Re: The Water Knife. Was: Nebula finalists 2010

On 20/11/24 08:18, William Hyde wrote:

Titus G wrote:

snip          Paolo Bacigalupi.

"The Water Knife" so began reading it today. So far it is a
dark but a brilliant corrupt dystopia of a future of dust storms and
water shortage where Nevada controls the water from the Colorado and
Arizona is turning into a deserted desert like Texas already is.

>
>
I'm not likely to read the book any time soon so, how does Texas turn
into a desert?
>

snip
Not Texas but Spain.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/nov/23/spanish-villages-people-forced-to-buy-back-own-drinking-water-drought-flood

This relevant story, prompted by the floods in Valencia, from The
Guardian today, discusses the issue of water shortage in Spain as well
as the problems of private ownership of water and whether access to
water should depend purely on the power of money, to be owned by the
worst of the cut-throat capitalists, as dramatised in The Water Knife.
An interesting real life example is the multi-billionaire Resnicks'
ownership of California's largest underground water storage facility and
control of most of California's water. (Duckduckgo is your friend.)
There is also a documentary named "Pistachio Wars" with reviews online.