Great pieces on water and resource utilization

There's been a few few different pieces (and one video) I've seen recently that struck me as fascinating on the subject of water as a resource.

From a recent issue of Businessweek was "Israel's Water Ninja" by Amanda Little on the Israeli Integrated Water Network Management startup TaKaDu. It's a remarkably interesting look at water efficiency and identifying leakage on a widespread utility scale where the losses prevented can be enormous.

Related to water usage required was a piece from the Jan issue of Outside Magazine with "The Top-Secret Food That Will Change the Way You Eat" by Rowan Jacobsen. Written about the company Beyond Meat and its forthcoming Beast Burger, it's a well written and important look at the idea of getting away from eating beef, among other reasons for the huge amounts of water needed to generate a pound for eating.

For the Dec/Jan issue of Fast Company was "We're Running Out of Water" by Jon Gertner, an interesting piece that notes how water systems, and the concept of desalination from saltwater to drinking water, can have fairly entrenched markets, effectively limiting the amount of innovation and people looking to enter the field.

The last thing to note here on the subject of water isn't actually a written piece, but rather a video on the Google Ventures website with Kevin Rose interviewing Scott Harrison of the highly regarded Charity: Water. Just a fascinating guy doing important work.

Outdoor adventure writing - Jones on Antarctica & Jacobsen on the Colorado River

Really enjoyed two recent outdoor adventure pieces with "The Day We Set the Colorado River Free" by Rowan Jacobsen for Outside and "Beyond Belief: A Journey to Antarctica" by Chris Jones for AFAR Magazine.

The article by Jacobsen is a sort of travelogue of his time floating on the Colorado combined with an interesting dissertation on water availability and usage in the West, both now and what's to come and the Jones piece an almost dream-like read on time in a remarkable place.

Great writing by Price, Sandomir & Jacobsen

Three pieces of recent great writing I hadn't previously posted on were from Sports Illustrated, the New York Times and Outside Magazine.

For SI was "As Reds' Chapman recovers, dangers of line drives hit close to home" by S.L. Price and reminiscent of the excellent 2009 book Heart of the Game by Price, which I wrote about here.

The Times story was "A Story of Perseverance" by Richard Sandomir on ESPN SportsCenter Anchor Stuart Scott and his battle with cancer and the feature for Outside was "The Gourmet Invasivore's Dilemma" by Rowan Jacobsen on the havoc wreaked by invasive species and one chef's small-scale approach towards the problem.

Writing on interesting places, writing on nice stories and writing on mental health

There's been some excellent writing I've come across lately that seems to link together with two pieces being about interesting places, two about people with stories that can be described as exceptionally nice and two about the important subject of mental health.

In terms of interesting places, the March 2013 issue of Outside Magazine had a fascinating feature story written by Rowan Jacobsen. "Chef Blaine Wetzel's Quest to Become the Ultimate Locavore" was on the just-now-turning-27 Wetzel and his Willows Inn restaurant on Lummi Island near Bellingham, WA. It was one of those pieces of writing that stood out in part because I wouldn't have expected it to.

Another interesting place story recently was also from Outside, with the Outside website having a piece noted as originally appeared in the Spring 2013 issue of OnEarth Magazine. About the Chicago River, Matthew Power wrote "Is it Possible to Save the Waterway That Made Chicago Great?" Very similar to the feature on Wetzel and the Willows Inn, I wouldn't have expected to find this story that compelling, but it really was... and included Power describing the river by writing "levels of E. coli bacteria in non-disinfected wastewater sent from Stickney into the canal have registered 700 times above the legal limit for swimmable water."


In terms of nice, two stories that have stuck with me recently were on adoption of an abandoned child and a kayak journey. Of particular profundity was "We Found Our Son in the Subway", a first-person account from playwright and screenwriter Peter Mercurio posted to a New York Times blog. It's just heartwarming reading of a story that as Mercurio writes "began 12 years earlier."

It may not have the gravitas of the account by Mercurio, but another feel-good story written well was from Tampa Bay Times writer Ben Montgomery. "Kayak trip from Minnesota to Key West cuts through Tampa Bay" was about Daniel Alvarez and his solo kayak trip from Minnesota to Key West. The journey was financed by a $10,000 Outside Magazine (again with Outside Mag!) prize and Montgomery recounts how the 31 year old left behind his corporate law gig (which came out of a Yale law degree) to do... exactly what he wants to be doing.


The mental health writing was first a Chris Jones column for ESPN and then short interview with him about what he wrote. "Status update: A tennis player quits because the cost of a public life feeds her depression" is on 22 year old Rebecca Marino and then the Q&A piece "ESPN The Magazine columnist Chris Jones relates with young tennis star’s bouts with depression." In the interview, Jones references writing on the subject of his own depression a Nov 2011 Esquire piece (that I wrote about along with a similarly important Mike Sager piece) and his statement that "mental illness is something we should talk about" just seems to ring so true.

Outside Magazine on Bill McKibben & Texas Monthly on Kermit Oliver

Two excellent pieces of profile writing to note here... one interesting in the work being done by someone and the other for both the work and manner it's being done.

In terms of a feature on someone doing something important towards a greater good, last month's Outside Magazine had "Boilover" on writer and climate-change activist Bill McKibben. Written by Rowan Jacobsen, it's a thorough look at someone perhaps tilting at windmills, but doing so because he believes the efforts of his organization 350.org are important.

The second in-depth profile to mention here doesn't center around as important a topic as climate change and C02 in the atmosphere, but was fascinating in the person featured. For Texas Monthly, "Portrait of the Artist as a Postman" was by Jason Sheeler on Kermit Oliver, the Waco, TX postal employee who also designs heavily in-demand scarves for French fashion brand Hermes. Absolutely remarkable piece on someone with amazing events in their life (particularly the horrifying story of his son being executed by the state of Texas) and who does his craft in a way that works for him.