Out of Water: From Abundance to Scarcity and How to Solve the World’s Water Problems

Chapter Four: Climate Change and Water

“All earth’s full rivers cannot fill

The sea that drinking thirsteth still.”

Christina Rossetti (1830–1894), By the Sea

Of all the factors affecting future water supplies and agriculture and food production, climate change is the one that we understand least in terms of the likely magnitude, severity of impact, and geographic expression and variation. This is not surprising because not only is much of the science of climate change new, but it has also only been in the last few years that the army of climate change skeptics have begun to accept what was originally a hypothesis as now becoming a reality. The 15 years of bickering over whether or not climate change is caused by humankind has meant much time ...