Blue Planet Run

$45

Another project from Rick Smolan and Jennifer Erwitt, the pair behind the various Day in the Life photo books. This one is devoted to the burgeoning worldwide water crisis. The combination of exploding population and environmental degradation is producing a potentially calamitous shortage of pure water in a world where as many as a billion people already lack access to it. Pictures from scores of photographers working all around the world show what the crisis looks like now (it looks bad), the solutions available, (those look better), and the reasons why blue has to become the new green.

— Richard Lacayo