High School

Professional Development

GEF Institute offers affordable, online sustainability courses eligible for professional development or academic credit.
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	The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water By Charles Fishman The Big Thirst brilliantly explores our strange and complex relationship to water. We delight in watching waves roll in from the ocean; we take great comfort from sliding into a hot bath; and we will pay a thousand times the price of tap water to drink our preferred brand of the bottled version. We love water—but at the moment, we don’t appreciate it or respect it. The good news is that we can. As Fishman shows, a host of advances are under way, from the simplicity of harvesting rainwater to the brilliant innovations devised by companies such as IBM, GE, and Royal Caribbean that are making impressive breakthroughs in water productivity. Knowing what to do is not the problem. Ultimately, the hardest part is changing our water consciousness.
	When the Rivers Run Dry: Water—The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-first Century By Fred Pearce In this groundbreaking book, veteran science correspondent Fred Pearce travels to more than thirty countries to examine the current state of crucial water sources. Precisely weaving together the complicated scientific, economic, and historic dimensions of the world water crisis, he provides our most complete portrait yet of this growing danger and its ramifications for us all.
	The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Fresh Water in the Twenty-First Century By Alex Prud’homme With striking instincts for a revelatory story, Prud’homme introduces readers to an array of colorful, obsessive, brilliant—and sometimes shadowy—characters through whom these issues come alive. Prud’homme traversed the country, and he takes readers into the heart of the daily dramas that will determine the future of this essential resource—from the alleged murder of a water scientist in a New Jersey purification plant, to the epic confrontation between salmon fishermen and copper miners in Alaska, to the poisoning of Wisconsin wells, to the epidemic of intersex fish in the Chesapeake Bay, to the wars over fracking for natural gas.
	The Drinking Water Book: How to Eliminate Harmful Toxins from Your Water By Colin Ingram The Drinking Water Book takes a level-headed look at the serious issues surrounding America's drinking water supply. Ingram presents unbiased reporting on what's in your water and how to drink safely. Featuring all the latest scientific research, the book evaluates the different kinds of filters and bottled waters and rates specific products on the market. The completely revised comprehensive guide to making tap and bottled water safer, covering the toxins in our water, how to test for them, and how to get rid of them. Honestly and thoroughly tackles a subject vital to ongoing environmental, health, and safety concerns.
	Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water By Maude Barlow Blue Covenant, the sequel to Blue Gold, describes a powerful response to this trend: the emergence of an international, grassroots-led movement to have water declared a basic human right, something that can't be bought or sold for profit. With great passion and clarity, Barlow traces the history of international battles, documents the life-and-death stakes involved in the fight for the right to water, and lays out the actions that we as global citizens must take to secure a water—just world—a "blue covenant"—for all.
	Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World’s Water By Maude Barlow In this book Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke, two of the most active opponents to the privatization of water show how. Our most basic resource may one day be limited: our consumption doubles every twenty years—twice the rate of population increase. At the same time, increasingly transnational corporations are plotting to control the world's dwindling water supply. In England and France, where water has already been privatized, rates have soared, and water shortages have been severe. The major bottled-water producers are part of one of the fastest-growing and least-regulated industries, buying up freshwater rights and drying up crucial supplies.
	Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution and Profit By Vandana Shiva In Water Wars, Shiva uses her remarkable knowledge of science and society to outline the emergence of corporate culture and the historical erosion of communal water rights. Using the international water trade and industrial activities such as damming, mining, and aquafarming as her lens, Shiva exposes the destruction of the earth and the disenfranchisement of the world's poor as they are stripped of rights to a precious common good.
	Water Consciousness By Tara Lohan Water Consciousness is designed to change the way people think about water. It explores all aspects of the water crisis and what we can do about it. The book contains over 50 stunning photographs and a quiz to find out your own water footprint. Beautifully designed to be accessible to readers, it provides essays on privatization, bottled water, conservation, appropriate technology, lessons from indigenous cultures, and an argument for the need for new public policy on the right to water.
	Out of Water By Colin Chartres and Samyuktha Varma From cities to biofuels, competition for water is accelerating. Climate change threatens to intensify the onset and severity of the water crisis in several regions of the developing world. Along with water shortages, unsafe water becomes an increasingly widespread problem, too. As water crises trigger food and health crises, billions may slip further into poverty, leading to greater social and political unrest, new wars, and worsening national security. This book will help raise the level of debate about water to the highest levels of government, and identify workable reforms and incentives to help water users utilize this crucial resource far more efficiently.
	Virtual Water: Tackling the Threat to Our Planet’s Most Precious Resource By J.A Allan How much water does it take to make a cup of coffee? The answer may shock you: 140 liters! That's the true amount of water used in growing, At a time when the world's resources are being used up at increasingly alarming rates what can we do to help tackle the threat to our planet's most precious resource? World water expert Tony Allan - creator of the virtual water concept - shows the way. In this stimulating and enjoyable book, he exposes the real impact of our modern lifestyle and shows how we as individuals, and governments globally, can make a vital contribution to managing our water use in a more sustainable and planet friendly way.