ABSTRACT
The comforts or grief offered by water comprise Chapter 8. Perhaps nature’s most supportive gift, water we honor as critically integral to life in all its forms. Earth, the “blue planet,” is generously provided with this simple substance, but not always in the right place or easily usable. Nature offers us the liquid molecule also as steam, snow, ice or hail. These may come in excess, just the needed amounts, not at all or too saline to consumer. We dam water, store it underground and divert its flow. We contaminate freshwater with our manufactures and wastes, we spend fortunes to depollute or make seawater potable. Human impacts on the global water cycle, freshwater needs of an ever-growing human population and transnational water management issues are at the forefront of international debates over water.
