Rating: 
Summary: if you save one drop of water ....
Review: then you have saved the world.Jeff Rothfeder does an in-depth analysis of our relationship to water, its availability and scarcity, and finally, the gross mismanagement to date that has brough tus to the crisis today. In the USA, it seems like water is abundant and shortages are a problem in faraway nations, but he points out that California and Nevada are actually arid deserts that should not sustain life at all, yet they do from water pumped in from a rapidly drying reservoir. Rothfeder also writes "snapshots" of various people's lives who have been gravely affected by lack of water, flooding (which occurs when dams burst), or mismanagement and/or privatization of water. He gives examples that range from a pipeline project headed by women in one community in Kenya, to the dust storms one family faces in a little town in California -- the Golden State, land of dreams. The next world war will be fought over water, predicts one official, and as water is seen as a commodity and not as a basic human right, it has already started. Rothfeder gives the example of Cochbamba, Bolivia, where the people battled against the globalization of their water, which resulted in 2 teenagers being killed. This is a book that truly everyone needs to read, and it will encourage them to stop wasting and start conserving if we as a planet are to survive.
Rating: 
Summary: little empirical data
Review: very few statistics or physical information cited.
Instead, author constantly uses turns of phrase like "drastically reduced flow" or "substantially curbed drinking supply" while providing little of the numbers which should come rushing forth to defend his premise.
I checked this book out from the library expecting compelling documentation of the perils of water privatization, instead the book is a meandering attempt at a poetic defense of the public claim to water- a message with which I agree but for I find little justification in this book. It does contain a number of at least entertaining anecdotes and some worthwhile philosophizing on the problem of over-development, it might serve as a good general introduction to the genre of books bashing corporate and private malefeasance, and therefore make okay reading on a plane, as it's not very demanding reading.
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