which is like the summation of his life's work,
1:13.0	examining, improving, and criticizing the ways that we tap
1:16.5	into the Earth's hydrological cycle and extract H2O for human use.
1:21.6	We'll get him to give us a masterclass in where we are right now
1:24.6	in the slow water crisis that could determine a big chunk of our
1:28.0	state's future. That's all coming up next after this news.
1:37.4	Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. At a United Nations Water Conference in March,
1:43.1	amid increasing global water conflicts and the climate crisis,
	...

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