A world with a sudden limit on air travel would be tremendously different from the one we live in now. Charles C. Mann Read Quote
So many wells have been dug in Changzhou that its groundwater has been over-exploited, and the local ground level has sunk by two feet. The city has officially banned new wells and mandated the installation of pollution controls, but China’s endemic corruption ensures that neither measure has much meaning. Charles C. Mann Read Quote
Big Water makes an argument straight out of Economics 101. The best way to deliver water to people’s homes efficiently, the water barons argue, is to put the process in the hands of the market. If water is scarce, then raise the price – let the law of supply and demand take over! Charles C. Mann Read Quote
Canceling the climate pact will loudly demonstrate Trump’s willingness to fight – an important step for the White House because, on a concrete level, few tools are available to revive the coal industry. Charles C. Mann Read Quote
Compared with U.S. cities, Japanese cities bend over backward to help foreigners. The countryside is another matter. Charles C. Mann Read Quote
Obama issued a slew of executive orders about climate change during the eight years of his presidency. Inexplicably, President Trump revoked about half of them but left the other half in place. Since Obama’s orders were intertwined, it’s unclear exactly what applies. Charles C. Mann Read Quote
You know how in movies the new president comes in and promises to perform sweeping actions with a stroke of a pen? The Administrative Procedure Act is designed to thwart this sort of maneuver. Charles C. Mann Read Quote
Some Western states have collaborative water agreements with Indian tribes – Washington state, for instance, monitors a number of its rivers to protect spawning salmon, which are promised to native peoples under 19th-century treaties. Charles C. Mann Read Quote
The legal fight over climate change begins in the United States with the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977. Under the Act, the E.P.A. is required to publish a list of ‘stationary sources’ of air pollution, of which the most important are power plants. Charles C. Mann Read Quote
Cash-strapped cities in nations from Argentina to Albania have begun to turn over their municipal water systems to Big Water, often under lease arrangements that can continue in force for decades. Charles C. Mann Read Quote
