Outreach
Welcome to the Future: A Talk by Peter Gleick
Peter Gleick is an optimist who labors in a field that is increasingly populated by pessimists. The field is freshwater—and at the Stroud™ Water Research Center’s 8th annual The Water’s Edge, Dr. Gleick spoke knowledgeably and passionately about “Water in the 21st Century: New Thinking for a Sustainable Future.”
He opened by noting that there is “a lot of bad news about water.”
He closed by saying, “I can imagine a world where the human right to water is met.”
The conservatory at Longwood Gardens provided a beautiful backdrop for this special evening,
bringing together those whose support is critical to our endeavors.
In between, Gleick, founder and president of the Pacific Institute in Oakland, Ca., took the audience of 220 in the Longwood Gardens ballroom through a historical and geographical tour of water issues, peppering the journey with allusions ranging from Dante to Yogi Berra.
As we enter the “3rd Age of Water,” said Gleick, we need to recast our old ideas about our most critical resource. During the 1st Age, which lasted from the dawn of human history into the 19th century, people took water where they found it and when they wanted it, and they dumped their refuse back into the water, which carried it away. In a world of few people living short lives in sparse settlements, this system worked fine.
Although imperial Rome is famed for its aqueducts, the 2nd Age of Water really began in the 19th century when the Industrial Revolution and urban growth made it possible—and imperative—to store, transport, and filter huge volumes of water. In a period characterized by vast engineering projects and unprecedented advances in science, humans learned to provide clean water to millions of people, to grow increasing amounts of food on decreasing areas of land, and to eradicate such water-borne diseases as typhus, dysentery and cholera in many parts of the world. But great progress brought immense problems, and now, 150 years later, the world faces a water crisis.
What is the cause of the global water crisis?
The simple answer is: we are. The world’s population now approaches 7 billion and is expected to increase by another 3-4 billion before leveling off in 2050. The amount of the world’s water, on the other hand, has not changed since the world began, which means that each person’s share has declined substantially. But per capita demand continues to grow rapidly, powered by economic expansion, the dependence of agriculture and industry on massive volumes of freshwater, and the universal desire for a better life. Clearly we are on a collision course with the future.
Humans have postponed the day of reckoning in three ways: (1) Engineering: We have diverted rivers, constructed massive dams, and built reservoirs capable of storing trillions of gallons of water. In the process, we have irrevocably changed entire ecosystems to the point that rivers, from the Colorado to the Yellow, no longer flow regularly to the sea. (2) Overuse: We are pumping our groundwater at an unsustainable rate. Almost half the world’s food production now depends on irrigation from non-renewable aquifers, while the effort to make the central Asian desert bloom caused the destruction of the Aral Sea and the extinction of all 24 species of its endemic fish. (3) Misery: The way we use water has led to a world tragically divided between haves and have-nots. Two million people continue to die each year from completely preventable water-borne diseases. Almost all of them are in the Third World, and most of them are under 5 years old.
Dr. Peter Gleick took Director Dr. Bern Sweeney and an audience of more than 200 through an historical and geographical tour of water issues.
The competition for limited resources has increased the probability of conflicts over water and the risk of violence. Such threats must now be seen in the context of two larger issues: the reality that humans are part of the ecosystem they abuse and the irreversible fact of climate change, which “is having a serious impact on our water resources.”
And yet, the story need not end there, said Gleick. “A lot of good things are happening. We are making progress, but we must make it faster.”
To do so, Gleick laid out what he calls the “soft path” to sustainable water use. Its underlying principles are that water is “a fundamental human right,” that there is also a “basic ecosystem right to water”—and that the two rights are not in conflict. In fact, ensuring the human right to water requires us to protect the ecosystem from which that water comes.
Development that encompasses environmental protection
“Throughout the 20th century, the industrial world pursued economic development without concern for environmental protection,” Gleick said in an interview. “That is still happening, as emerging nations seek to attain the West’s standard of living. But we are moving toward development that encompasses environmental protection. I do not believe there is an inherent contradiction between the two. I do not believe we are doomed.”
Specifically, he argued, we must meet the ever-growing demand for goods and services with less water. The good news is that we have already begun to do so: the U.S. actually uses less water today than 30 years ago; the city of Los Angeles consumed more water in 1969 than it did in 2009. We must also “think outside the box about supply” by recognizing treated waste water as a source of supply, not just scrubbed waste to be thrown away.
Gleick ticked off a list of things to do: Ensure the basic water needs of all are met. Protect water quality by bringing the Safe Drinking and Clean Water Acts into the 21st century. Get rid of a pricing system that rewards wasteful use by discounting for volume. Improve—don’t discard—our regulatory agencies.
Finally, he said, “we must slow the rate of climate change and we must adapt to the unavoidable changes that are coming because we failed to act sooner.”
“Can we reach this rosy future,” he asked in closing “or are we condemned to a perpetual water crisis? The answer depends on the choices we make.
“Welcome to the future.”
Peter Gleick is the 8th distinguished Water’s Edge speaker. The others have been Jane Goodall, Sylvia Earle, William McDonough, Wangari Maathai, Kristine Tompkins, Flip Nicklin, and Ian Hutton.
Links:
For more photos of The Water's Edge with Peter Gleick, visit our Facebook photo album at:
http://on.fb.me/euY3yS
To read coverage of The Water's Edge with Peter Gleick, go to: http://www.chescopress.com/?p=925
To read more about Dr. Gleick and the Pacific Institute, go to: http://bit.ly/hbtOOw
For a complete list of past guest speakers at The Water's Edge, go to: http://www.stroudcenter.org/Events/Water’s Edge/index.htm
