Investing Strategies for Alternative Global Markets (Collection)

8. Mimicking the Water Cycle: Making Water Potable

“Irrigation of the land with seawater desalinated by fusion power is ancient. It’s called rain.”—Michael McClary

“Filthy water cannot be washed.”—African proverb

“In every glass of water we drink, some of the water has already passed through fishes, trees, bacteria, worms in the soil, and many other organisms, including people.... Living systems cleanse water and make it fit, among other things, for human consumption.”—Elliot A. Norse, in R.J. Hoage, ed., Animal Extinctions, 1985

We have seen the various forms the water on the Earth takes—as seawater, glaciers, groundwater, aquifers, humidity, in living creatures, and as renewable freshwater as rain, lakes, rivers, streams, and so on. And we ...