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America’s Water Crisis and What To Do About it - Dr. Robert Glennon -

1,261 views · Published 20 February 2016 · 1:12:14 · Indexed 21 October 2026

Channel: The Real Truth About Health · 2016 · Science & Technology

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Expert Panel Host:  Robert Glennon

• In the middle of the Mojave Desert, Las Vegas casinos use billions of gallons of water for fountains, pirate lagoons, wave machines, and indoor canals. Meanwhile, the town of Orme, Tennessee, must truck in water from Alabama because it has literally run out. Robert Glennon captures the irony and tragedy of America's water crisis that is both frightening and wickedly comical. From manufactured snow for tourists in Atlanta to trillions of gallons of water flushed down the toilet each year, Robert Glennon reveals the heady extravagances and everyday inefficiencies that are sucking the nation dry. The looming catastrophe remains hidden as government diverts supplies from one area to another to keep water flowing from the tap. But sooner rather than later, the shell game has to end. And when it does, shortages will threaten not only the environment, but every aspect of American life: we face shuttered power plants and jobless workers, decimated fisheries and contaminated drinking water.  We can't engineer our way out of the problem, either with traditional fixes or zany schemes to tow icebergs from Alaska. In fact, new demands for water, particularly the enormous supply needed for ethanol and energy production, will only worsen the crisis. America must make hard choices and Glennon's answers are fittingly provocative. He proposes market-based solutions that value water as both a commodity and a fundamental human right. One truth runs throughout this lecture: only when we recognize waters worth will we begin to conserve it.

   Robert Glennon is the author of Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What To Do About It, which was published in April 2009 by Island Press. His previous books include the highly-acclaimed Water Follies: Groundwater Pumping and the Fate of America’s Fresh Waters (2002). Glennon is Regents’ Professor and Morris K. Udall Professor of Law and Public Policy in the Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona.

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