Peter Gleick

Peter Gleick
File:Dr. Peter Gleick, Boston Museum of Science, April 2014.jpg Peter Gleick, Keynote Speaker, Boston Museum of Science, April 2014
Born	1956
Nationality	American
Alma mater	University of California, Berkeley Yale University
Occupation	President and co-founder of Pacific Institute
Organization	Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security
Notable work	The World's Water, Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water, A Twenty-First Century U.S. Water Policy.
Website	pacinst.org/about-us/staff-and-board/dr-peter-h-gleick/ www.gleick.com

Peter H. Gleick (/ˌɡlik/; born 1956) is an American scientist working on issues related to the environment. He works at the Pacific Institute in Oakland, California, which he co-founded in 1987. In 2003 he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for his work on water resources. Among the issues he has addressed are conflicts over water resources, water and climate change, development, and human health.

In 2006 he was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. In 2011, Gleick was the launch Chairman of the "new task force on scientific ethics and integrity" of the American Geophysical Union. Gleick received the International Water Resources Association (IWRA) Ven Te Chow Memorial Award in 2011, and that same year he and the Pacific Institute were awarded the first U.S. Water Prize.

Career

Gleick received a B.S. from Yale University and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Energy and Resources from the University of California, Berkeley, with a focus on hydroclimatology. His dissertation was the first to model the regional impacts of climate change on water resources. Gleick produced some of the earliest work on the links between environmental issues, especially water and climate change, and international security, identifying a long history of conflicts over water resources and the use of water as both a weapon and target of war. He also pioneered the concepts of the soft water path, and peak water.

Gleick worked as the Deputy Assistant for Energy and the Environment to the Governor of California from 1980 to 1982.

In 2003 he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for his work on water resources, and in 2006 he was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

In 2011, Gleick received the International Water Resources Association (IWRA) Ven Te Chow Memorial Award. Also in 2011, Dr. Gleick and the Pacific Institute were awarded the first U.S. Water Prize. That same year, Gleick was the launch Chairman of the "new task force on scientific ethics and integrity" of the American Geophysical Union.

In 2012, Oxford University Press published a book written by Gleick and colleagues: "A 21st Century U.S. Water Policy," and he was named one of 25 "Water Heroes" by Xylem. In 2013, Gleick was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Silicon Valley Water Conservation Awards.

In early 2013, Gleick launched a new blog at National Geographic ScienceBlogs entitled "Significant Figures." He is also a regular contributor to Huffington Post Green.

Gleick has also been featured in a wide range of water-related documentary films, including Jim Thebaut's documentary "Running Dry", the 2004 German documentary series "Der durstige Planet," Irena Salina's feature documentary Flow: For Love of Water, accepted for the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, the ABC News documentary "Earth2100," and Jessica Yu and Elise Pearlstein's 2011 feature documentary Last Call at the Oasis from Participant Media. His 2010 book Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water, published by Island Press, won the Nautilus Book Award. He served on the scientific advisory boards of Thirst, Grand Canyon Adventure: River at Risk, and other water-related films.

Pacific Institute

In 1987, with two colleagues, Gleick started the Pacific Institute, a non-profit policy research center currently located in Oakland, California. The mission of the Institute is "The Pacific Institute creates and advances solutions to the world’s most pressing water challenges." Gleick serves as the Institute's President.

File:Peter Gleick receiving Lifetime Achievement Award from the Silicon Valley Water Conservation Awards.JPG

Peter Gleick receiving Lifetime Achievement Award from the Silicon Valley Water Conservation Awards

Current work

Gleick is the editor of the biennial series on the state of the world's water, called The World's Water, published by Island Press, Washington, D.C., regularly provides testimony to the United States Congress and state legislatures, and has published many scientific articles. He serves as a major source of information on water and climate issues for the media, and has been featured on CNBC, CNN, Fox Business, Fresh Air with Terry Gross, NPR, in articles in The New Yorker, and many other outlets.

Gleick lectures dozens of times a year on global water resource challenges and solutions, climate science and policy, and the integrity of science. In 2008, he presented the Abel Wolman Distinguished Lecture at the United States National Academy of Sciences. He was a 2009 Keynote Lecturer at the Nobel Conference at Gustavus Adolphus College. In 2014, Gleick published a peer-reviewed article in the American Meteorological Society journal "Weather, Climate, and Society" (WCAS) that addressed the role of drought, climate change, and water management decisions in influencing the civil war in Syria. This article was the "most read" WCAS article for 2014.

In September 2014, Gleick gave a keynote address at the “Global Climate Negotiations: Lessons from California” Symposium, co-hosted by the USC Schwarzenegger Institute with the California Air Resources Board and the R20 Regions of Climate Action (R20) in Sacramento, which highlighted the different policies applied by the state of California facing the impact of climate change., In February 2015, Gleick's work on the "Water-Energy Nexus" was highlighted in an invited keynote at the Georgetown University 2015 Annual Symposium of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies.

