The Colorado River, recently named America's most endangered river, supports millions of people in the American Southwest and northwest Mexico and helps irrigate millions of acres of land. It is shared by seven states in the U.S. and Mexico, through a complex series of legal agreements and treaties.

In my blog post on April 1, I wrote how some (April) foolish scientists announced that they thought they had made an error in major climate data sets. Today things are back to normal (or unfortunately, the new "abnormal) and what we thought we understood about the reality...

In a stunning development today, the community of global climate scientists announced that the problem of global warming is actually one of global cooling, overturning decades of previously accepted, peer-reviewed science. Apparently, a few weeks ago, a graduate student at the University of California discovered, through the mistaken introduction of...

Some thoughts for today: the bad news and good news for World Water Day. (First, I think every day should be World Water Day, not just March 22nd, but hey, that's just me.)

• Stop taking your tap water for granted. Go to your tap, draw a glass of water, and...

OK, put away your guns. We're not talking shooting wars, at least not yet, at least not in the U.S. We're talking politicians shooting off their mouths, political wars, and court battles. But water is serious business.

But it is a different story around the world, where there is a...

Dear Readers,

Sarah Rolph, a freelance writer, has written an essay in response to Helen Grieco's Huffington Post Green piece a few days ago about the Drakes Bay Oyster Farm debate. Because her essay addresses a topic I've also addressed (as noted in Rolph's piece below), I have received her...

It turns out there are real jobs to be had in the water sector if we make the investments that are needed in water supply, deliver, treatment, and smart management. Millions of jobs.

A new assessment from the Pacific Institute summarizes the potential for sustainable water jobs in the...

In the past couple of years, a debate in Northern California over wilderness protection, sustainable agriculture, and the integrity of science has spiraled into the dirt. The fight is over whether to continue to permit a small privately managed oyster farm, the Drakes Bay Oyster Company, to continue to operate...

(The first in a series of posts on Terraforming the Earth)

Terraforming is not science fiction but reality: humans are remaking the surface of our planet. We are altering the composition of the planet's atmosphere and fundamentally changing the entire global climate. We remove mountains and dig miles beneath the...

By Heather Cooley and Peter Gleick

In a new report issued today, the Pacific Institute released the results of a year-long analysis of the complex and controversial costs of seawater desalination. The conclusion? It is still really expensive, especially compared to alternatives.

The Institute has long addressed the...

U.S. and Mexico Sign Agreement Guaranteeing Water for the Colorado River Delta, Sharing Shortages, and Facilitating Water Conservation Investments

by Michael Cohen and Peter Gleick

The Colorado River basin supplies drinking water to more than 35 million people in the United States and Mexico and irrigates more than 3.3...

The blogosphere and twittersphere have been ablaze recently with new views on a debate that has simmered for years: the fact that misuses and abuses of science are not restricted to those on the political right, or to the high-profile issues of evolution or climate change.

The revival of this...

Today marks the 40th anniversary of one of the most important pieces of water legislation: the Clean Water Act. On October 18, 1972, the U.S. Congress enacted the Federal Water Pollution Control Amendments, now called the Clean Water Act, by voting to override President Nixon's veto. This law has given...

Dear Mr. President,

Congratulations on winning approval from the American people to serve as leader of the United States for the next four years. We know you have a lot on your plate. But among the issues that deserve prompt attention from you and senior members of your administration is...

[This post was written by both Dr. Peter H. Gleick and Dr. Juliet Christian-Smith, co-editors of the new book A Twenty-First Century U.S. Water Policy just released by Oxford University Press.]

At first glance, threats to the nation's freshwater might seem less urgent and less important than many of the...

Until the very end of the Republican Convention in Tampa, the issue of climate change was a no-show. Even the Democrats have not made as much of this issue as many in the scientific community would like. But the issue did come up when Governor Romney gave his nomination acceptance...

As readers of my blog posts will know, a couple of weeks ago, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Chairman of the "Joint Congressional Committee on Inauguration Ceremonies," announced that the next Presidential Inauguration will serve pricey New York commercial bottled water. This...

Last week the Chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inauguration Ceremonies, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, announced that the next Presidential Inauguration will serve pricey New York commercial bottled water. This high-level bipartisan committee's job is to coordinate the ceremonies around the Presidential Inauguration,...

Slowly, but surely, there is a growing realization that the future of energy in America, and around the world, lies not with fossil fuels but with alternative sources of energy. Fossil fuels in the form of combustible carbon (coal, petroleum, and natural gas) largely powered the world's massive and rapid...

By now, if you have any interest in water, energy, international security and politics, climate change, environmental impacts on small communities, or any number of other issues of the day, you have seen, heard, or read something about "fracking" -- the shorthand name for the process of hydraulic fracturing.