Giulio Boccaletti provides a master class on water, politics, and social organization in this fascinating discussion of his book Water: A Biography (Pantheon Books, 2021). His "story of people and water" traces the historical dialectic between the practical realities of water management and the development of political ideologies, and he argues for republicanism over authoritarianism in addressing climate change.

Dr. Boccaletti is the Scientific Director of the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change Foundation, Honorary Research Associate at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford, and Executive Producer of the upcoming PBS/BBC Studios series “The Future of Nature.”

Shimi Anisfeld kicks off Season 2 of the Water Shelf Podcast by introducing his fascinating book Water Management: Prioritizing Justice and Sustainability (Island Press, 2024) - an impressively comprehensive and immensely readable university textbook on this important topic supplemented by a free companion website.

Dr. Shimon Anisfeld is Senior Lecturer II and Research Scientist in Water Resources and Environmental Chemistry at Yale University.

Buzz Thompson joins the Water Shelf Podcast to talk about his innovative and extraordinary new book, Liquid Asset: How Business and Government Can Partner to Solve the Freshwater Crisis (Stanford University Press, 2004).

Barton H. “Buzz” Thompson, Jr. is the Robert E. Paradise Professor of Natural Resources Law at the Stanford Law School. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, where he directs the Water in the West program, and is a Professor of Environmental Behavioral Sciences in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. Buzz is a practicing attorney specializing in water resources, was a former law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist and a Supreme Court-appointed Special Master, and has authored or co-authored numerous books on environmental law and policy.

Why does someone with so many accolades and accomplishments go by "Buzz"? Listen to the podcast and find out!

I have the great pleasure to speak with Dr. David Sedlak about his remarkable new book, Water for All: Global Solutions for a Changing Climate (Yale University Press, 2023).

Dr. Sedlak is the Plato Malozemoff Professor of Environmental Engineering at University of California Berkeley. He is Director of the Berkeley Water Center, Deputy Director of the National Science Foundation's Engineering Research Center for Reinventing the Nation's Urban Water Infrastructure (ReNUWIt), and Master Cartographer for the National Alliance for Water Innovation.

Erica Gies visits the Water Shelf podcast to talk about her fantastic and internationally distributed recent book, Water Always Wins: Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge (University of Chicago Press, 2022).

Ms. Gies is an independent journalist covering science and the environment from Victoria, British Columbia, and San Francisco, California. Her work appears in the New York Times, Scientific American, Nature, Ensia, The Economist, bioGraphic, National Geographic, and other outlets.

In this episode, I talk with eminent scholars Drs. Manuel Teodoro, Samantha Zuhlke, and David Switzer about their recent book of immense importance to the water industry entitled The Profits of Distrust: Citizen-Consumers, Drinking Water, and the Crisis of Confidence in American Government (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

Dr. Teodoro is the Robert F. & Sylvia T. Wagner Distinguished Professor in the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Zuhlke is assistant professor in the School of Planning and Public Affairs at the University of Iowa. Dr. Switzer is assistant professor at the Truman School of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri.

On this inaugural episode of the Water Shelf Podcast, I interview Dr. Peter Gleick about his recently published and highly acclaimed book The Three Ages of Water: Prehistoric Past, Imperiled Present, and a Hope for the Future (PublicAffairs, 2023).

Dr. Peter Gleick is renowned nationally and internationally for his more than four decades of water science and policy work, and is perhaps the world’s most widely known and cited water expert. Dr. Gleick is Senior Fellow, Co-Founder, and President Emeritus at the Pacific Institute which creates and advances solutions to the world’s most pressing water challenges.