Last week I took my first trip out to Western Maryland with our fabulous fellow Emily Saari. The drive was long but really beautiful- and much more relaxing than driving around the city.

We arrived to quite the welcoming party- a group of really incredible women working to protect their homes and communities from dangerous fracking practices. Over lunch we discussed the latest in fracking news and all the issues it creates. It is overwhelming to keep track of everything: drinking water contamination, traffic on small roads, land value decreasing, harm to wildlife, methane leaks

The countries reported on in this book, some more than others, are Kenya, Uganda, Somalia, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, India, Pakistan, Brazil and Mexico. Parenti traces how drought, desertification and rainstorm deluges