Blue Revolution
Unmaking America’s Water Crisis
Beacon Press, 2011
A Top 10 Science Book of the Year, The Boston Globe
A nationwide read of Unitarian Universalist congregations
Adapted as a resource and study guide for the National Council of Churches Eco-Justice Program
In Blue Revolution, Cynthia Barnett examines the illusion of water abundance and proposes that the most important part of the solution is also the simplest and least expensive: a shared water ethic among citizens, government, and major water users. From backyard waterfalls and grottoes in California to sinkholes swallowing chunks of Florida, Barnett exposes how the rise of sustainability and green living largely missed water – the No. 1 environmental concern of most Americans. But the book is big on inspiration, too. Blue Revolution combines investigative reporting with solutions from around the nation and the globe. From San Antonio to Singapore, Barnett shows how local communities and entire nations have come together in a shared ethic to care for water and live within its means.
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Praise for Blue Revolution
“As Aldo Leopold is to the land ethic, Cynthia Barnett is to the water ethic. Her important and hopeful new book is rich with stories about innovative water projects around the world, demonstrating that we can choose thrift over waste, water gardens over cement ditches, local projects over mega-industries, smart over incredibly, stubbornly, self-destructively stupid. She calls us to a respectful water use that restores our spirits, even as it creates thriving biocultural communities. If you use water, you should read Blue Revolution.”
Kathleen Dean Moore, coeditor of Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril
“Aldo Leopold helped found twentieth-century American environmental thinking with his call for a land ethic. Barnett has done a great service by calling for a twenty-first-century water ethic. She tackles America’s illusion of water abundance in the way past thinkers attacked our old ideas about an endless western frontier. Of the new crop of books on water, this one may be the most important.”
Fred Pearce, author of When the Rivers Run Dry
“Barnett’s clarion call to her fellow citizens imagines an America where it’s ethically wrong to waste water. Using compelling stories from around the globe, she shows that America’s future depends upon our coming to value water – not only in the price we pay, but with profound appreciation for each drop.”
Robert Glennon, author of Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What to Do About It
“The roots of a new water ethic are found in the practices of millions of individuals, businesses, and other organizations around the world. Barnett shows how good water use practices can go viral, with massive benefits for society and nature. Blue Revolution offers affordable, practical, down-to-earth solutions for America’s water crisis.”
Stephen R. Carpenter, Director of the Center for Limnology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.