Charles C. Mann Quotes

Wherever you disrupt water from its natural cycle, there's always a winner and a loser. Whoever is the one it's directed towards is the winner, and whoever loses that water is the loser.

Water is the worst thing to privatize. It’s what we need to live.

Farmers had resisted transfers of water to cities at least since California’s water wars a century ago..

In well-functioning markets, price equals opportunity cost. Meaning that the proper way to price out and charge us for things is to charge us what those resources could otherwise have produced. This is a lesson the Soviet Union never learned at all, and the rest is history.

Rather than forcing local factories to clean up after themselves, Changzhou decided to outsource the job of managing its water supply to a French company named Veolia - one of a handful of corporate giants now scrambling to take over city water systems around the planet, especially in the often polluted and water-short developing world.

Fresh, clean water cannot be taken for granted. And it is not - water is political, and litigious. Transporting water is impractical for both political and physical reasons, so buying up water rights did not make a lot of sense to me, unless I was pursuing a greater fool theory of investment - which was not my intention.

The OECD advocates a risk-based approach to water security and is calling on governments to speed up their efforts to improve efficiency and effectiveness of water management. We recommend improving water pricing to recover costs and to reflect the value of water to users and society.

Water's about everything. And when the federal government controls water, it controls everything - that's the problem.

Is water the next oil? Motives behind the question vary, depending on who asks the question. Those who see water as a future core commodity - therefore as profitable a prospect as oil - pose the question to create the right market conditions for water trade.

Markets are the best way to allocate resources.

Everything we think about regarding sustainability - from energy to agriculture to manufacturing to population - has a water footprint. Almost all of the water on Earth is salt water, and the remaining freshwater supplies are split between agricultural use and human use - as well as maintaining the existing natural environment.

Water links us all as human beings. Everyone needs water, and we all have challenges about it, no matter where we live. Yet even in the U.S., people aren't aware of problems facing water.

I think it's mental to pay for water. Where is that water coming from? Are they in the hills puttin' it into bottles when years ago it used to roll down and go into the lakes?

According to the U.N., more than 2.7 billion people will face severe water shortages by 2025. Many social scientists predict that the next big wars will be over water. Nevertheless, the average American family blissfully consumes 300 gallons a day, when you add in watering the lawn and washing dishes, clothes, and cars.

I think that, when I think about the future that 'The Water Knife' represents, it's one where there's a lack of oversight, planning and organization.

Truly, we do live on a 'water planet.' For us, water is that critical issue that we need. It's the most precious substance on the planet, and it links us to pretty much every environmental issue, including climate change, that we're facing.

Water, like many other resources, is harvested, transported and used throughout all aspects of society. Unlike other resources, water is critical to the survival of all forms of life. The underlying question that sits at the core of my exploration is to what degree can we shape water before it begins to shape us.

Having lived in the arid deserts of Southern California since the 1970s, my interest in water conservation is a very personal concern. Water! The source of life! Some people are squandering the world's most precious resource while others have too little clean water to drink.

What's happening on the Colorado River is happening all over the world. The water is overused, overdammed, and it's polluted in some places.

Few if any countries understand the growing importance of water as fully as Turkey does.

The film 'Tapped' illustrates quite clearly how we've been getting 'soaked' for years by the bottled water industry.

We buy a bottle of water in the city, where clean water comes out in its taps. You know, back in 1965, if someone said to the average person, 'You know in thirty years you are going to buy water in plastic bottles and pay more for that water than for gasoline?' Everybody would look at you like you're completely out of your mind.

There is a liquid more precious than oil – water!

The poor people drink water which is very good and very common in this country.

Mankind runs a major risk of the shortage of fresh water. Water is a major source of life but could well be a major source of conflict.