Hoping to continue learning about the global water concern outside of the classroom, I attended a lecture at the NYU Kimmel Center at 6:20pm on Thursday, October 16th. Fred Pearce, the author of When the Rivers Run Dry: Water – The defining Crisis of he Twenty-First Century, was the speaker for the lecture and he gave a honest and direct address that began with topics in his book and expanded on to his other experiences and ideas. The event was held in a small room with chairs placed in a few rows for people to sit in, which contributed to an informal and relaxed atmosphere. There were about forty or so people in attendance and of that forty, it appeared that most were NYU students from a specific class related to the topic of the lecture. I sat in between two other attendees and, like myself, they were avidly taking notes on the multitude of information Pearce presented. The technological equipment in the room suffered some mishaps so Pearce had no choice but to give the lecture sans the guidance of his prepared PowerPoint presentation, which seemed like it was no sweat off his back since he knows the subject matter inside out. The lecture began with an academic and educational tone but by the end of it, Pearce transitioned into an activist tone that called for change around the world.
Before Pearce dove into the details and facts within his book, he began his lecture by saying, “I go and see first, and then I write. I write with heart and do not flinch at the moral questions that arise form the issues I research.” This quote immediately focused all of my attention on him and everything that he was about to discuss. Giving us a little background on his book, he said that it started out as journalistic footnotes when he continued to notice items in the media about different rivers around the world that are drying up. With a little motivation and research, he soon realized that these anecdotes about rivers drying up were not just local issues because, when combined, they signified a global change in rivers. Pearce then moved on to clarify that the amount of water we use in a day for bathing or around the house is not what is causing a human “footprint” on the world’s water resources, it is the amount of water we use to feed ourselves that is source of the water issue. To give us a better idea of how much water we use to grow and make certain foods he explained that to grow enough feed for enough cows to make a ¼ lb hamburger requires 3,000 gallons of water or 40 gallons of water to make enough bread for one sandwich or 65 gallons to make one glass of wine. Then he put himself up on the chopping board and told us that he had done the math and figured that he requires 100 gallons x his own bodyweight in water to feed and clothe himself every month. As he moved on from statistics, he introduced the simple fact that the human “water footprint” deserves to be a serious issue for western consumers because it is damaging the ability for drier countries to feed themselves. This led the lecture to the “virtual water” trade, which is the trade in “thirsty crops” (rice, wheat). The United States, the largest exporter of “virtual water,” exports 30 cubic-miles of “virtual water” for beef each year. Most countries in Europe, Japan, Egypt, Algeria and Jordan must import large amounts of “virtual water” because those countries cannot grow their own crops. If the “virtual water” trade did not exist, those countries would have wars over water. Moving on to look at the future, Pearce explained that although the Green Revolution was successful in making efficient use of land to grow more crops, its success is on borrowed time because it is highly inefficient with its use of water and the water supply will not last. So he posed the question, “What will we do?” He offers a few different possible solutions. For communities near a coastline, desalinization has become a feasible option but it does not help agriculture or poor countries. Building more damns is an option for poor countries but that also comes with environmental problems and the fact that a quarter of the world population now lives near river basins where all the water is already allocated; communities that can pay for water, get it and therefore, damns could become a source of conflict. Pearce is confident that, no matter what, there are two things that must happen: we must improve at catching rain where it falls and there must be a massive revolution in the way that we use water. We must eliminate the large amounts of water that is lost due to leaks in water systems in cities, we must refine ways to reduce water losses from evaporation in reservoirs and we must recycle wastewater. Pearce believes in the need for a “Blue Revolution” that changes the way that all people view and use water. More specifically, he believes that farmers, who are used to an abundance of water at their disposal to use to flood their crops, must stop wasting water with inefficient farming methods and need to utilize alternative ways to irrigate crops. He ends his lecture with the fact that a simple change in our attitude is the main fundamental change that is necessary and that working towards solving the water crisis is possible. We have the technology; we just need to take action. “We could manage without oil if we had to, but we cannot manage without water,” Pearce concludes with heart and resolve.
This was not the first lecture I have attended, but it was the first one with that sort of a close environment and small audience. It was also a new experience for me because of the activist tone of a primarily educational lecture. I tend to shy away from rallies, gatherings and speeches that prompt action or change so this lecture employed a nice bridge between looking at a subject academically and with a distinct call for change. Although I had a little background information on the topic of the global water crisis, I learned many new facts about places around the world that are suffering and coping with the demand for water. The Palestinians that live in the West Bank live in grave demand for more water because the Israelis will not allow them to sink more pumps into the ground to retrieve water that the Israelis want to keep for their own communities. The Israeli compounds in the West Bank look Western with swimming pools and sprinkler systems while Palestinian farmers do not have enough water for their crops. The conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians have deep roots and go far beyond the dispute over water, but maybe a more equal distribution of water resources in that area between the two groups could help lead to a more peaceful existence for those in the West Bank. Another place with the need for water resulting in dire consequences is Uzbekistan in Central Asia but Americans do not hear much about it because they have been our ally in “The War on Terror.” Uzbekistan was converted into a country that consists of large cotton fields and cotton is a crop that requires enormous amounts of water to grow. The Aral Sea, which the rivers Amu Darya and Syr Darya used to flow into before the Soviet Union diverted them for irrigation purposes, began to dry up and now you must walk 60 miles to see any sea. This lead to a climate change in the surrounding areas and huge dust storms began to take place. The leftover salt made its way into the environment and caused many people to develop anemia. In Bangladesh, they began to pump underground water to give people and it ended up killing them because of high levels of arsenic in the water. The largest network of irrigation canals, located in India and built by the British, now has many dry canals. In the past 10 years, more than 20 million Indian farmers are drilling to get water and although this is effective, the water is now hundreds of meters below ground instead of it being just a few meters below. Learning about all of these places around that world that are suffering because of water shortages in so many different ways has significantly increased my interest in the global water crisis. The lecture discussed important and grave issues that are ongoing and also what will happen in the future if nothing is done to aid our drying rivers. This shows the great value it has to our community because it outlines an issue and offers multiple solutions and some so simple that every person can use them to help the future of the global community. The lecture was based off of the book that Pearce had written and although the lecture was articulate and informative, I think that promoting more people to read the book will help reach larger audiences that can take the information and help to start working towards the changes necessary to support our world.
The brief description of the event is what initially caught my interest and prompted me to attend this lecture but I was skeptical about whether or not it would be an engaging experience. I am happy to say that Fred Pearce is an excellent public speaker and he made it a captivating and enjoyable experience and I am glad that I chose his lecture for my community event. Lasting only a little over an hour, the lecture was a valuable way to spend a short amount of time learning from a man with firsthand knowledge on a serious issue that affects all people.
Photo of the Aral Sea in 1989 and in 2003:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/aral_sea_1989_2003.jpg
Photo of a dried up part of the Rio Grande River:
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/elp/swww/v8n1/Dry%20Rio%20Grande%20&%20bridge%201.jpg