Gleick’s book is an engaging, detailed and yet wide-ranging, authoritative exploration of the relationship between humans and water and how a positive sustainable world is within our reach.
He describes that we have already had the first two Ages of Water, with the Third Age being the positive, equitable vision that realises the benefits of water for everyone. ‘In the First Age of Water, the earliest human relationship to water was both central and unplanned…The Second Age flourished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when cities around the world were reaching critical size… The Second Age of Water has also brought the first global threats.’
Gleick expertly opens with the story of water from the beginning of time and explores the impact of the presence of water at the start of the creation of the Earth. He then details the existence and possibilities for water elsewhere in the solar system and argues that ‘The creation of life on Earth is bound together with the story of water in both science and culture.’ He closely examines the creation myths across cultures, which all use waters, to either create or destroy. ‘In 4,000-year-old Sumerian creation myths, heaven and earth were formed from a watery chaos by the goddess Nammu.’… ‘The three main Western religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all borrowed themes from Mesopotamian cultures and a describe a god creating the heavens and the earth including the first waters and bringing order and light from chaos.’ It is perhaps no accident that it is four rivers which flow from the Biblical Garden of Eden.
His discussion of water in belief and mythology inevitably brings him to the repeated Great Flood stories that are shared between cultures. ‘Every child of the Western religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam hears the story of the Great Flood sent by God.’ He does not limit this evaluation to ‘Western’ religion, but also explores Hindu texts, as well as Sumerian, Akkadian and Babylonian texts such as ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh’ to search for geo-physical clues to support a cultural mythology.
The Second Age of Water- Our Age
Human attempts to harness, channel and manage water then become Gleick’s focus, as he outlines the impact of water for the beginnings of agriculture. Aqueducts, wells and dams are all highlighted as innovations to control water through engineering. ‘The era of large-scale water engineering, with succeeding empires learning from and advancing the practice of moving, storing, and manipulating the hydrologic cycle.’ It should be noted that Gleick also emphasises water as part of the story of human migration and dispersal.
He also warns of the unintended consequences of the mastery of water. That the relationship between humans and water has been, up to now, a relationship of power, with humans using water and access to water, for geopolitical ends. ‘The Nile River in Egypt is the only major source of water for the country of 100 million people. Yet ten other countries share the watershed, all of them upstream of Egypt with their own growing populations and demands for water.’
Flowering opportunity unfortunately became opportunities for conflict to dominate others. It sadly remains true that whoever controls the water, controls the power.
‘Ultimately, the need to understand and control nature, and especially fresh water, helped drive the melding of art and science, engineering and technology, and law and economics that defined the advances of the Second Age of Water… And with these advances came the unintended consequences of pollution, ecological disruption, water poverty, social and political conflict, and global climate change.’
Gleick examines some of these unintended consequences, as he turns his attention to water-related diseases in a detailed and comprehensive manner, as he recounts the successes of medical advancement in linking diseases such as cholera with illness and death. He focuses on the scientific and methodical work of John Snow, who demonstrated that cholera was waterborne and therefore managed to save numerous lives. Gleick argues that a lack of access to safe water is still a present threat to people around the world today and that this sadly has not been a problem that has already been eradicated. ‘Deaths from diseases associated with the lack of safe water and adequate sanitation kill on the order of 2 million people a year… Water poverty in a global crisis with victims in every country… In 2020, the United Nations estimated that 2 billion people lacked access to safely managed drinking water free from contamination.’
He closes this section on the consequences of the Second Age of Water, by stating that we are now in a transformational phase. ‘The Second Age of Water is coming to an end, and not a moment too soon. The world as a whole must make a transition away from its current unsustainable path and forge a new future.’
The Third Age
In his concluding chapters, Gleick acknowledges that, ‘We live on a planet of hydrological extremes.’ And that, ‘This isn’t a book about climate change; it’s a book about water. But you can’t talk about one without talking about the other.’ He once again warns that transformative attitudes must come before transformative actions.Before Gleick turns his attention to the myth of the ‘golden bullet’ of desalination plants to provide technological solutions- ‘The greatest challenge to the widespread use of desalination is the high economic cost of building and operating the plants and providing the energy to strip salt out of water’, he bemoans our negligent ignorance of the precious commodity of water. He stresses the importance of recycling and reusing that is done aboard the ISS and argues that every drop should be viewed as important. ‘When we recognise the true value of water, a whole new way of thinking- and doing- emerges, and water and ecosystems become resources to protect, conserve and even restore, rather than pollute, consume and destroy.’
He repeats his core message of the book that, ‘By learning from the past, humanity can better understand the present and then imagine and build a better future.’
Gleick suggests that our future hopes for a sustainable world for both water and the planet must begin with the vision of a positive, equitable world. ‘Two divergent paths lies before us: one to that dystopian future, the other to a positive, sustainable world. Just as we can imagine a disastrous future, we can imagine a positive one, with a balance between humans and nature.’
In saying this though, his concluding remarks are a stark reminder that we are accountable and responsible for our own future world- that this positive vision cannot simply be wished into being, but rather that it shall not find us afraid to build a new world.
‘If we fail to achieve the positive future for water, it won’t be because we can’t. It will be because we didn’t.’
Climate Thoughts with Brian 