Transcripts For CSPAN3 Peter 20240703

Have stewarded these lands for 10,000 years. Currently there are many tribe bars and bands working together to restore their culture heal from trauma. Trauma and protect their traditional. I recently started talking with members of the coast miwok council, where i live and have learned a lot from them, encourage you to go beyond these land acknowledgments and meet people and reach out to Indigenous People in your community. They are here for recording todays conversation for the climate one radio show podcast that drops every friday. You can subscribe, you get your pods. We record here about once a month on this stage. Excited that on july jb straubel, cofounder of tesla whove tinkering with electric cars, says he, a young man, is now ceo of redwood materials, an Exciting Company thats trying working on recycling lithium ion batteries really really interesting company. You can register for this and other climate one on our new refreshed website climate one dot org. Or you can create playlists, share them with people. Before i welcome ariana and peter. Id like to encourage you to support us here at climate one. You know, we need your help. Audiences are not what they used to be downtown francisco. Weve been affected and duped by this. You are qr code. You can scan that now or later and make a five or ten or 20 one time a monthly donation to support our Fabulous Team that creates this fabulous content thats our audience has grown from about thousand a week to more than 170,000 a week in the last last few. At the end of this evenings conversation well take questions you and here in our Live Audience youre on the live stream you can put them in the comments section if youre here. Theres a question card on your seat. Please write your name and your concise question. And then megan collect them, our producer, and then well invite to come to the microphone. I think its going to be over here. And the name arianna will call people to come up in that order. And you can read your your question and i founded climate 117 years ago. I went to the arctic. I got scared. I came back, i cried, changed my life. Ive been doing this every week for 17 years and we now have a newer expanded team. If youve been listening to the podcast, youve heard arianna and me more and more so, which is great. Its better now. Theres a reason why that audience is growing because we have a talented team and ariannas big part of that. So now for the first time, im really excited to have her this stage conduct an interview with dr. Peter gleick cofounder, the Pacific Institute and, author of the three ages of water prehistoric past and peril present and a hope for the future. Please welcome arianna and peter peter. Thank you, rick. Welcome, everyone. Welcome, peter. Looking forward to this conversation with you, your new book divides humans relationship with water into three ages. In the first one, humans lived and died in relation to water two their access to water and threats from water major events like floods became part of our cultural and stories and as humanity, so did our ability to control through dams, canals, irrigation so much so that today we mostly consider ourselves insulated against oversupply or shortage, and yet every year we see examples of how fragile this control really is in our climate amplified world. So how well do you think were currently our relationship with water . Well, me start first of all, by by thanking you and greg for for having me here. Its wonderful to be at climate one again and. Also, this is a very three dimensional or something im i think im not that used to the last few years the short answer is terribly were not managing our relationship water well at all. There are all sorts of climate and water related crises. We take water for granted and the history of water tells us that we could and should be doing better than were doing now. And are examples in the past of of doing better would you say. Well there are certainly examples in the past of doing better when we can we can about the current. But in the first age of water this sort of prehistory it didnt matter much. Populations of the planet were very small. We took water, we found it and we dumped our wastes. Where where we could. And it again, it didnt really matter. Life was pretty miserable anyway, and brutal and short. But those early that early era of really helped define humanity. It helped sort of set the stage for for where we are today and today and i think this has actually been true for for quite a long time about 80 of the water we use goes to grow food. And yet cities are growing or populations are growing. We need more and more water. Weve seen major advances in irrigation technology, but i would say shifts to less water consumptive crops, especially in states like my home state where cotton and alfalfa are still mainstay crops. How can we maintain our agricultural economies and Food Production while using little bit less water or a lot less water . Well, this is a key, of course, as you say, 80 of the water that humans use worldwide goes to grow food. Thats partly a result of the green revolution that happened in the last century where we learned really the importance of irrigated water for agriculture. And in fact, 80 of the water that we use in california goes grow to grow food as. Well, its its the same the world numbers and populations continue to grow theres a food crisis as well as a water crisis. Hundreds of millions of people go to go to bed hungry every today and populations to grow. And part of the question is how are we going to continue grow enough food with the Water Supplies that are already over tapped. We already use more water than i think is sustained possible and yet populations to grow. And so one of the key