This article highlights how Montreal’s relationship to its water sources has always been experienced and mediated through two intersecting processes: the actual state and presence of water in the landscape, and current representations of water and the ways in which water manifests itself in everyday life.

This article outlines the “global P problem sphere” before moving to insights obtained from a Canadian case study that examines the opportunities of applying a paradigmatic focal shift to phosphorus understanding—“from noxious to precious”— as assessed and evaluated through the direct participation of local stakeholders.

This essay is adapted from a lecture given by Rachel Carson Center director Christof Mauch at the Center for Advanced Studies (CAS) of LMU Munich, as a prelude to a series of public lectures and colloquia held by the Carson Center.

In this volume of RCC Perspectives, esteemed historian David Blackbourn follows the challenge of energy production in Germany over the past two hundred years—from wood and coal, to hydroelectricity and nuclear power, and finally to emerging renewable technologies