Book in Common

2012-2013

Unquenchable, by Robert Glennon

Robert Glennon's new book, Unquenchable: America's Water Crisis and What to Do About It, covers the water story all across America.  

Froom the Vegas Strip to faux snow in Atlanta, from our supersized bathrooms to mega-farms, from billion-dollar water deals to big time politics and personalities, Glennon reveals the extravagances and everyday waste that are sucking the nation dry.

The shell game of pumping water from place to place is coming to an end.  And Glennon warns that our water woes are bad and getting worse.

Right now Washington is having a love affair with the clean energy of ethanol and biofuels.  But love will turn to heartbreak once America realizes that thousands of gallons of water are required to produce one gallon of fuel.  Glennon tells how a celebrated, new ethanol plant in Minnesota-The Land of 10,000 Lakes-is already sucking local wells dry.

Glennon argues that we cannot engineer our way out of the problem with the usual fixes or the zany-but very real-schemes to tow icebergs from Alaska or divert the Mississippi River to Nevada.

America must make hard choices-and Glennon's answer is a provocative market-based system that values water as a commodity and a fundamental human right.

Robert Glennon is the Morris K. Udall Professor of Law and Public Policy in the Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona.  He is the author of many articles and books, including the acclaimed Water Follies:  Groundwater Pumping and the Fate of America's Fresh Waters.