questions really is how can do more with the water . Were already using . How can we grow more food . How can we meet our needs with less water . And are there going to be i mean, do think that theres a audience for some of these changes in the u. S. . I mean, just speaking to the u. S. And the amount power, the agricultural lobby has, theres a lot of water that is that goes grow things that we dont eat you know goes to grow food for cows or food for other animals. Is there a way to i mean, do you see a future where that changes where . We take some of that water for other uses . Well, it depends on who you mean by receptive audience. There are lots of different audiences out there in general, really care about water. If you look at Public Opinion polls about environment that have have gone back for many, many decades, water access, safe water and the availability of water and protecting the quality of water has always been right at the top of those Public Opinion polls. People care about water. And in terms of changing the the way we do what we do, it depends on who were asking to change. And the benefits are. We already see farmers growing more food with less water when theres a shortage of water, theres pressure on Water Resources. Then farmers think, well, what can i do . How can i do what i want with water . So we see that in california. We see that around the world. There are changes in irrigation practices now that are moving us in the direct the right direction. But laws and water rights and institutions sometimes very hard to change and sometimes very slow to change. Yeah, staying with agriculture for just a couple more minutes because it uses lot of water. We have already seen stretches of u. S. Farmland go out of production because. Wells have gone dry, groundwater wells or here in california, you know, the pumping has gotten either too expensive or its and also led to subsidence what going to happen what will happen to these regions when it just becomes impossible pump any more water . I mean, will will they recover . Will we see them recover. So is again where history sort of is interesting to me in the first stage of in the first stage of water, we didnt think about irrigation. We we grew crops once agriculture invented where water reliable where there was reliable rain, where there were reliable rivers in ancient mesopotamia, the indus valley in india, in china. But populations grew. And as we outgrew those local Water Resources had to think differently about where to get our water and today a vast amount of our agricultural water comes from something that was not possible a long time ago and that resulted from the green revolution today a lot of the crops that we grow are grown with what i describe as groundwater. That is, we pump groundwater faster than nature recharges it. And like oil. When you pump something faster than nature recharges at the stocks go down, it becomes harder and harder to find it. It becomes more expensive, use it. And in the long run its not sustainable. And thats agricultural crisis today. A substantial amount, maybe 30 or 40 of the worlds production comes from nonrenewable groundwater, and it simply cant continue. Groundwater levels are dropping. Its happening in california. Its happening in the great plains, northern china, india we have to think about how to replace that water, how to grow more food with with less water. Thats, again, part of the challenge one of the really interesting things i learned your book is that groundwater pumped from aquifers eventually ends up in the oceans and actually contributes to sea rise. And this i dont know think about what youre talking about. You know this larger point of water being the supply is continuous, constant, but we just kind of move it around. And in a way, weve moved so much of it around this maybe second age of water that weve really changed the dynamics. And so can you tell us a bit more about that because i thought that was that news to me. Yeah, thats right. There are actually two there are lots of kinds of water. But but theres renewable Water Resources. The rivers that flow, the rain that falls the hydrologic cycle that we all remember, Elementary School and nonrenewable water, the groundWater Resources that have been laid down over thousands or tens of thousands of years and then are stuck there. But theyre when you use them get used up when, we use groundwater and take groundwater out of that stock and put it on crops. It goes back to evaporation it runs off back to the oceans, strangely enough, contributes a little bit to Sea Level Rise because youre moving a stock from underground into the renewable hydrologic cycle. You know, we think about Sea Level Rise, of course, the tremendous impact of Climate Change on Sea Level Rise. But theres a little additional increment, Sea Level Rise thats happening because were moving water from the stock underground back into the active part of the hydrologic cycle. Thats amazing. Well, so this second page of water is what you define as our current age. And this has been defined by advances in engineering that have essentially plumbed the entire planet and brought along untended pollution, ecologic disruption, conflict, Climate Change, and then a term that you you use water, poverty. Can you define that for us . And tell us how thats impacting women and girls around world especially so water, poverty is what i mean by that is simply the failure to provide everyone the planet with safe water and sanitation and the inequities we see in the way our Water Systems and institutions have been developed. The second age of water was was really an age when we discover what water was, we discovered what oxygen was and hydrogen and the molecule that makes up water. It was the scientific revolution that helped us