Is Water the Sine Qua Non of "red" and "blue" America?

I’m often the first to criticize the way in which we are too quick to put things in political terms. Too often the rush to label “red” or “blue” America gets us into trouble. But one aspect seems to hold. We are bluer politically as we get closer to water. Look at any map and coastal America seems to have a different mindset.

Perhaps it is because water and proximity to water make a difference. That it impacts us in profound ways that stem from our evolutionary biology and extend to health, happiness and a more holistic view of the world.

Wallace J. Nichols has devoted himself to understand man's connection to the water. He explore it in Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, On, or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected, and Better at What You Do.


My conversation with Wallace J. Nichols:

California's water in all the wrong places

Those of us in California know all too well what’s its like to be living in the midst of a drought. Gov. Jerry Brown recently put in place restrictions demanding that urban water use be cut by 25%. Already the push back is coming. In a state where agriculture uses well over 50% of the state’s water, and only contributes 3% to the state’s economy, urban water users are becoming angry.
There is much talk about pipelines, about desalination, and new technology to bring water to the parched desert that is much of California.

All of this echoes a battle of an earlier time. A time, at the turn of the last century, when a man named William Mulholland would devise a plan to make the desert that was Los Angeles bloom and allow it to become the world class, cutting edge metropolis that it is today.
Perhaps in these dry times, its instructive to look back to that previous period and see what we might learn.

My conversation with Les Standiford about his book Water to the Angels: William Mulholland, His Monumental Aqueduct, and the Rise of Los Angeles

Oil & Water

Oil and Water don't usually mix. But they do when we think about the two natural resources whose future scarcity could reshape our world. Today oil is central to our world and has played a role in the violent conflicts and in the divisions between rich and poor. Peter Maas, distinguished journalist and author of Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oilrefers to it as the oxygen of the global economy. And yet for years we have refused to talk about it honestly.

On the other hand, in the growing consensus over global warming and the cost of excess carbon, we are arguably overlooking the depletion of another precious resource: potable Water. In Heart of Dryness: How the Last Bushmen Can Help Us Endure the Coming Age of Permanent Drought journalist and water expert James Workman travels to the direst place on earth to see how, against all odds and under brutal government repression, an indigenous people draws on ancient wisdom to survive on extreme scarcity of water, and what we not only might learn, but must learn.

My conversation with Peter Maas:

My conversation with James Workman: