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“Of course, we know what ‘daylight’ means, right?” Leslie Garrett asks in this “In a Word” story. “It’s what we experience between dawn and dusk. Except when it means something else, something that’s pretty magical.” 

“‘Buried under cities across Canada, in culverts and tunnels, are networks of rivers and streams that once nourished the surrounding landscapes,’ reads a story on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s website. ‘Now, there are efforts to uncover or daylight some of them, restoring habitat for plants and animals, while helping prevent urban flooding.’”

“Muscular, willful, worshipped, and mistreated, rivers have long existed in the threshold space between geology and theology. Rivers are — I have found — potent presences with which to imagine water differently. We will never think like a river, but perhaps we can think with them.”

— Robert Macfarlane, author of Is a River Alive? (Available on Amazon and on Bookshop.) 

From the Nile to the Mississippi, the Yangtze to the Jordan, rivers loom large in our collective psyche, making their way into our stories and myths and taking their place alongside dogs in an idealized childhood. After all, what are The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Story About Ping, or Paddle-to-the-Sea without rivers?

But while we’re awed by rivers, we often don’t treat them well. We empty our sewage into them, we dam them, we do our best to tame them. Increasingly, however, we’re relearning that our future is intertwined with theirs, and a nascent rights of nature movement is inspiring activists and environmentalists, lawmakers and politicians around the world and, as Macfarlane tells us, is becoming the focus for revolutionary thinking about rivers in particular.

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A movement to restore rivers is growing around the world. Consequently, the role of dams is being re-examined. “Not all dams present a serious hazard to people, but dam failures are likely to become more of a threat than they have been in the past,” writes Bluedot contributor Jill Webb. She notes that although just 20% or less of U.S. dams still serve a valuable function to society, many removal projects are met with resistance, sometimes due to a nostalgic attachment. Have dams outlived their usefulness? Read the story.

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Dear Dot: What’s an Atmospheric River? 

Dear Dot,

I’ve been reading some headlines about atmospheric rivers. What exactly are they? 

– Jas

Dear Jas,

Perhaps you’re referring to this headine? Or maybe this more recent one, suggesting that the incidence of atmospheric rivers could double by 2100 due to climate change? Whatever headline piqued your curiosity about atmospheric rivers, Dot is eager to elucidate. 

For a start, an atmospheric river is not really a river at all, in the way we think of rivers. NOAA calls them “rivers of the sky” because they are, essentially, an accumulation of water vapor, picked up in the tropics and carried inland over mountains, where the vapor cools and rises, producing condensation. 

What else did Dot discover about atmospheric rivers? And should we be worried about more of them? Read on.

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What You Can Do: Become a Riverkeeper

Whether we call them Riverkeepers, Waterkeepers, Baykeepers, or Lakekeepers, a massive volunteer movement around the world helps protect and restore our important bodies of water. Want to be part of it? Google “riverkeeper” or “waterkeeper” and your location, or check out the global Waterkeeper organization and find a chapter.

The Keep-This Handbook

Rivers Run Through It

I spent my childhood on the shores of Lake Huron. But when the lake was too wild to swim or fish, I took to Mud Creek, which ran behind our family cottage. There I found turtles and frogs, blue herons and many ducks and swans, and delighted in the fat carp spawning off the dock. These days, I hike alongside the Thames River each morning, and it delivers something different daily — sometimes it’s calm, sometimes it’s rushing. Rivers may lack the majesty of the sea, but they clearly occupy an important space in our imagination. Inspired by Robert Macfarlane’s quote, we at Bluedot realized just how often a river has run through our content. Is there a beloved river in your life? Tell us about it!

Enjoy the weekend, and we’ll see you next week.

–Leslie Garrett (Robin Jones, Emily Cain, and Jamie Kageleiry)

Editors

Write us at editor@bluedotliving.com

Leslie Garrett has been covering climate stories for close to two decades.  She makes her home in Canada, west of Toronto. She’s still figuring out her favorite spot but it’s definitely near the water.

Jamie Kageleiry, a longtime magazine and newspaper editor from Martha’s Vineyard, says her favorite spot on earth is out on a kayak there, looking at birds.

Robin Jones is a Southern California native who served as an editor at Westways magazine for more than a decade. She lives in Long Beach and teaches journalism at Cal State Long Beach.

Emily Cain is a recent graduate of Cal State Long Beach, where she wrote and edited for the university’s award-winning magazine, DIG.

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