build the Water Systems that we have today that let us build aqueducts not a few kilometers out of dirt as we did in ancient times, but hundreds or thousands of kilometers long and through mountains, and build the huge dams that provide water and Flood Control and drought protection and hydropower and Smart Systems that help deliver to us safe water and sanitation. The things most of us take granted, you know, the idea that that we can turn, tap and have incredibly cheap, incredibly pure water delivered to us is something not many of us in the sort of richer part of the world take for granted. But there are billions people today worldwide that dont have access to safe water and sanitation, and thats really what i define as water poverty. And even in the u. S. , as you said, tap water is almost always safe to drink. We have underinvested in our public Water Supplies, so much so that, though, we need to repair. We need to repair and replace most of our infrastructure in the next 15 years. And we dont have really the funds to do it. Has that changed the infrastructure law and the inflation reduction and the infusion of money that weve seen those it has to some degree, thats another important part about water poverty. Know we take it for granted that those of us in the wealthier part of the world have safe water and sanitation. But thats true. Only as long as we invest in our Water Systems and the disaster in flint, michigan, a few years ago where a good water system went bad because of underinvestment and mismanaged demand and the disaster today in jackson, mississippi, and the communities in the Central Valley that dont have access to safe water still, and the native American Communities that have never had access to safe water in this country. Its not water. Poverty is not just a problem in the developing world, a problem here. And part of it is the failure to provide safe water and sanitation to those communities. Part of it is, as you say, the failure to continue to invest in the Water Systems that we have were not adequately investing in upgrading, maintaining our urban water. And most places that leads to things like flint, michigan and. Jackson, the failure in jackson. The Inflation Reduction Act and passed by congress and signed by President Biden provides a lot of money for water provides a lot of money for all sorts of infrastructure in the u. S. , which is great. It. 15 billion for example to remove lead pipes. We still have lead in our cities in the united, which is an embarrassment and and a travesty in many ways. It provides money for that. It provides money for investing in new systems and upgrading Water Systems. So it is a step forward a lot of that money ought to come from our own pockets. You know, we we pay water bills. That that water goes to our Water Utilities. Those Water Utilities are responsible for maintaining and upgrade in our urban systems, but they havent been maintained. The they ought to be. Well, this is one thing you also write about in the book. This sort of necessity that you argue to continue investing in our public supplies as opposed to privatizing them, and maybe the. Can you kind of explain that argument, maybe the problems that might come from privatization of water . Yeah, i do talk in the book about the trends toward water privatization and that can be defined in a lot of ways bottled water, a way to privatize public Water Systems as well. And i talk about bottled in the book, too, but was a trend a number of years ago more a little more than a decade ago, there was this belief that because of the challenges we face with our public Water Utilities, that maybe private companies could do a better job. And this was true in the United States and was true worldwide in the u. S. Most of our Public Water Agency or most of our Water Utilities are public. And theyve always been public. A small fraction, maybe 15 . Our but there was this belief that because of problems with public water agencies, that maybe we should turn them over to private entities. And the world bank was arguing in developing countries, we should let Companies Run water agencies because public agencies and governments been a failure. So that was a bit of a trend. There was a lot of opposition at the time. There were riots in cochabamba about an effort to privatize the water system in bolivia, and people died in those riots and at the same time were a number of public water agencies that saw the threat of privatization and realized that one way they could maintain public control was to improve their operations. And it turns out a wellrun Public Agency is just as good as a private water agency, and rates tend to be lower for public water agencies and. The profits, which go to a private Water Company dont tend to leave the community. And if you maintain a Public Water Agency, those those, there are no profits really. Those those moneys are reinvest it in the public system. And so there is still pressure in some places to, privatize Water Systems. But i think the lesson that learned is that a wellrun Public Agency is a better idea. So we talk on climate about the individual and the systemic, the ways people can have agency and try to, you know, work for Climate Agency in their own lives. And im curious if theres a water intersection here. I mean, as a Water Utility member, as somebody who pays water bills, is there something you can do to kind of keep your utility working for you . I mean. Well, yes. In fact, you know, most what what are utilities are sort of a mystery to most people. They again, they turn on their tap and they get clean water and they pay their water bill. And theres not a problem until theres a problem, but public Water Utilities are public. They have boards of directors and members of the can run for boards of directors