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Neural Foundry's avatar

Curating niche communities like this is underrated work. The Water Droplet's approach to tracking virtual water footprints (like avocados in Canadian winter) feels especially relevant now when supply chains are so opaque. I've been thinking alot about how people dunno where their resources come from anymore and lists like this make those hidden infrastrucure connections more tangible.

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John Lovie's avatar

Thank you!

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Julie Gabrielli's avatar

Wonderful, John! I wasn’t aware of most of these. Sam’s paintings are stunning. Thanks for doing this. 💦

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John Lovie's avatar

Thank you, Julie. Sam's work is amazing.

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Elizabeth Beggins's avatar

Oh, how I wish I could carve out the time to dig into all of these in the way they deserve. If we make it through what's being thrown at us currently, the struggle will be all about water. Love seeing Janice Anne's Steadfast here. Did you know we live very near each other (but seem to only see one another at the holiday party of a mutual friend)?

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John Lovie's avatar

Thanks Elizabeth,

Yes, I think I knew that about you and Janice Anne

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Katy Vickland's avatar

Terrific resource, John, thanks for pulling these together. I'm hoping that you'll add my Substack to the list, so readers can dive in (ha ha) for surprising stories of water from healing to holiness to Hollywood, from paychecks to playlists to peace. I provide an entertaining exploration of how water flows through every part of our lives. Meet a five-time Irish surfing champion who confides that surfing actually “teaches you how to fall well.” A marine scientist in Virginia shares the best career advice she ever got: “What would you do with your time if you win the lottery? Now, figure out how you can do that without winning the lottery.” She realized her dream was to “scuba dive and travel” and she has done exactly that. A retired rear admiral of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Commissioned Officer Corps teaches us how knowing that right angles are extremely rare in nature led to finding John F. Kennedy Jr.’s downed aircraft in 1999 in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Massachusetts. A California commercial fisherman describes free diving in pure poetry, and explains how he applies the wisdom “be like water” to find innovative crab fishing solutions not by powering or pressuring through a challenge but rather flowing around it and finding another way. A Peruvian engineer explains how he developed fogcatchers, billboard-sized nets that trap water moisture from sea breezes to provide water for communities that lack a consistent water supply. A Hawaiian entrepreneur tells how atmospheric water generation literally pulls water from humid air and can be a lifesaving technology for communities lacking access to clean water. An innovator reports how desalinating ocean water 400 meters below the surface instead of onshore is a game-changer. A researcher reveals why we are so attracted to things that glitter. Based on decades of study, a rabbi in Florida imparts how and why shoreline and water cleanup “becomes a holy act, not just community service.” A German artist encloses water in transparent plastic boxes, where an endless dance of condensation and evaporation creates random patterns that illuminate cause and effect. And many more stories. Along the way we discover hindcasting (the opposite of forecasting), backronyms, and the sunlit, twilight, and midnight zones of the oceans.

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John Lovie's avatar

Thank you, Katy, I’ll take a look!

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Mary Beth Rew Hicks's avatar

Honored to be included, thank you, John! I don't know if you have met Stacy Boone of Crooked Roots, but water is her biggest topic/obsession and she is great. Full disclosure, Julie G. and I went to grad school with her. :) I am excited to check out the other writers you've highlighted here!

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John Lovie's avatar

Thanks Mary Beth. I’m checking out Crooked Roots.

That must have been quite the grad school experience!

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Decenter by Emil Davityan's avatar

Thank you John. Appreciate the list. I’ve been deep diving, so to speak.

I’ve been focusing recently on water issues after reading a number of articles on dams and researching for this one on Iran’s Day Zero water crisis.

https://open.substack.com/pub/emildavityan/p/day-zero-irans-water-crisis?r=100kih&utm_medium=ios

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John Lovie's avatar

Thanks Emil, I’ll check it out.

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