The vent at Gilchrist Blue Springs in North Florida. Video by underwater photojournalist Jenny Adler.
Cynthia Barnett
Award-winning author and journalist who reports on water and climate change around the world.
Her books follow the water cycle—from the rains that filled the oceans 4 billion years ago to the mystery of aquifers beneath our feet.
Cynthia has a longtime interest in environmental ethics, and what our water and climate history can tell us about the stormy times ahead.
The Sound of the Sea: Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans
“The Sound of the Sea is a glorious history of shells and of those who have loved shells. It is a history of fascination and of shame. It stretches our capacity to absorb new knowledge. It is as complex, multichambered and beautiful as its subject, and if Barnett can awaken our sense of wonder, then perhaps there is hope for jump-starting our collective sense of responsibility toward the oceans and one another.”
Katharine Norbury review, The Washington Post.
Rain: A Natural and Cultural History
“Mesmerizing and powerful … reading (Rain: A Natural and Cultural History), we are witness to the profoundly flawed, hubristic core of human nature itself.”
Dani Shapiro review, More magazine.
Blue Revolution: Unmaking America’s Water Crisis
“Barnett does not come off as a Cassandra, shrieking about looming cataclysm and dumping figures over her readers’ heads. In Blue Revolution she is part journalist, part mom, part historian, and part optimist, and as a result her text comes off as anything but a polemic.”
Anthony Doerr review, The Boston Globe.
Mirage: Florida and the Vanishing Water of the Eastern U.S.
“In the days before the internet, books like Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and Marjory Stoneman Douglas’ River of Grass were groundbreaking calls to action that made citizens and politicians take notice. Mirage is such a book.”
Julie Hauserman review, The Tampa Bay Times.