H2O Uncertain Resource, 2009 Nobel conference

H₂O Uncertain Resource
Nobel Conference XLV, October 6-7, 2009

Students and faculty from across the North Star STEM Alliance attended the 44 Nobel Conferences. At the conference participants were able to experience lectures by top researchers in the field of environmental science.

Rajendra K. Pachauri, Ph.D., director general, The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI; formerly Tata Energy Research Institute), New Delhi, and chair, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. Pachauri will discuss the impact climate change will have on world water resources, the water crises already faced by the 1 billion people currently without access to fresh water and the 2.4 billion without basic sanitation facilities, the impending threat to peace and security, and the foundations for solution set forth by the IPCC.

Asit K. Biswas, founder and president, Third World Centre for Water Management, Atizapan, Mexico, and Distinguished Visiting Professor, Lee Kuan Yew School for Public Policy. Biswas will speak to the importance of water resources in alleviating poverty in developing countries and about the crisis in management and governance of water. He will discuss the many myths surrounding the issue, and how at least three developing countries have superceded American cities—including environmentally-conscious Los Angeles—with their water management, treatment, and delivery systems.

Peter H. Gleick, co-founder and president, Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security, Oakland, Calif. Dr. Gleick will address the need for new thinking about water resources, the hydrologic effects of climate change, the human right to water, the effects of privatization and globalization on access to water, and how humanity can change its present wasteful course and move to a “soft path” that meets the basic needs of water for humans and ecosystems.

William L. Graf, Ph.D., University Foundation Distinguished Professor, Professor and Chair of Geography, University of South Carolina. Dr. Graf will present on the state of the rivers in the United States, how human society has changed them and their landscapes with devastating consequences for many valued species of wildlife that are now threatened or endangered, how it is possible to reverse these unintended consequences and restore our rivers and their wildlife for future generations. He will highlight current management issues such as river restoration, channel change, damming, and dam removal.

Nancy N. Rabalais, Ph.D., executive director and professor, Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON), Chauvin, La., and professor, Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge. Dr. Rabalais will show how actions far away in a watershed are having direct effects on coastal ecosystems, including noxious and potentially harmful algal blooms, “dead zones,” threats to coastal fisheries resources, loss of biodiversity, and loss of ecosystem services, and what actions can be taken to restore a balance. She will also discuss how individual, societal, and political institutions can bring about effective change.

Larry L. Rasmussen, Th.D., Reinhold Niebuhr Professor Emeritus of Social Ethics, Union Theological Seminary, New York City.  Dr. Rasmussen will address the social ethics of water, including water democracy and water justice, and other questions climate change will present. He will also speak to the coming collision between the global corporate consumer economy and the Earth’s economy and the state of our ethical framework to handle the water crises.

David L. Sedlak, Ph.D., professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley.  Dr. Sedlak will talk about the waste stream, how wastewater-derived contaminants—including pharmaceuticals and hormones—end up in our drinking water, how these contaminants impact aquatic environments, the coming issue of upstream communities discharging into the water supply of downstream communities as population density increases and water availability decreases through climate change, and what we need to do to insure water quality.

Shawn Otto, co-founder and CEO of Science Debate 2008. Otto is also a filmmaker, science advocate, speaker, and writer. He is the screenwriter and co-producer of the Academy Award-nominated movie House of Sand and Fog. His first screenplay, Shining White, won the Heathcote Award, the McKnight Fellowship, and the Barry Morrow Fellowship.

These presentations—very much worth watching—are available on the Gustavus Adolphus web site.