At the beginning of last week I attended the Fresh Water Summit held here in our own Rene Caisse Memorial Theatre. It was a tremendous day-and-a-half. The local organizing committee is to be congratulated for the smooth flow of the event and the assembling of such an excellent team of speakers. The presentations were made by biologists and professors who have both passion and a wealth of knowledge regarding the situation of fresh water in Canada. The outcome of the event was to produce a communiqué that will go to the G8 Summit. The organizers hope that this will be a call to action for better management of our freshwater resources.

 

I learned a great deal at the Summit.  Not being a scientist some of the more technical explanations were lost on me. But one exchange really resonated with me. The discussion was focused on why scientific knowledge and data doesn’t more effectively shape government policy and public opinion. Gord Miller, Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, said that three myths prevail when it comes to the public opinion concerning fresh water in Canada 1) it is abundant 2) it is constant and 3) we are detached from it. He said to restore a scientific rationality we must shatter those myths. In response to that a member of the audience said, “I am a social scientist. I think that we need to get the social scientists and biologists talking together figure out how to shift the cultural myth.” I thought that was brilliant. Having sat there in the auditorium as a social scientist I had been moved by the gravity of information supported by the scientific data. But, instead of feeling galvanized to action I felt increasingly paralyzed. Social scientists understand people and can present things in a way that moves people. Biologists know the facts. Let’s work together on this. Gord Miller agreed; noting that the public will only begin to make changes when it believes it is necessary. He quoted Martin Luther King Jr. by saying, “There is a fierce urgency of now.” He then challenged the audience to consider what each of us would do personally to change the control of water management in Canada. This question came while a statistic given by Maude Barlow still resonated in our ears. She told the audience that last year there was so much bottled water consumed that if we placed the empty bottles end to end they would reach the moon and back 65 times. Only 35% of those bottles get recycled. (Presumably the rest end up in landfills, ditches, woodland trails, rivers and lakes.)  That is staggering to me. One other participant in the summit said that fact alone convinced him he would never again drink bottled water…ever!

 

The other suggestion that Gord Miller made, that I agree with wholeheartedly, is that we need to get the environment in the media. He suggested that we could even have an environment section in the newspapers. Imagine how that would shift the cultural myth. He was so bold as to say maybe even instead of a Sports section! Imagine thinking that our environment was equal or even more important than sports. I know that is almost sacrilege to say that on this day when the world cup begins! But it certainly seems that sometimes out culture is wrong-headed in our focus. At least that is what I think. How about you?