“Water is tied to everything we care about,” said MacArthur “Genius” Fellow and President of the Pacific Institute Peter Gleick in an interview with ECSP. However, “we cannot talk about water or any other resource issue…without also understanding the enormously important role of population dynamics and population growth.”

As world population passes seven billion, there is substantial pressure on natural resources. Gleick, who recently launched the seventh edition of The World’s Water at the Wilson Center, spoke previously to ECSP about “peak water,” noting that people are, and have been for some time, using groundwater faster than it can be naturally replenished.

“Unless we talk about population, and its role in all of these resource issues,” said Gleick, “then we are never going to move to sustainable solutions.”

In the short-term, we should start by integrating our discussions about natural resources, water, food, energy, and population. “That is proving to be a challenge for policymakers, but it’s a challenge we are going to have to overcome,” he concluded.