Water Justice


Book Description

An overview of critical conceptual approaches to water justice, illustrated with global historic and contemporary case studies of socio-environmental struggles.




Water for Food Security, Nutrition and Social Justice


Book Description

This book is the first comprehensive effort to bring together Water, Food Security and Nutrition (FSN) in a way that goes beyond the traditional focus on irrigated agriculture. Apart from looking at the role of water and sanitation for human well-being, it proposes alternative and more locally appropriate ways to address complex water management and governance challenges from the local to global levels against a backdrop of growing uncertainties. The authors challenge mainstream supply-oriented and neo-Malthusian visions that argue for the need to increase the land area under irrigation in order to feed the world’s growing population. Instead, they argue for a reframing of the debate concerning production processes, waste, food consumption and dietary patterns whilst proposing alternative strategies to improve water and land productivity, putting the interests of marginalized and disenfranchized groups upfront. The book highlights how accessing water for FSN can be challenging for small-holders, vulnerable and marginalized women and men, and how water allocation systems and reform processes can negatively affect local people’s informal rights. The book argues for the need to improve policy coherence across water, land and food and is original in making a case for strengthening the relationship between the human rights to water and food, especially for marginalized women and men. It will be of great interest to practitioners, students and researchers working on water and food issues.




Water, Rhetoric, and Social Justice


Book Description

Water, Rhetoric, and Social Justice: A Critical Confluenceexamines how individuals and communities have responded on a global scale to present day water crises as matters of social justice, through oratory, mass demonstration, deliberation, testimony, and other rhetorical appeals. This book applies critical communication methods and perspectives to interrogate the pressing yet mind-boggling dilemma currently faced in environmental studies and policy: that clean water, the very stuff of life, which flows freely from the tap in affluent areas, is also denied to huge populations, materially and fluidly exemplifying the currents of justice, liberty, and equity. Contributors highlight discourse and water justice movements in nonofficial spheres from activists, artists, and the grassroots. In extending the technical, economic, moral, and political conversations on water justice, this collection applies special focus on the novel rhetorical concepts and responses not necessarily unique to but especially enacted in water justice situations. Scholars of rhetoric, sociology, activism, communication, and environmental studies will find this book particularly useful.




Flint Fights Back


Book Description

An account of the Flint water crisis shows that Flint's struggle for safe and affordable water is part of a broader struggle for democracy. When Flint, Michigan, changed its source of municipal water from Lake Huron to the Flint River, Flint residents were repeatedly assured that the water was of the highest quality. At the switchover ceremony, the mayor and other officials performed a celebratory toast, declaring “Here's to Flint!” and downing glasses of freshly treated water. But as we now know, the water coming out of residents' taps harbored a variety of contaminants, including high levels of lead. In Flint Fights Back, Benjamin Pauli examines the water crisis and the political activism that it inspired, arguing that Flint's struggle for safe and affordable water was part of a broader struggle for democracy. Pauli connects Flint's water activism with the ongoing movement protesting the state of Michigan's policy of replacing elected officials in financially troubled cities like Flint and Detroit with appointed “emergency managers.” Pauli distinguishes the political narrative of the water crisis from the historical and technical narratives, showing that Flint activists' emphasis on democracy helped them to overcome some of the limitations of standard environmental justice frameworks. He discusses the pro-democracy (anti–emergency manager) movement and traces the rise of the “water warriors”; describes the uncompromising activist culture that developed out of the experience of being dismissed and disparaged by officials; and examines the interplay of activism and scientific expertise. Finally, he explores efforts by activists to expand the struggle for water justice and to organize newly mobilized residents into a movement for a radically democratic Flint.




The Water–Food–Energy Nexus


Book Description

The world of development thinkers and practitioners is abuzz with a new lexicon: the idea of "the nexus" between water, food, and energy which is intuitively compelling. It promises better integration of multiple sectoral elements, a better transition to greener economies, and sustainable development. However, there appears to be little agreement on its precise meaning, whether it only complements existing environmental governance approaches or how it can be enhanced in national contexts. One current approach to the nexus treats it as a risk and security matter while another treats it within economic rationality addressing externalities across sector. A third perspective acknowledges it as a fundamentally political process requiring negotiation amongst different actors with distinct perceptions, interests, and practices. This perspective highlights the fact that technical solutions for improving coherence within the nexus may have unintended and negative impacts in other policy areas, such as poverty alleviation and education. The Water–Food–Energy Nexus: Power, Politics and Justice lays out the managerial-technical definitions of the nexus and challenges these conceptions by bringing to the forefront the politics of the nexus, around two key dimensions – a dynamic understanding of water–food–energy systems, and a normative positioning around nexus debates, in particular around social justice. The authors argue that a shift in nexus governance is required towards approaches where limits to control are acknowledged, and more reflexive/plural strategies adopted. This book will be of interest to academic researchers, policy makers, and practitioners in the fields of international development studies, environmental politics, and science and technology studies, as well as international relations.




