Summary

Chapter 6, "Uphill to Money," discusses how water came to be an asset class for investors. For example, as parts of California were experiencing record droughts, Al Gore’s film "An Inconvenient Truth" garnered widespread attention for climate change. Financial managers like John Dickerson, founder and CEO of Summit Global Management, began to convince investors that water was a great investment because it is a tangible thing, unlike temperatures and carbon emissions. Dickerson began with “hydrocommerce” investments – things related to water – then decided to move toward owning water itself by buying the rights to physical water assets. Since water is heavy, it is expensive and difficult to move fresh water from one place to another. The author cites several failed attempts to place icebergs into huge bags and drag them to areas where fresh water is needed. The author goes on to...