The first professor Dean Nieter set the tone on what the rest of
the program would focus on. His philosophy is that water
conservation and cleanliness and potability needs to be tackled at
the regional/local level. He focused on the Hudson river,
Chesapeake Bay, pollution of NYC ground water (Why we get it from
an aquifer upstate in the first place) and Long Island’s water
issue (Industrial runoff ruins our day). His speech led into Dr.
Cantelmo’s “Top 10 Misconceptions about Water”. He went into detail
about each one, including “We can easily change salt water into
fresh water and have all the water we need”. Dr. Brenton followed
with the title “Water is a fundamental human right”. He went into
depth with the international situations making it imperative that
water BE recognized as a fundamental human right; including,
privatization of water, the “Think locally, drink globally”
advertisement of Coca Cola, the ethnic conflicts associated with
water, and the connection between water quality and availability,
irrigation and how much food a country produces for its
population.
Questions from the audience followed the trend about awareness
of OUR water, here. It was quickly evident that we don’t give it
much thought and we must because our water supply is not as secure
as our faucet would have us believe. Towards the end, people wanted
to know “If I turn off the tap, it saves water for my neighbor
watering his lawn. How do I save water for people who have NONE
thousands of miles away?” On each table were paraphernalia of
grassroots movements to provide drinking water to people around the
world, and samples from companies and NGOs of inventions that have
been developed to do so.