Episode 100: Steven Hawley - Cracked

Steven Hawley is an environmental journalist who writes about rivers, dams, and the ecological impacts they have on salmonids in the American West. He is the author of Cracked: The Future of Dams in a Hot, Chaotic World (2023), Recovering a Lost River (2011), and the writer and co-producer of an award-winning documentary, Dammed to Extinction (2019). In this 100th episode of Nature Revisited, Steven walks us through the history of extensive, misguided dam building in the United States and the resulting environmental, economic, and human repercussions. Citing startling examples, he explains how the costs of maintaining a sprawling water storage system in an increasingly arid world under the ravages of climate chaos is well beyond the benefits furnished.