| |  |  | | | | The Water Crises Aren't Coming—They're Here | | | Here's a concept: paper water. Paper water is water the government grants certain farmers who are drawing water from a river or a watershed in, say, California. The phrase describes the water the farmer, under premium conditions, is entitled to. Practically, however, paper water is mostly notional water, conceptual water, wish water, since over the years California has awarded many times as much paper water as there is actual water—which, to distinguish it, is quasi-legally called wet water. Some paper water might be made real during years of exceptional abundance, but most of it will forever be speculative and essentially useless, since it can't realistically be traded, having no value. Paper water thus amounts to a type of hypothetical currency, backed by the Bank of Nowhere, Representing Nothing since 1960 (or thereabouts), when modern water troubles arrived in America and especially in California, where the wildly expanding citizenry required new state and federally managed water systems run by Watercrats. Paper water is also a signifier of a domestic and global concern called peak water, a term proposed in 2010 by the hydrologist Peter Gleick in a paper he wrote with Meena Palaniappan that was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Gleick meant the phrase to be applied to worldwide circumstances, such as those that currently prevail in Cape Town, South Africa, where, as a result of a ferocious three-year drought, the taps might before long run dry, possibly in 2019—Day Zero, it's been called. The U. S. is also afflicted. In fact, Gleick regards California, with its relentless, outsized, and wildly conflicting demands on water, as a "laboratory for all of peak water's concerns." Peak water derives conceptually from peak oil, a phrase first used by a geophysicist named M. King Hubbert in 1956. Peak oil means that the planet has only so much oil, and that eventually it will grow sufficiently scarce that what remains will be too expensive to collect. Hubbert predicted that U. S. oil production would reach maximum output between 1965 and 1975, and in 1970 it did, but it has risen lately because of new means of recovering oil, such as fracking. Some people still believe in peak oil, and others think there will always be plenty of oil, because there is more we haven't found yet. That water was in a position similar to oil occurred to Gleick when people would ask if he thought that the world, with its population growing alarmingly and climate change causing certain places to become disastrously water-soaked (South Asia, Texas) while others (Cape Town, California) are water-starved, would ever use up its water. "My first reaction was 'We never run out of water,'" Gleick says. "But there's groundwater in China and India and the Middle East and in America in the Midwest and California that we really are using up just like oil." READ MORE | | | | |  |
| | | | | The Last Detail | | | | When Donald Trump won the presidency, many Americans hoped John McCain would live up to his maverick image and resist his agenda. But after the senator was diagnosed with brain cancer in July, his contrarian resolve revealed itself in unexpected ways that may shape his legacy—and our future. Last year, McCain spoke to David Usborne about his extraordinary year. Read On | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Dirty Business: In Lanny Davis, Michael Cohen Has the da Vinci of Spin | | | | Lanny Davis is the person you call if you're famous, you're wealthy, and your reputation is in tatters due to crime or scandal. Bill Clinton brought Davis into the White House to battle campaign scandals and, later, impeachment. But Davis didn't realize that taking on Cohen as a client would test everything he thought he knew about crisis management. He told Esquire that Cohen is the toughest assignment he's ever had. Could someone like Cohen, who is despised by the anti-Trump Left for his years of suspect service to the president, distrusted by reporters for his threats and bullying over the years, and now under fire from Trump supporters, even be rehabilitated? Read On | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The 10 Best New TV Shows You Have to Watch This Fall | | | | There's entirely too much TV. It's a problem, honestly. While we've long considered this a time of Peak TV, it's also a time of sacrifices—one in which you'll have to choose one show everyone is talking about over another show everyone is talking about. It's physically impossible to watch it all while maintaining healthy work, relationship, and sleeping routines. To help you out, we've put together this list of the 10 best new shows you absolutely have to watch this fall. Read On | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The Wallet-Friendly Suit That's Perfect for a Job Interview | | | | This might be the time in fashion where every rule is no longer a rule, and fashion faux paus are high-level looks now. But there's one closet necessity that transcends even the most varied of trends: Every man—now, and always—needs a suit in his closet. If you're looking to start your collection, make it more robust, or just need a good, solid suit, start somewhere known for its attention to fit: Bonobos. Bonobos's Jetsetter suit is a no-brainer way to satisfy all of those needs. Read On | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Tired of Nazis in Your Twitter Mentions? Try Mastodon. | | | | For some long-time Twitter users, who've watched the platform warp into a breeding ground for trolls and bad faith, right wing ideologues, this interaction may be all the inspiration needed to finally jump ship. Enter Mastadon, a new platform with a founder who says things like, "Nazis are bad and I don't want to give them a platform for recruiting." And when someone presses him—in frustrating troll fashion—about the specific meaning of the word Nazi, doubles down with "That bullshit doesn't work on me man." Read On | | | | | | | | | | | | |
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