and people can go to can go to meetings that their public Water Utilities or, their private Water Utilities and can participate there is agency here people because people care about. Its always better not wait until theres a crisis to get involved but people can get involved and there are things that every one of us can do to pay more attention to happening in our own backyards. You mentioned tribes as being one of the groups that doesnt always have great access to water. And in the southwest, tribes hold some of the oldest rights. And theyve also been ignored in discussions of Water Management like on the Colorado River and left without access to clean, plentiful water. I think the Biden Administration has been working to address some of these wrongs. And im curious if you think weve seen any significant changes or maybe some that are to come with these new investments for tribes, specifically . Well, this is a total, total contradiction in terms in many ways, water rights in the west have been given out under something called prior appropriation since first in time, first and right. If you were there first, you were the first farmer to take water out of a river you had a higher a senior water rate than. Somebody who came along later and that first in time first and right rule it defines water rights in the United States and yet the tribe who really were here first obviously tended to have senior water rights. They were exclu it from those early water rights allocations. There has been an effort in recent years to change that. There have been court cases in recent that have reallocated some rights back the tribes. This is true on the Colorado River. Its true somewhat in california, but not not as much as it ought to be. And it is an opportunity to redress, to address and and reverse of the wrongs that were done over the last couple of centuries in the west but a lot more needs to be done that area the Biden Administration has worked on that theres been lot of work, especially, again, as i say, on the colorado. Mm hmm. So thing that i think is common in the popular imagination when you think of water is water wars. Right. And in the book, you write that socalled water wars are improper, both unlikely and historically rare, but violence and Armed Conflicts associated with water are unambiguously, dramatically on the rise. So can you unpack that for us. Sure. So in the first page of water, this sort of the earliest years, early empires, we actually see the first water war, something i would actually describe and do describe as a water war. 2400 b. C. , 4500, almost 4500 years ago, a conflict over access to and Irrigation Systems in ancient mesopotamia, an ancient sumerian and the history since then. Again is something ive worked on for a long time. At the Pacific Institute. We maintain something called the water conflict chronology, which an open Source Database of conflicts over water throughout history shows us that we dont have wars over. Water wars start for a lot of wars start for economic reasons, ideological, religious, political conflicts over borders, economic. But we do increase singly sea Violence Associated with Water Resources in three forms we see water a trigger of conflict where. Theres a dispute over access or control water. We see water or Water Systems used as weapons during wars. Again, wars that start for other reasons. And we see water as a casualty or water as casualties of conflicts. Again, conflicts that start for other reasons. And we recently did an analysis of the data in the water conflict chronology and data in history that shows the number of conflicts over water have increased dramatically in recent years, in part because of growing pressure over scarce Water Resources, in part because of a number of conflicts where civilian Water Systems have been targeted. But thats thats the way i think about water and conflict, not not as a water war per se, but as growing violence and conflicts over over water. And how do we get around that . Is that part of the idea of just ensuring everyone has access to and i mean, that could still be a casualty of, i suppose. Well, there lots of ways around it. But part of the challenge is meeting basic human needs for water. If everyone has access to safe and sanitation, if everyone has control of Water Resources in their communities theres less likely to be true. Water is less likely to trigger violence and conflict than we a lot of conflicts now where theres disputes over control and access to water. International law plays a role this International Humanitarian is very explicit saying civilian infrastructure should be protected during conflicts including v resources. And so International Law has a role to play. Institutions have a role to play, institutions to manage water when it crosses a border and most rivers worldwide borders. Turns out almost every Major International river that you can think of actually crosses a border. Even the Colorado River shared between the u. S. And mexico and so institution that can manage transboundary Water Resources are, an important part of that puzzle as well. Well, speaking of the colorado climate, drought and, population growth have cut the Colorado River flows by about one third in recent years and dropped its reservoirs to historic lows recently. After months of negotiations, california arizona and nevada agreed to look to cuts equivalent to about 13 of their part of the river. And they did that rather than having the federal government step in and decide those for them, those are significant cuts that should temporarily spare western cities and farms from having their taps run dry, but it is a short term solution. So as a californian whats your view on this deal and, the longer term outlook for this essential water supply . So the