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Hello, and good morning Sundra.
How are you doing today? Hello?

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Er? You know the magazine cover. I grew up with National Geographic,

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so it's always going to be a
magazine to me. The book cover says

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National Geographic Kids. Now on the
line with Ero, Hello and good morning

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Sundra. How are you doing today? I'm doing well, Ero, how

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are you? Absolutely fantastic. I'm
always going to look at it as being

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the National Geographics magazine because that's the
generation I come from. But boy,

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this book, and I know on
the outside cover it says National Geographic Kids,

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But I'm telling you this is an
adult book as well. It totally

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is an adult book as well.
I think it's great for everyone to dive

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into water with this book. Water
is a huge part of my poetry,

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the way that I write, the
way that I walk in life, and

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because I'm always inspired by that raindrop
that's going to find its way to the

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ocean, and you give me an
opportunity to dive deeper into the spiritual shape

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of water. Well, I'm glad
for that. And again I wrote the

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forward for this book that the author
is Leasa Gary Right. All credit to

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her too and the whole team at
NATO for for pulling this book together.

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It's it's a fabulous book and it
really does directly right. It goes into,

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you know, sort of all of
the elements of water, the spiritual

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aspects, the magical aspects, the
very practical aspects, how much we need

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water for. It's all there,
and I think it's it's so multidimensional and

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exactly these ways, and it allows
everyone to connect to water in whatever way

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it makes the most sense to them
and become interested more interested in conserving it

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and protecting it. Well, the
entire gang at Natural Geographics they totally understand

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and they're so willing to teach it
that everything on this planet needs water.

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And I hope this opens up a
lot of people's eyes. Well, I

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call s too. And it really
is the most fundamental thing that we can

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say about water, that it is
the basis of life. And we say

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it water is life. Water is
life. But coming to grips with that

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is it's so key because because of
water scarcity and droughts and depletion of water

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and then climate change and habitat loss, we're losing life. And I think

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water and protecting it and conserving it
and making sure that we share water with

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the natural world, which we are
part of, of course, is really

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critical. And understanding that water's finite, there's only so much there, and

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that using it wisely, sharing it
with each other and with nature is essential

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to all of us having a secure
future and a happy future. So I

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think, I think that connection is
really critical. You hit it right on

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the head. Well, you hit
it on the head when you said share,

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because I don't want to bring any
politics in here, but over the

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past couple of days, they're trying
to reshape the flow of the water of

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the Colorado River, but a lot
of states are going to suffer, and

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right away, my heart has been
crying because it's like, no, we

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can't take away the water in these
areas that we're already thirsty. And so

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I mean, we have to figure
out how to share it better. We

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do have to figure out how to
share it better. And there's an ethical

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question to that, there's a technological
question to that, there's an equity question

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to that, and I think applying
all of those values is really critical.

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The fact of the matter is we're
using more water in the Colorado River basin.

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To cite the example you brought up, we're using more water than is

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there, which means we're depleting it. Yes, and we have not been

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sharing with nature. If you go
to the very end of the Colorado River,

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the delta, the delta has not
received water for decades. Right,

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there's no water flowing through the delta
anymore. And that used to be a

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beautiful, beautiful wetland for birds and
wildlife, and it's a desiccated place now.

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But what we've learned from an experiment
that's been going on for the last

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old ten fifteen years now that if
we give some water back, life returns.

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I was down there to see part
of this experiment, and it was

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just amazing to see that when you
allow water to flow back through that delta,

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the life begins to return. And
that's a hopeful message that even if

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we have sort of lost wetlands here
and there, we've depleted rivers here and

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there, we've damned rivers all over
the place, if we can let them

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flow again, if we can bring
water back to them, if we can

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restore wetlands, life comes back.
Nature is resilient if we give it a

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chance. And I think that is
a very important message, a very hopeful

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message as we go forward. You're
so right about that, because that's happening

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here in the Carolinas. They just
they just read this whole entire lay of

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land and brought water to a river
that's been dry for one hundred years.

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And I cannot wait to watch how
nature is going to change in this Greatfall

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South Carolina area, because it's going
to change the concept of thought as well

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as the human concept of we're growing
because we you know, we just accept

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things when they happen. Oh,
it's a nature. Oh it's nature.