The Water Walker


Book Description

The story of a determined Ojibwe Grandmother (Nokomis) Josephine-ba Mandamin and her great love for Nibi (water). Nokomis walks to raise awareness of our need to protect Nibi for future generations, and for all life on the planet. She, along with other women, men, and youth, have walked around all the Great Lakes from the four salt waters, or oceans, to Lake Superior. The walks are full of challenges, and by her example Josephine-ba invites us all to take up our responsibility to protect our water, the giver of life, and to protect our planet for all generations.




Water Politics


Book Description

This volume broadens existing discussions on the right to water in order to critically shed light on the pathways, pitfalls, prospects, and constraints that exist in achieving global goals, as well as advance debates around water governance and water justice.




Poisoned Water


Book Description

Based on original reporting by a Pulitzer Prize finalist and an industry veteran, the first book for young adults about the Flint water crisis In 2014, Flint, Michigan, was a cash-strapped city that had been built up, then abandoned by General Motors. As part of a plan to save money, government officials decided that Flint would temporarily switch its water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River. Within months, many residents broke out in rashes. Then it got worse: children stopped growing. Some people were hospitalized with mysterious illnesses; others died. Citizens of Flint protested that the water was dangerous. Despite what seemed so apparent from the murky, foul-smelling liquid pouring from the city's faucets, officials refused to listen. They treated the people of Flint as the problem, not the water, which was actually poisoning thousands. Through interviews with residents and intensive research into legal records and news accounts, journalist Candy J. Cooper, assisted by writer-editor Marc Aronson, reveals the true story of Flint. Poisoned Water shows not just how the crisis unfolded in 2014, but also the history of racism and segregation that led up to it, the beliefs and attitudes that fueled it, and how the people of Flint fought-and are still fighting-for clean water and healthy lives.




When the World Runs Dry


Book Description

What would you do if you turned on the faucet one day and nothing happened? What if you learned the water in your home was harmful to drink? Water is essential for life on this planet, but not every community has the safe, clean water it needs. In When the World Runs Dry, award-winning science writer Nancy Castaldo takes readers from Flint, Michigan, and Newark, New Jersey, to Iran and Cape Town, South Africa, to explore the various ways in which water around the world is in danger, why we must act now, and why you’re never too young to make a difference. Topics include: Lead and water infrastructure problems, pollution, fracking contamination, harmful algal blooms, water supply issues, rising sea levels, and potential solutions.




Desperate


Book Description

Erin Brockovich meets Dark Waters in this propulsive and heart-wrenching legal drama set in Appalachian coal country, as one determined lawyer confronts a coal industry giant in a battle over clean drinking water for a West Virginia community--from Wall Street Journal reporter Kris Maher. For two decades, the water in the taps and wells of Mingo County didn't look, smell, or taste right. Could it be the root of the health problems--from kidney stones to cancer--in this Appalachian community? Environmental lawyer Kevin Thompson certainly thought so. For seven years, he waged an epic legal battle against Massey Energy, West Virginia's most powerful coal company, helmed by CEO Don Blankenship. While Massey's lawyers worked out of a gray glass office tower in Charleston known as "the Death Star," Thompson set up shop in a ramshackle hotel in the fading coal town of Williamson. Working with fellow lawyers and a crew of young activists, Thompson would eventually uncover the ruthless shortcuts that put the community's drinking water at risk. A respected preacher and his brother, retired coal miners, and women whose families had lived in the area's coal camps for generations, all put their trust in Thompson when they had nowhere else to turn. As he dug deeper into the mystery of the water along a stretch of road where the violence from the legendary Hatfield-McCoy feud still echoes, he was pulled into the darkest corners of Mingo County, risking his finances, his marriage, his career, and even his safety. Bringing to life a rich cast of characters and the legacy of coal mining in an essential yet often misunderstood part of America, Desperate is a masterful work of investigative reporting about greed and denial, a revealing portrait of a town besieged by hardship and heartbreak, and an inspiring account of one tenacious environmental lawyer's mission to expose the truth and demand justice.