colorado is a great river. Its a great theres just so much theres theres politics, theres environmental issues, theres transboundary issues. Its its an iconic river, of course, because of the grand canyon and so many the issues that i talk about in the book are are manifest in what we see in the Colorado River. Its shared by seven states of the impacts of Climate Change are already obvious. As you mentioned on the colorado, weve seen decreases in flows. I think that the agreement that was that was reached with about a month ago, i guess really, is going to be sufficient to address the problems on the colorado. As you say, i it might result in a short term a little bit of breathing space. But the problem really, like much of the water in the western United States, like much of the water and rivers around world is simply overallocated. We use water than nature can reliably provide until we get water demand under control or theres not much that that you can do to reduce the conflicts on the colorado. We simply demand more water than nature provides and so by reductions demand i mean weve already dropped our water use dramatically from what it used to be. I know you can cite a figure probably better than i can on that, but we still have farther to go. Basically, or get people to move back east instead of out west. So we havent cut demand on the colorado that much and the and the cuts that weve seen on the colorado are temporary. Theyre in response to this short the shortages that we see. But i think most of the traditional most traditional Water Politics assumes, oh, these shortfall flows are temporary. And well figure out how to find more supply. The climate will change and well get wet years on the colorado had sort of a wet year this year on the colorado, the reservoir levels are going to go up a little bit. I think thats temporary or well a pipeline from the Mississippi River or well desalinate water the in the gulf of california and pump it up to the Colorado River. Theres old old style thinking that will solve our water problems with the approaches that we used in the 20th century. And in what i describe as second age of water in the book. And i dont think thats going to be enough. And then how do we get demand under control . Well, there are lots of ways. One is, as weve talked about a little bit, we use water more efficiently. We use better Irrigation Systems. We use better technologies in our in our industry. And commercial and residential water use to cut our water. Water use to do the things we want to do more effective. And really important. And weve done a lot in that area and its cut our water demand a great deal. But ultimately in the colorado and i think in parts of california, were going to have to change what grow and where we grow it. On the colorado, 80 of the water also goes to agriculture. The vast majority of that water goes to grow crops that are fed to animals to produce meat. Again, this is this is true worldwide as well. A lot of the food that we grow never consumed by humans. But to feed animals theres going to have to be a fundamental in peoples diets in what we choose to grow and where we choose to grow it. Ultimately, i think land is going to come out of production in the colorado. Right. Meaning not be farmed anymore. I think were going to have to cut how much land is irrigated, not just what we grow, but how much is irrigated in the colorado. And i think. Thats going to be true in parts of california. So to that point, about 1. 2 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act is going to be used to pay cities, tribes and farmers to temporarily use less water. But that money will out and the water needs will continue. I mean, in some places youre saying we can fallow the land and not use it anymore. Do you think that will one, are we going to get to that point . Where farmers are going to willingly be bought out so that we can use the water for other things . Yeah, this is a really good point. The agreement that was reached a few a month ago or so to reduce water use in california and arizona and nevada, the southern basin states on the colorado was in part encouraged by a big contribution from the federal government 1. 2 billion. Ive arguing that that money ought to go to permanent reductions on the colorado not temporary cuts to meet shortfalls the next couple of years. But to invest in better Irrigation Systems, permanent improvements in Irrigation Systems or urban water use to buyout farmers permanently. I dont thats going to happen yet, but ultimately something is going to happen to get farmers to cut their water use either voluntarily or by mandatory reductions by the states. And i know that there are many parts of your book that dont deal with water shortage, but because of where we are, theres a lot of discussion around this arizona is Just Announced its going to stop developers from some new subdivisions around phenix because the state has determined there is not enough groundwater to support. Phenix has been booming, especially some of these metro areas kind on the outskirts. There is still lot of development happening, but this is kind the first step, it would seem in maybe that there is actually a limit. Do you agree . Do you think were going to see more of that . Yeah. So one of the one of the challenges that is discussed in the book is the failure to think Water Resources and Economic Development in sustained fashion is the best way i can describe it. Weve always assumed that we could develop wherever we wanted and whatever we wanted and ultimately we would figure out how to provide the water and the energy and the food it didnt matter where we developed. Wed find the resources. But thats simply not true any longer. Its hasnt true for a long time in the part of the United States and in