Robert Glennon

<ul><li><strong>Water in a Changing Climate</strong></li><li>As our planet gets warmer, precipitation patterns change, wind currents shift, and ocean temperatures rise. Climate change has profound implications for water supplies. This presentation explores the increasing impact on stream flows, lake and reservoir levels, hydropower production, and the availability of water for farms and cities.</li><li>Scientists predicted that climate change would occasion more extreme weather events. The last few years have produced extraordinarily powerful hurricanes, momentous storm surges, unprecedented flooding and historic forest fires. In the United States, these events caused loss of life and property, disabled critical infrastructure (including power plants), and displaced hundreds of thousands of people. California forest fires were the immediate cause of Pacific Gas & Electricity (PG&E), the nation’s oldest electric utility, filing for bankruptcy.</li><li>Glennon calls for adapting to these changed conditions by building resilience into our water management institutions. He advocates borrowing principles of risk mitigation developed by hedge funds, insurance companies, and commodity markets to the world of water.</li><li><span style="color: rgb(62, 62, 60);"><strong></span>Our Thirst for Energy: Water and the Innovation Economy</strong></li><li>Our innovation economy and our water system are closely linked: it takes water to power technology and it takes energy and technology to transport, cleanse, and deliver water. This symbiotic relationship drives our economy from Silicon Valley to the Farm Belt. The nexus between water and energy creates shortages of both, driven by the demands of ethanol production, hydraulic fracking, solar energy expansion, tech company “server farms,” and desalination of ocean water.</li><li>As we search for solutions, a formidable problem is that the price of water is too low. This presentation connects the dots between the cloud-based economy, energy, water, clean tech, plug-in vehicles, and agriculture. It offers solutions, including using price signals and market forces, to enable the innovation community to be disruptive in the water space.</li><li><span style="color: rgb(62, 62, 60);"><strong></span>America’s Water Crisis and What to Do About It</strong></li><li>America’s water crisis is self-inflicted. Across the United States, even in places that are not particularly dry or hot, communities, farmers, and factories are struggling to find water, and even running out altogether. Our water woes will get worse before they get better because we are slow to change our ways, and because water is the overlooked resource. From the Vegas Strip to faux snow in Atlanta, from mega-farms to Washington’s love affair with biofuels, heady extravagances and everyday waste are sucking the nation dry. We cannot engineer our way out of the problem with the usual fixes or zany schemes. America must make hard choices, and Glennon’s answer is a provocative market-based system that values water as a commodity and a fundamental human right.</li></ul>