Running Dry: Nik Kowsar on Iranian Censorship and Water Scarcity
What About Water? with Jay Famiglietti
Release Date: 10/12/2022
Go With the Flow: Erica Gies on Embracing Water's Natural Path
What About Water? with Jay Famiglietti
What happens when we change our relationship to water? Can we stop trying to control water and just go with the flow? Erica Gies, environmental journalist, National Geographic Explorer, and author of Water Always Wins: Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge sits down with host Jay Famiglietti to discuss how the engineered control of water sometimes does more harm than good. We also hear from Nicholas Pinter about 'Design with Nature' and how communities are managing retreats from the floodplains.
info_outline
Sewage Spillover in 'Mexico's Toilet Bowl': The Endhó Dam Crisis
What About Water? with Jay Famiglietti
The Endhó Dam north of Mexico City has been called “the largest septic tank in the world” and “Mexico’s toilet bowl”. Once designed to solve water problems in the region, it now receives wastewater from local industry and Mexico City. Arizona State University doctoral students Raquel Neri, in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, and Diego Pantaleón, in the School of Social Transformation, join host Jay Famiglietti to discuss the devastating impact the contaminated water is having on local communities and water sources in Hidalgo, Mexico....
info_outline
John Fleck on the Inconvenient Science of the Colorado River
What About Water? with Jay Famiglietti
What happens when science gets in the way of ambition, politics, and progress? With a look back at the historical figures and forces that led to the overallocation of the Colorado River, and the consequences that continue to play out today, John Fleck joins Jay Famiglietti on What About Water? Fleck is a Water Policy Researcher at the Utton Center, University of New Mexico and co-author with Eric Kuhn of Science Be Dammed: How Ignoring Inconvenient Science Drained the Colorado River. We conclude the episode with a perspective on how we can use the latest science and technoligy to both map...
info_outline
Tapped Out: The Dire State of America’s Groundwater
What About Water? with Jay Famiglietti
Humans are burning through our fossil fuels, and we're burning through our groundwater at an alarming rate. But are the powers that be even listening? On this episode, Dr. Upmanu Lall joins host Jay Famiglietti to discuss why we’ve reached an “all hands on deck” moment with our groundwater crisis. Lall and Famiglietti discuss (along with Dr. Bridget Scanlon) before the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) which advises President Biden in December 2023. Hear how and why these researchers are urging political leaders to give groundwater their full...
info_outline
Water Costs Money: How Gary White and Matt Damon are Bridging the Gap
What About Water? with Jay Famiglietti
The World Bank estimated in 2016 it would take $1.7 trillion USD to achieve universal access to clean water and sanitation by 2030. By other estimates that amount is now even higher. Gary White is the CEO and Co-founder, along with Matt Damon, of Water.org and WaterEquity. The two also co-wrote the book The Worth of Water: Our Story of Chasing Solutions to the World's Greatest Challenge. White joins host Jay Famiglietti to discuss the inspiration behind his organization, the financial plumbing it will take from investors, and how women around the world are pivotal in...
info_outline
Quenching Desert Thirst: What Will It ‘Take’?
What About Water? with Jay Famiglietti
What is the true price of water? Considering growth and climate, how do we address the gap between demand and supply? Could we achieve water security by moving it across borders to dry regions like the American Southwest? John Take, Chief Growth & Innovation Officer at Stantec, discusses importing water, desalination efforts, and whether no infrastructure is the best infrastructure. At the end of the program, Dr. Denise Fort reflects on over a hundred years of infrastructure and development in the West. What would we do differently now, and how do we make that transition happen?
info_outline
Season 5 Trailer
What About Water? with Jay Famiglietti
Freshwater is essential for life on Earth, but analysts at the World Bank say more often than not, there's either too little, too much, or the water is contaminated and polluted. We look at whether desalinating ocean water and piping it across the desert would really solve water scarcity, why some cities and towns keep flooding, and how much is too much, when it comes to pumping freshwater out of underground aquifers. In Season 5 of What About Water, host Jay Famiglietti connects with scientists and regular people who are trying to solve some of our planet's trickiest water problems....
info_outline
Drilling Deeper Won't Fix This
What About Water? with Jay Famiglietti
People in the lower Colorado River basin are now witnessing drastic cuts to their allotments. In many cases, developers find alternate sources of water by drilling into underground aquifers. But in places like Pinal County, Arizona, that groundwater is already becoming scarce. We hear from , who sits on both the Pinal County Board of Supervisors and the board for the Central Arizona Pipeline. Without sufficient water for crops, and facing some of the highest temperatures on record, he says farmers in his area will fallow up to 70 per cent of their land this year. As Phoenix and its...
info_outline
The Colorado River's Alfalfa Problem
What About Water? with Jay Famiglietti
The meat and dairy industries are some of the biggest water users in the American West, thanks to one of cows' favorite foods – alfalfa. As aridification continues across the American southwest, water is becoming far more scarce on the Colorado River. A critical source of water for roughly 40 million Americans, we look at why so much of the Colorado River's freshwater goes toward growing water-intensive hay crops, and at what can be done to significantly scale back consumptive use in the future. In this episode, we hear from people who've traveled from around the world to see the...
info_outline
World Water Day 2023 with Autumn Peltier
What About Water? with Jay Famiglietti
When Autumn Peltier was eight, she learned the tap water on a neighbouring reserve wasn’t safe to drink, or even to use for hand-washing. That injustice triggered her decade-long advocacy campaign for safe drinking water. She made headlines as a 12 year-old, admonishing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at an Assembly of First Nations event for the choices his government had made for her people. In this bonus episode for , Peltier and Jay discuss the way her life shifted, as she started campaigning for clean water. Peltier also shares what it was like to shoot her documentary The...
info_outlineFor Nik Kowsar, civil unrest in Iran is not new. As a geologist and journalist, he's been sounding the alarm about water shortages and censorship in his home country for decades.
After being arrested and jailed for one of his cartoons and receiving death threats from pro-regime Islamists, Kowsar fled Iran in 2003.
Today, he is an award-winning Iranian-Canadian journalist and water issues analyst. He currently resides in Washington, D.C. where he produces and broadcasts 'Abangan; a weekly Persian-language show covering water issues for Iranian citizens.
In this episode, Kowsar shares the story about how and why he harnesses the power of media and technology to spread the word about water.
In our Last Word, we turn to Daniel Harrich, a German documentary filmmaker who recently released the three-part documentary series “Unser Vasser” (Our Water) for the German Public Television Network, ARD. Jay traveled around the southwest United States with Daniel last year to film for the documentary, which now has over 5 million views.
And as promised, here is the “Water” episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver that Jay mentions in the show.