parts of of california, were running up against absolute limits to how much water is available to us and the decision to finally perhaps one could say to to think about Long Term Land use planning and development in the context of how much water is available is a step forward. Its a difficult one developers have have this for years. But the realization now that we we ought to think about how much water is available and, how much energy is available, and how much food is available, we decide what to build and to build. It is is a step forward and its a radical step forward. Yeah. So pivoting just a bit. The recent supreme ruling in sackett versus epa dramatically limited the scope of the clean water act, removing about half of the nations wetlands from protection from contamination. That there kind of sums up the result. Thats a really significant what do you think the impact is going to be from this on our freshWater Resources and what, if any, remedies do we have to sort of fill in the gap. So i am an optimist. The the third, third edge of water, which i maybe well talk about, is an optimistic view of the future. I believe we can solve our water problems. Thats not they say there wont be steps backwards and the recent decision by the Supreme Court to strip protections from vast number of wetlands in the United States is step backwards, a terrible step backwards. That ruling im not a lawyer, but i i will go so far as to say it wasnt justified the law. Its not justified ethics. Its not justified by any aspect of environmental science. It was a step backwards i help but hope and think that in the long run protections for wetlands will be reestablished, we have a growing understanding of the incredible importance of ecosystems for our wellbeing, the incredible importance of wetlands for for water quality, for migratory birds for every aspect of the environment. But there are will be steps backwards. This this path, but i hope will lead us forward not to drill down on this, but as a water expert, isnt it just confounding that theres this sort of like. No disconnect between the science of understanding that groundwater and surface water are connected and a ruling that sort of says they arent, that it doesnt its not significant enough to matter. Yes, it was a science typically it was a completely illogic legal, ridiculous decision. But but the decision wasnt made on the basis of science as maybe the politest thing i can say about that. Okay. How has this as a scientist, i would like to think that our policy is our politics. Economics would be based on fact. They arent always and and thats a sad reflection on where we are today. Its partly why the second age of water has a series of water crises you know the failure to provide safe water and sanitation isnt because we know how to provide safe water and sanitation its because of a failure of economics, politics and institutions. The failure to clean up our Water Resources isnt because we know the importance or how to do so, but because of the failure, politics and economics and our institutions. Well, lets go into the third age of water, which is your for a more hopeful future and as a step hopefully toward that 2010, the u. N. General assembly formally recognized the human right to water and sanitation. In the last decade, what progress has been made on this goal. Ensure all humans have an access have a right to clean safe water. So the failure to provide water and sanitation everyone isnt a its a new problem. Its not an unknown problem in. 2000, the u. N. Declared, something called the Millennium Development. They set a series of for the year 2015, a whole series of goals around the environment, including one for water, which was at the time to reduce half the proportion of people worldwide that didnt have access to safe water and sanitation by the year 2015 and a of progress was made in part to try and meet the Millennium Development goals. But those goals werent adequately met in 15. The u. N. Announced a whole series of new goals called the Sustainable Development goals for 2030. And again, theres a water goal that sdg six the objective was to meet 100 of the unmet need for water and sanitation, not half the worlds population, but everyone. The goal was to meet safe water and sanitation for everyone and again, a tremendous amount of money and effort is going into to meeting those targets. I dont think well meet them, but we are making progress. A lot of money, a lot of effort is being put into providing safe water and, sanitation for everyone. The u. N. Declared a human right to water in 2010. As you that that helped its a declaration it doesnt by itself provide anybody with safe water and sanitation. But it was it was a it was an indicator of the growing awareness that. Water poverty was a problem. And that we needed to do more to meet objectives. But even here in the United States, we havent met that need for everyone here in the u. S. , california declared a human right to water also and passed legislation to do so. Again, its a statement rather than any anything else. But there have been efforts since then to try and increase the amount of money available. 