Glass Half-Empty, Mind Half-Empty: According to a new study on dehydration and mood, the optimist may view her glass as half full because she drank that water already. While mild dehydration didn’t appear to affect cognitive function in the young women who participated in the study, it did dampen their moods and caused them to perceive tasks as much harder than when well-hydrated.

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A 21st-century land rush is on. Driven by fear and lured by promises of high profits, foreign investors are scooping up vast tracts of farmland in some of the world’s hungriest countries to grow crops for export.

As the climate changes and populations shift and grow, billions of people around the globe face shortages of land and water, rising food prices, and increasing hunger. Alarm over a future without affordable food and water is sparking unrest in a world already tinder-dried by repression and recession, corruption and mismanagement, boundary disputes and ancient feuds, ethnic tension and religious fundamentalism.

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As long as it flows freely from our taps, many of us fail to fully appreciate the wonders of clean, abundant water. While Cynthia Barnett is not the first to point out that we’re straining the limits of our water supplies, Blue Revolution stands out for its deep reporting, clearheaded analysis, and solutions-oriented approach. By speaking to water experts and managers of all stripes and traveling the globe to see success stories—and failures—Barnett shows how the United States might work out its vexing water problems.

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How to Save Venice from Sinking: Just Add Water

“Everyone knows that on a sinking ship, you want to pump water out. But what do you do with a sinking city? In this case, the plan might be to pump water in.

“The city of Venice has long been valued for its unique character. Built in a lagoon along the coast of Italy, the scenic city is crisscrossed with canals. Its waterlogged nature draws a steady stream of visitors, but also makes it vulnerable to costly flooding. The region sometimes experiences unusually high tides, locally referred to as “acqua alta.” The phenomenon is caused by winds that drive water to “pile up” on the north end of the long and narrow Adriatic Sea. When that coincides with a high tide, the City of Water gets even wetter, and the water level can rise by 1-2 meters.” (via Wired/Ars Technica)

It’s time to confront our long-held, deeply ingrained belief that water should be forever free. “The tradition of free water has been fundamental since ancient times—as absolute as free air, or the right to take in mountain vistas,” writes Cynthia Barnett, author of Blue Revolution: Unmaking America’s Water Crisis.

But this notion has finally run up against finite supplies and a hard reality: free water encourages waste, in part because, well, it’s free. Agriculture, businesses, governments, and individuals alike have little incentive to cut down on their use. Barnett suggests that “it’s time to at least listen to what the economists have to say,” but don’t expect politicians to lead the charge.

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mothernaturenetwork:

The creators of the Water-Scraper believe that the effects of climate change mean it’s ‘only natural that we will populate the seas someday,’ so they designed this sustainable structure for us to occupy. The Water-Scraper uses wave, wind and solar power, and it even generates its own food through farming, aquaculture and hydroponics. A small forest is nestled on top, along with a garden and livestock, and the living areas are located just below sea level.

Check out some other structures that would let us live in a ‘water world.’

Let’s be real: this was reblogged because it looks cool.

Vernon G. Bandy is a dowser who plies the inscrutable art of finding objects and liquids with a divining rod or stick. He says he can locate, with something approaching regularity, just about anything—water, gold, drugs, oil, dead bodies—with his nylon dowsing rods. Today, he’s headed to dowse a well six miles west of Rapelje, a ranching community in south central Montana. “This is tough country for dowsing,” he observes. “Lot of bad water. Sulfides. Sodium and salt.”