The Water Knife

Featuring Raphael Bostic, Omar Brownson, Lisa Collins, and Justine Dodgen This podcast features *spoilers – so, please listen after you’ve read the book unless you are okay with hearing about major plot details and the ending of this amazing novel. Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Water Knife looks at our use and manipulation of water and water rights in the US and brings us to an ultimate conclusion. In a Southwest decimated by climate change, with the Colorado River a trickle, local and state governments in the Southwest are employing any means necessary to secure water rights. Following several main characters in a desperate search for recently discovered senior water rights for the city of Phoenix. Is #PhoenixRising or is #PhoenixDownTheTubes? NPR, All Things Considered called the novel, “A noir-ish, cinematic thriller set in the midst of a water war between Las Vegas and Phoenix. . . . Think Chinatown meets Mad Max.” Join us as we discuss the plausibility of this near-future Phoenix and the dire straits it’s characters find themselves in. To listen to the Bedrosian Book Club Podcast discussion of The Water Knife click the orange arrow in the Soundcloud player at the top of this post. Or you can download it and subscribe through Soundcloud or iTunes! Follow us on Twitter! @RaphaelBostic @Obrownson @JustineDodgen @BedrosianCenter

This used to be the town of Swansea, CA. It was a boom town on what used to be Owens Lake – they smelted silver ore – around 1869. The town was abandoned by 1874. Lake dried up and the mining went bust. There are so many ghost towns in the area … It was gorgeous and haunting. Day of abandoned things #ghosttown #socal #swansea A photo posted by aubreyhi (@aubreyhi) on Jan 18, 2015 at 3:54pm PST

Next Month …

Read The Rise and Fall of Urban Economies by Michael Storper, Thomas Kemeny, Naji P. Makarem, and Taner Osman along with us, and listen to our discussion on May 30, 2016. From the back of the book: “Today, the Bay Area is home to the most successful knowledge economy in America, while Los Angeles has fallen progressively farther behind its neighbor to the North.” We’ll take a look at the book to see if there are lessons for urban regions moving forward – and is wealth the right measure for success. Flyer for 20% off of The Rise and Fall of Urban Economies

Links to things we talk about:

Groundwater/Aquifers in Los Angeles Brené Brown  We live in a culture with a strong sense of scarcity. “We wake up in the morning and we say, ‘I didn’t get enough sleep.’ And we hit the pillow saying, ‘I didn’t get enough done.'” We’re never thin enough, extraordinary enough or good enough – until we decide that we are. “For me,” says Brown, “the opposite of scarcity is not abundance. It’s enough. I’m enough. My kids are enough.” from Brené Brown: ‘People are sick of being afraid all the time’ in The Guardian July 27, 2013 Good to Great

Further reading:

Cadillac Desert When the Rivers Run Dry: Water–The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-first Century This podcast was produced by Aubrey Hicks and Jonathan Schwartz, recorded and mixed by Corey Hedden. @AubreyHi @jonHLYP @coreyhedden