200 million has been set aside to try and meet safe water for populations in the Central Valley of california that dont have it. So we are making progress and im optimistic that in the long run, maybe not 2030, but in the long run we will provide everyone on the planet with safe water and sanitation. I id like to think that its inevitable. So at the end of the book, you paint two possible futures and one is sort of dystopian. One is very, in my mind, very utopian, very optimistic about how weve sort of solved lot of these problems. But, well, so want to invite you first to explain proposal for the soft path of water. What that would mean. So just to be explicit. I think were at it, were at a turning point in history actually around water and many things. The dystopian future i dont describe in my book, but which is the possible future . Which is the one we hear about a lot in. Daily newspapers and in in the movies that we see and in the story science stories about dystopian futures. Thats thats the Common Future that we all understand as possible but what i describe in the third age of water is not that future. Its the alternative future. Its the positive vision that i think is not just possible, but also, i think, inevitable. And i think its inevitable because i see all around me success stories. I see the of the human right to water. I see farmers growing more food with less water. I see urban water use going down in the United States, going up even though economy, our economy and our population continues grow. I see the success stories, the things that we need to do. What i ultimately describe as the soft path for water, the book and the soft basically says we can rethink supply, which used to mean taking more water of groundwater and out of our rivers and over pumping are our wetlands and our ecosystems and can find new sources of supply that dont require that highly treated wastewater, which were starting to use in california and that they use extensively singapore and israel and other places that we can ultimately desalinate it. If we address the environmental economic costs of desalination that, there are sources of supply that are different so rethink supply is one rethink demand. Again the assumption that we can forever and meet demands growing demands for water is no longer valid, but we can use water more. Thats demand management than water use efficiency. And again, we use less water for everything in the United States today than we used 40 years ago. Were changing demand for water and soft path says stop ignoring ecosystems again in the second age of water. We didnt understand or we didnt know the of our water use for the natural but we do today and we can no longer ignore natural ecosystems and were starting to restore natural ecosystems and were guaranteeing river flows and were down the most damaging. And so the soft path says think about ecosystems, not economics. And the soft path says rethink our institutions. We need institutions for the 21st century, not institutions that we built in the 19th century and the 20th century that didnt the way we need to rethink the way we use water and all of those together are soft path for water and those things together are what give me hope that we can reach that sustainable future. Well, as we close here, i just want to share a little bit of my water connection. So from tucson, arizona and our river flows through town is the Santa Cruz River one of them . And thats where tucson was founded i mean, way before there were spanish conquistadors that came through that the site of Indigenous People that lived there for four. I think its one of the oldest continuously parts of the whole united and in the eighties. The river still flowed and. People would go swimming in it. And there were stories that people had, you know, big high floods, Monsoon Floods and it coming up over the banks and my entire life that river has been dry. I mean, we call it a river, but its just empty, dry riverbed. And a few years ago, the local Water Utility began putting highly treated wastewater back to recharge that groundwater table there. And has created this little oasis thats really beautiful. And there is a multiuse path along the river. Theres a lot of people that now use it increasingly for walking and biking. There are dragonfly population, there are frogs, there are that come. And its really short stretch of river. Its not long, but its really amazing to have back in this place. It should have been if we hadnt over pumped. I say all of that to ask you. Is there a place like that that you can think of thats special to you and that youve maybe seen through changes and youre still optimistic about . So thats a one thats a wonderful story. And its an indication, first of all, about how much people about water and. Its an indication that we can restore some of the damage that we did in, the second age of water, which is our age. Thats a great story. And there are lots of stories like that that. My my wife and i were bird were both bird watchers. We love in the winter in california to go up to Northern California to the wildlife refuge where literally hundreds of thousands, millions of birds winter, they come down from from the arctic, from canada, and they spend the winter in california. There are plenty of other birds that leave and go south, but theyre incredibly dependent on wetlands in Northern California for years have been dried up. The wetlands have been shrinking. The rivers have been shrinking. The farmland has paved over a lot of the the wetlands. But in recent years, weve a restoration of some of those wetlands. Again, this is an example where. Farmers are starting to work with the Environmental Community and now in the winter, many of the farmers in the part of the Central Valley flood their lands in the winter, which actually is beneficial. The the farmland themselves but it restores wildlife and wetland habitat for migrating birds and its just wonderful in the winter now go up and see thousands and thousands of acres of, wetlands being restored and millions and millions of birds. Its just thats its good for the soul and its good good, good to know were moving along this. Yeah, thats great. Well, thank you so much, peter, for this conversation. We have some questions, the audience and many more than we have time for a testament this wonderful conversation with peter. So i would like to ask cat arbus, niki naumann and peter you all this yours. I apologize if. I mispronounced that too. Please come to this mike over here. In that order and well have you your questions. At least one of those is a plant. What do you think of desalination of ocean water for residential and commercial use in california . So theres a chapter, the book, about desalination. We know how to desalinate water to, take to take salt out of water. 