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Well, as humans, let's do
something about it. That's right. We're

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part of nature and we have a
huge influence now on nature. I mean,

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what we've heard is from biologists is
that the sixth extinction is underway and

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it's being driven by us, which
means we have an obligation and a responsibility

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and the ability to do something about
that. And I think it's very important

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and water is it just a critical
piece of that. You know. One

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of the most hopeful things I've seen
in this country is that over the last

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thirty years, we have moved toward
taking down dams that we no longer need

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for Dams that might have been built
in the nineteenth century for textile mills and

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so on, and they're no longer
functioning as as dams in the way they

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were built, but they're still blocking
the rivers and often they're a safety issue,

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you know, if they're not being
maintained, they can break down,

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and so we're taking them down intentionally. We've taken down about sixteen hundred dams,

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mostly small ones, but some sizeable
ones, which is letting rivers flow

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free again and restoring habitat, which
is giving fish and aquatic life the habitat

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they need to come back. And
the really inspiring part of that story is

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that within a year or two,
populations of fish come back to big numbers.

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I mean, I think more in
larger numbers than most of us would

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have expected. Whether it's shad or
salmon. They come back when given the

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opportunity, and again that's the resilience
of nature if we give it a chance.

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The book we're talking about is Natural
Geographics Kids, and the title is

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Water's let's go to the route of
the kids right now, because the kid

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and me came out when I heard
that water that came from dinosaurs or during

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the dinosaur age, we're still drinking
today. How is that possible. It's

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pretty amazing. Well, it's because
water is by nite, right. There

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might be a little bit of water
that's added through what we call cosmic snowballs,

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you know, that bring a little
bit of water in. But for

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the most part, the water that's
here on Earth now has been here since

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the beginning of the creation of Earth, right, and so that water is

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finite and its cycles across space and
across time. And so the water that

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I made, you know, used
to make my coffee this morning. Yes,

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it could have quenched the thirst of
a dinosaur hundreds of millions of years

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ago. It's wild to think about. It's also fun to think about because

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you know, it connects everything.
It connects me to the dinosaurs, and

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it connects everything that's here now.
So it's a very it's a fun fact

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really that that that that water doesn't
go away. It changes form. It

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might be you know, water vapor
in the atmosphere at one point and it

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will come down as rain or snow. Then it will become part of the

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ground water or part of a lake, and then it'll evaporate back to the

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atmosphere and condense and fall as rain
all over again on different time scales.

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So these molecules are constantly supporting life
in different places in different ways, and

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we're a part of that now.
And I think that connection is I think

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a really kind of fun an important
way to think about water. And we

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should put focus on life in the
water, because the beauty of a river,

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especially the river in Colombia, with
what it does every single year,

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what a landscape of beauty. Absolutely, I mean, rivers are really remarkable

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when you think about them, and
they cross and of course one of the

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challenges for how we manage them and
share them is that they're constantly crossing boundaries

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from state to state, from country
to country. So again back to our

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point of sharing, it's so important
to share that water with each other and

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with nature. And I just I'm
always still amazed that you know, when

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you go to someplace like the columb
be a gorge or the Grand Canyon,

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that water basically created these amazing features. You know that that water could carve

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the Grand Canyon over time is still
a put of a mind boggling thing.

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Just the magic of water that we
see in so many different ways. Oh,

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I so invite so many people to
read this book and you know,

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it's I think one of the most
fascinating things that happened. There's there's a

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performer on NBC's The Voice this year
that's from Saint Louis, and we got

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hooked up on talking about the Missouri
River. Nobody talks about the Missouri River,

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but man, it was fascinating because
it's the water. I love the

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water, and we talked about this
in the very beginning. There's something about

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water that creates the stories to be
told. That's right. I mean,

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you think about the you know,
the Mark train stories of the Mississippi,

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and you know, the Missouri joins
the Mississippi right there at Saint Louis and

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then flows on down to New Orleans
and the Mississippi, you know, as

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part of that excuse me, the
Missouri as part of that Mississippi basin together.

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That's about of the continental United States
that's straining into the Missouri and Mississippi

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and then heading down to the Gulf
of Mexico. So a big portion of

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our country is in that watershed and
managing that river. You know, it's

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it's of course been dammed for flood
control and hydropower and irrigation, as most

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rivers have been but there's still an
opportunity to you know, to bring back

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more health and more life in those
in those rivers. Wow. Please come

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back to this show anytime in the
future. The door is always going to

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be open for you. Well,
thank you, I'd love to. Will

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you be brilliant today? Okay,
will you do the same. Thank you

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very much for taking the time you
bet. Thank you