Environmental Writer Appears on The Daily Show

Environmental writer Robert Glennon chronicles America’s water problems in a thoughtful way, and his presentations are both humerous and powerful, so it’s shame his interview on The Daily Show with John Stewart about his new book, Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What To Do About It was such a lost opportunity.

As he often does, Stewart plays the devil’s advocate, and along the way he reveals a lot about the real reason everyday citizens often fail to act on their pro-environmental sentiments: self doubt, despair that solutions will never work, and a sense of being overwhelmed at the scale of the problem. And Glennon makes a common mistake that we make in our environmental communications — mistaking self-doubt for complacency and trying to shock people past those objections by piling on more bad news.

I wish Mr. Glennon had found a way to steer a portion of the interview in this direction:

The point of my book is that water trends are disturbing, and there won’t be enough clean water for future generations. But there are solutions out there. If we plan ahead, act responsibly, and work together, we can achieve them. Let me cite an example of a community that is doing it’s part to make to use water responsibly…blah blah blah…

After all the tagline of his book is “what to do about it.” Mr. Glennon should have made sure to talk about that, too.

But that said, I’m acquainted with Robert Glennon — so this makes me just two degrees of separation from John Stewart! Whoo Hoo!

Hat tip to J.S. and J.S. for sending this clip my way.

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