Heartland Institute incident

On February 20, 2012, Gleick announced he was responsible for the unauthorized distribution of documents from The Heartland Institute in mid-February. Gleick reported he had received "an anonymous document in the mail describing what appeared to be details of the Heartland Institute's climate program strategy", and in trying to verify the authenticity of the document, had "solicited and received additional materials directly from the Heartland Institute under someone else's name". Responding to the leak, The Heartland Institute said one of the documents released, a two-page 'Strategy Memo', had been forged. Gleick denied forging the document. Gleick described his actions as "a serious lapse of my own and professional judgment and ethics" and said that he "deeply regret[ted his] own actions in this case" and "offer[ed his] personal apologies to all those affected". He stated that "My judgment was blinded by my frustration with the ongoing efforts – often anonymous, well-funded, and coordinated – to attack climate science and scientists and prevent this debate, and by the lack of transparency of the organizations involved." On February 24 he wrote to the board of the Pacific Institute requesting a "temporary short-term leave of absence" from the Institute. The Board of Directors stated it was "deeply concerned regarding recent events" involving Gleick and the Heartland documents, and appointed a new Acting Executive Director on February 27. He was reinstated following an investigation.

Personal life

Gleick is the brother of author James Gleick and Elizabeth Gleick.

Honors

• 1999 Elected Academician of the International Water Academy, Oslo, Norway
• 2001 Named by the BBC as a "Visionary on the Environment" in its Essential Guide to the 21st Century
• 2001 Appointed to Water Science and Technology Board of the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C.
• 2003 MacArthur Fellow "Genius Award"
• 2005 Elected Fellow of the International Water Resources Association
• 2006 Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
• 2006 Elected Member of the United States National Academy of Sciences
• 2008 Selected to Present the Abel Wolman Distinguished Lecture at the United States National Academy of Sciences, April 23, 2008, Washington, D.C.
• 2008 Named by Wired Magazine's Smart List as one of "15 people the next President should listen to"
• 2009 Keynote Lecturer at the Nobel Conference at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota
• 2010 Named "Visionary: A Catalyst for an Enlightened Future" in the Los Angeles Times Magazine, January 3, 2010
• 2011 Winner, along with the Pacific Institute of the first U.S. Water Prize
• 2011 Winner of the IWRA Ven Te Chow Memorial Award
• 2012 Nominee for the Rockefeller Foundation Next Century Innovators Award.
• 2012 Named one of 25 "Water Heroes" by Xylem.
• 2013 Honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Silicon Valley Water Conservation Awards, March 21, 2013
• 2015 Received the Leadership and Achievement Award from the Council of Scientific Society Presidents
• 2015 Received the Carla Bard Environmental Education Award from the Bay Institute.

Books

• Peter H. Gleick (editor), Water in Crisis: A Guide to the World's Fresh Water Resources. Oxford University Press, New York, 1993. ISBN 978-0-19-507628-8
• Peter H. Gleick, The World's Water 1998–1999 (Volume 1): The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources. Island Press, Washington D.C., 1998.
• Peter H. Gleick, The World's Water 2000–2001 (Volume 2): The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources. Island Press, Washington D.C., 2000.
• Peter H. Gleick and associates, The World's Water 2002–2003 (Volume 3): The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources. Island Press, Washington D.C., 2002.
• Peter H. Gleick and associates, The World's Water 2004–2005 (Volume 4): The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources. Island Press, Washington D.C., 2004.
• Peter H. Gleick and associates, The World's Water 2006–2007 (Volume 5): The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources. Island Press, Washington D.C., 2006.
• Peter H. Gleick and associates, The World's Water 2008–2009 (Volume 6); The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources. Island Press, Washington D.C., 2008.
• Peter H. Gleick and associates, The World's Water (Volume 7): The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources. Island Press, Washington D.C., 2011.
• Peter H. Gleick, Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water. Island Press, Washington D.C., 2010. Website: Bottled and Sold
• Juliet Christian-Smith and Peter H. Gleick (editors), A 21st Century U.S. Water Policy. Oxford University Press, New York, 2012. ISBN 9780199859443. Oxford University Press catalog webpage
• Peter H. Gleick and associates, The World's Water (Volume 8): The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources. Island Press, Washington D.C., 2014. ISBN 9781610914819. ISBN 9781610914826 Island Press catalog webpage

External links

• Pacific Institute
• The World's Water; Peter Gleick's water site
• Peter Gleick at the Internet Movie Database
• Peter Gleick