97 of the water on the planet is salt too salty to drink and grow top crops. But but we do know how to desal it. And in fact, the history of desalination. Back to aristotle. Theres all sorts of great history in the book about that. Its very its the most expensive option available to us. Its much expensive today than smart conservation and efficiency. Its much more expensive today than highly treated. Recover in wastewater. Treating that wastewater to an incredibly High Standard and reusing it. But there are places on the planet, a lot of conservation. Efficiency has been done already where theyre recycling, reusing water and desalination is the source of last resort and where theyre using it. So my short answer is, use it when and where its appropriate and it provides a source of last resort. Thank you. My question was to give you a chance to say a little bit more about water rights in particular how are they different in different places besides the first come, first serve approach and how could they be for the better in the west . Yeah, so i mentioned this a little bit, but water rights are a big part of. Our challenge in the third edge of water, the Second Nature of water, which i describe as our age, is sort of when we built the institution that allocate the Water Resources that we have. And in the western u. S. , it was this first in time, first and right that has allocated vast amounts of our to the Agricultural Community because were here first in time except of course for native American Communities as we talked about reform, water rights in the west. Well, i should say in other parts of the world water rights are quite different than the east and in europe, water rights of riparian rights, if youre alongside a river, you have right to use that water so long as you dont harm another person downstream. And there are different kinds of water rights in different parts of the world. But reforming water rights is really important. And one of the Biggest Challenges certainly the west but elsewhere as well, in part because of politics. Its hard to change water rights. Interestingly, weve away five times more water and paper water rights in california, india than there ever will be actual water. So the water rights, Everybody Knows the water rights system doesnt work very well. One of the challenges thats really going that weve not tackled yet in california will be reforming in the west in general, will be water rights. I think ultimately we may get there, but were not there yet. My question is, how can we find a better balance between, human use and natures needs to biodiversity and in your lessons from the first age, should we look to indigenous science and reincorporate that into the future . Another great question. Part of the advance of the second age of water thats leading in my book in my argument to the third age positive third age is we do now understand the of ecosystems. We understand that our health, human health is on a healthy ecosystems. And you know, that started it started in the sixties really when the Cuyahoga River caught fire and we passed the clean act and the Safe Drinking Water act and the endangered species act, the fundamental some of the fundamental federal laws that permit us now to protect our water. And then the wild and scenic river act laws that are preserving some of the remaining undamaged rivers in the United States and in california. But we still have a lot to learn from lessons from indigenous communities. The first stage of water from, other communities around the world about, how to protect ecosystems. Were learning about how to not just take down dams, but to restore fisheries and how to protect fisheries. So there are a lot of lessons that we still can learn from other communities, not just here in the United States, from other parts the world as well. That i think will will help us restore natural ecosystem value that are so important to us. Another point that, though, is rethinking economics again in the second age of water, the value of water was what you could put it to the economic value could get out of it. You could take water out of a river and you could grow something with it. You could take water out of a river and you could make industrial goods and services and semiconductors and sell for a lot of money and. We didnt understand the value of ecosystems, but there is a whole new field of economics now called ecological economics that that i talk about a little bit in which were trying to understand the economic value of ecological values and were trying to change the way we run our Economic System to incorporate those ecological values in an Economic System that in the past never valued them. And were Getting Better and, better at that as well. But again, we need a lot more progress in that area. Well, thank you. Peter gleick is, cofounder of the Pacific Institute and author the three ages of water prehistory, our past imperiled present and a hope for the future and a for the future. Peter, thank you so much for joining us on climate one. Thank you this is a special conversation about the american dream, and it is an american that not only has been fulfilled and charted by our harold hamm whos written this wonderful book, game changer, something he and i will talk about briefly. But in that the lessons every american, no matter where from what their background, what language their people s