Follow the Water — Foresight Podcast Ep. 03
The blood vessel of Egypt meets China: the world’s plumber-in-chief. A journey which starts with the Neolithic revolution, passes through the “hydraulic century” and carries us into the future. By following the history of water, we delve into the roots of human civilization, crossing paths with science, technology, politics, and the stories of people and places.
In this episode, we follow the water. In China, in front of the Three Gorges Dam, the largest on the planet, both the force of nature and the power of man to shape and mould landscapes are on show.
We follow the water in Egypt, at the meeting point between the Middle East and Africa, venturing down the Nile, a river that has accompanied man since the beginning of ancient civilizations and that still today is synonymous with life for the entire region.
We continue to follow the water in its journey from Venice to Alexandria, from the legacy of Ancient Rome to the American Republic and the British Empire, up to the modern era and the “hydraulic century”, where institutions are shaped by the relationship between man and water.
Foresight — Deep into the Future Planet, a podcast produced by the CMCC and FACTA.
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Meet this episode’s guests
Giulio Boccaletti, Ph.D., is an author, entrepreneur, senior executive, and a globally recognized expert on natural resource security and environmental sustainability. Trained as a physicist and climate scientist, he holds a doctorate from Princeton University, where he was a NASA Earth Systems Science Fellow. He has been a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a partner of the global consulting firm McKinsey & Company and a leader of its sustainability practice, and the chief strategy officer of The Nature Conservancy, the largest environmental organization in the world.
His book, Water: A Biography, published by Pantheon Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House, was named by The Economist as one of the best books of 2021. He writes on environmental issues for news media, and is an expert contributor to the World Economic Forum, which named him one of its Young Global Leaders. He routinely contributes to documentary series.
His work on water has been featured in the PBS documentary series H2O: The Molecule that Made Us. He was also series consultant to the PBS/BBC series The Age of Nature. He is the co-founder of Chloris Geospatial, a venture-backed company that uses remote sensing and machine learning to help companies and institutions put nature on the balance sheet. He is an Honorary Research Associate in the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at Oxford University and a Senior Fellow of the Euro-Mediterranean Centre for Climate Change. He lives in London.
Rehab Abd Almohsen is an Egyptian freelance science journalist based in Cairo. She regularly writes for SciDev.Net and Scientific American.
Rehab was awarded three at the Nile Media Awards ceremony this year, in the categories of Digital, Print and Best Female Entry.
A former editor at Scientific American, Rehab is also a media trainer who provides multiple pieces of training on science journalism, water reporting and covers climate change issues for the International journalists’ Network (IJNET), Al Jazeera Media institute, the British Council, and others. Rehab is also among the authors of Water conflict and cooperation, a media handbook.
Her work on Nile River-related coverage has also led to prizes sponsored by SIWI, International Centre for Water Cooperation, and the European Union.
