Starting Friday June 29 at the Loft Cinema, 3233 E. Speedway:

The new documentary LAST CALL AT THE OASIS presents a powerful argument for why the global water crisis will be the central issue facing our world this century. Illuminating the vital role water plays in our lives, exposing the defects in the current system and depicting communities already struggling with its ill-effects, the film features activist Erin Brockovich (who talks at length about the real-life Hinkley, California pollution case that was adapted into the popular film that bears her name), and such distinguished experts as Peter Gleick, Jay Famiglietti and Robert Glennon, University of Arizona Professor of Law and Public Policy, and author of Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What To Do About It).

Also featuring interviews with social entrepreneurs who are currently championing revolutionary solutions, the film posits that we can manage this problem if we are willing to act now.

Directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Jessica Yu (In the Realms of the Unreal: The Mystery of Henry Darger), and inspired by the book The Ripple Effect by Alex Prud’homme, LAST CALL AT THE OASIS is the latest film from Participant Media, the company that brought you AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, FOOD, INC., and WAITING FOR SUPERMAN.

I’ve met Dr. Robert Glennon as he graduated from the same law school I did, and is a Morris K. Udall Professor of Law and Public policy in the Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona. Click here for his website. According to Glennon’s book:

Our water woes will get worse before they get better because we are slow to change our ways, and because water is the overlooked resource. It’s happening again: Washington’s love affair with biofuels will turn to heartbreak once America realizes that thousands of gallons of water are required to produce one gallon of fuel. Glennon tells how a celebrated, new ethanol plant in Minnesota-The Land of 10,000 Lakes!-is already sucking local wells dry.

Glennon argues that we cannot engineer our way out of the problem with the usual fixes or the zany-but very real-schemes to tow icebergs from Alaska or divert the Mississippi River to Nevada. America must make hard choices-and Glennon’s answer is a provocative market-based system that values water as a commodity and a fundamental human right.

Check the Loft’s website for showtimes & prices, or call the recording at 520-795-7777.

All life depends on water, which is our most precious resource.