Post Carbon Fellow Sandra Postel recently gave a talk on ‘Will We have Enough Water? Adapting to a Warming, Water-Stressed World’ for the Moos Family Speaker Series on Water Resources. Watch the video here, Sandra’s talk begins at 4:20.
Will We have Enough Water? Adapting to a Warming, Water-Stressed World
By Sandra Postel, originally published by University of Minnesota, College of Biological Sciences
February 18, 2013
Sandra Postel
Sandra Postel directs the independent Global Water Policy Project, and lectures, writes and consults on global water issues. In 2010 she was appointed Freshwater Fellow of the National Geographic Society, where she serves as lead water expert for the Society’s freshwater efforts. Sandra is co-creator of Change the Course, the national freshwater conservation and restoration campaign being pioneered by National Geographic and its partners.
During 2000-2008, Sandra was visiting senior lecturer in Environmental Studies at Mount Holyoke College, and late in that term directed the college’s Center for the Environment. From 1988 until 1994, she was vice president for research at the Worldwatch Institute. Sandra is a Pew Scholar in Conservation and the Environment, and in 2002 was named one of the Scientific American 50, an award recognizing contributions to science and technology.
In 1992 Postel authored Last Oasis: Facing Water Scarcity, which now appears in eight languages and was the basis for a PBS documentary that aired in 1997. She is also author of Pillar of Sand: Can the Irrigation Miracle Last? (1999) and co-author of Rivers for Life: Managing Water for People and Nature (2003). Her article “Troubled Waters” was selected for inclusion in the 2001 edition of Best American Science and Nature Writing. Sandra has authored well over 100 articles for popular, scholarly, and news publications, including Science, Scientific American, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.
Tags: agriculture, small-scale irrigation, Waste, Water Supplies
Related Articles
Reflections on gratitude
By Eliza Daley, By my solitary hearth
I do think we need this feast to return to its roots, as a potlatch, a bonding redistribution of wealth and full bellies, a rapprochement across the great divides, and a coming together in joy to feed each other. We need something that draws us into community, that builds ties, that creates relationship and memories.
December 3, 2025
Proposed East Texas water pipeline and the growing thirst for distant water
By Kurt Cobb, Resource Insights
East Texas farmers and ranchers are finding out to their dismay that water has become a commodity like so many of our daily needs.
November 30, 2025
The Shutdown proved that the USA needs SNAP
By Beth DaPonte, Common Dreams
The short, natural experiment we all witnessed reinforces that SNAP is the nation’s first line of defense against hunger and food insecurity and food pantries can only be a secondary and supplemental source of food. Food pantries and food banks cannot substitute for a robust, reliable, government-funded food safety net.
November 26, 2025




