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It was the best of water, it was the worst of water, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the year of COVID and Brave Blue World and the year of Dark Waters. Two films on water bridged the gulf between Charles Dickens' spring of hope and darkness of despair, showing audiences two sides of the ongoing evolution of the water industry.

My favorite book of 2020 was about one of my favorite movies of all time, water or otherwise, Chinatown. In his book The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood, author Sam Wasson gives the perspectives of screenwriter Robert Towne, producer Robert Evans, director Roman Polanski and lead actor Jack Nicholson in the making of the 1974 film. The movie was inspired by the California Water Wars, a series of disputes over southern California water at the beginning of the 20th century, by which Los Angeles interests secured water rights in the Owens Valley.

My favorite line from the movie starts the list of water quotes from movies and films…

1. “Can you believe it? We're in the middle of a drought, and the water commissioner drowns. Only in L.A.” - Morty (Charles Knapp), Chinatown, 1974

In chronological order, here are my favorites from other movies and films…

Recent LinkedIn posts have highlighted the tensions building up between India and China over Chinese control of the water supply flowing out of Tibet. Will Sarni posted the South China Morning Post headline “India and China gear up for a new battle, this time over water”, and Stuart Shapiro provided a link to a Byline Times article “War Over Water: The New Flashpoint in the India-China Stand-Off”.

In my 2016 post Water and the Art of War: Is China Gaining a Stranglehold on the World Water Supply?, I reported that since the 1962 war between India and China—arguably a war over water—10,000 square kilometers of Tibetan ice are under Indian control and three times more are under Chinese control.

For as long as I can remember, I have felt a deep connection between water and music. From mix tapes (remember those?) to my current iTunes playlists, water themes have dominated my song selections.

Here are my favorite water quotes from around the world…

While reviewing a mind map (a practice I picked up from the Maestro himself) for the article What Leonardo da Vinci Can Teach Us About Water, I came across a list of my favorite Leonardo water quotes...

Adam Tank’s recent LinkedIn articles about the value of an online writing course and the training to make better presentations really inspired me. So I decided to post about the unique coaching I have received over the last number of years from Steve Bhaerman, professional comedian and humor coach, who some people have called a modern day Mark Twain.

The novel coronavirus pandemic has brought a wide range of health issues into sharp focus, including the spread of pathogens through aerosols, tiny droplets of liquid that can hang in the air for minutes or even hours.

Back in October 2018, when I started looking to the past to gather wisdom from what people have said about water through the ages, I figured when it comes to water, it’s 50/50 that hindsight is 20/20. So I needed a large sample size. I started collecting quotes from all sorts of people—scientists and screenwriters, poets and philosophers and politicians and pop singers—hoping to provide insight into water and the issues around it. (For more details on my journey, see last year’s World Water Day post.) Some of those quotes can even help us peek into the future.

Americans and Canadians got a peek into the future when the City of Toledo shut its drinking water taps in 2014, issuing a do-not-drink order on the municipal water supplies serving 500,000 people. Levels of microcystin, a potent liver toxin produced by blue-green algae, were more than double the World Health Organization's safe limit. More than 700 square miles of the Lake Erie surface was covered by a harmful algal bloom (HAB), and drinking water plants couldn't remove the algal cells and the toxins they produced.

That's awful. What's worse is that Toledo's experience is likely to become more common worldwide in the years to come. From the current red tides along the southwest Florida coast to massive blooms that have become common from the Baltic to the Persian Gulf and the South China Sea, HABs occur frequently.