Planet Aqua

Jeremy Rifkin is the best-selling author of twenty-three books, translated into thirty-five languages. He is a principal architect of the European Union’s and China’s economic plans for transitioning into a Third Industrial Revolution to address climate change; and he served as an advisor to Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer on the U.S. infrastructure plan. He is listed among the top ten most influential economic thinkers in The Huffington Post’s global survey of “The World’s Most Influential Voices.”

A Nature Best Science Books of 2024"Forget the idea that we live on a land planet. After reading Rifkin's eye-opening account of our Planet Aqua, a water planet, you will never look at the Earth in the same way again. It’s a much-needed new dimension of the climate conversation, and a smart read for business leaders navigating our changing world."Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever and past President of the International Chamber of Commerce"Planet Aqua will shock most people. Rifkin points out that instead of living on a land planet, we actually live on a water planet – fresh, salt, and frozen – and this changes all of our long-held beliefs. Now, climate change is rapidly disrupting the hydrosphere, taking us into a foreboding future of floods, droughts, heatwaves, wildfires, and hurricanes, pushing many species to extinction, including our own. Rifkin’s Planet Aqua gives us an entirely new story about our home in the universe that hopefully will change the way we think, act, and thrive alongside our fellow creatures on a water planet."Jane Goodall, PhD, DBE, Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and UN Messenger of Peace"With Planet Aqua, Jeremy Rifkin presents a thought-provoking and absorbing vision of humanity's future that centers on water as the 'the animating source of life.' It’s a compelling and persuasive read that redefines our relationship with the Earth’s most complex and vital sphere."Sir Richard Branson, Founder of the Virgin Group"Rifkin's prescient Planet Aqua is a beck and call to humanity, like God's instruction to Noah in the face of the catastrophic deluge in the book of Genesis. He reminds us that the future of the planetary hydrosphere will determine our own fate and the fate of our fellow creatures – a prophetic message that we need to absorb, reflect, and act on."Johan Rockström, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research"An energetic, urgent call for imaginative, radical responses to environmental crises."Kirkus Reviews"an eye-opener"The Revelator"[Rifkin's] urgent book argues for Earth's Water to be seen more as a 'life source' than a 'commercial resource'."Nature

• Detailed Contents         viiAcknowledgments         xIntroduction      Part I The Imminent Collapse of Hydraulic Civilization1             First There Was the Waters        2             The Earth Be Dammed: The Dawn of Hydraulic Civilization        3             Gender Wars: The Struggle Between Terra Firma and Planet Aqua      4             The Paradigmatic Transformation from Capitalism to Hydroism           Part II The Canary in the Mine: How the Mediterranean Eco-Region Became Day Zero on a Warming Earth and a Bellwether of the Second Coming of Life5             The Near Death and Rebirth of the Mediterranean          6             Location, Location, Location: The Eurasian Pangaea    Part III We Live on Planet Aqua and That Changes Everything7             Freeing the Waters         8             The Great Migration and the Rise of Ephemeral Society              9             Rethinking Attachment to Place: Where We’ve Come from and Where We’re Heading              10          Bringing High-Tech Agriculture Indoors               11          The Eclipse of Sovereign Nation States and the Gestation of Bioregional Governance         Part IV Sublime Waters and a New Ontology of Life on Earth12          Two Ways to Listen to the Waters           13          Swallowed by the Metaverse or Buoyed by the Aquaverse         Notes   Index