Vast quantities of water dominate Planet Earth, but most of it is too salty, inaccessible below ground, or frozen solid to be readily usable by humans and other life. Therefore, we must distribute miniscule volumes of freshwater among agriculture, cities, industry, and ecosystems. Sharing water as a scarce resource has great urgency as climate disruption causes more intense droughts, floods, glacial melting, sea level rise, and ocean current flows.

We’ll learn about the awesome properties and roles of the simple molecule of water, and then examine how humans use and control its flows and transformations from the level of an individual cell all the way to that of regional landscapes. This inquiry will allow us to develop a deeper understanding of how ethics and science can guide our future decision-making about water to sustain life and the global ecosystems that support us.

Participants should expect approximately 50 pages of reading per week, drawn from a variety of sources, including newspapers, websites, and other current material. Regular lectures will introduce each topic, but we’ll stress discussion.