If you are in Saskatoon this coming Monday, March 21, please join me over the lunch hour in Convocation Hall on the University of Saskatchewan campus where I will be giving a talk called Synchronized Swimming: How Citizens, Scientists and other species can work together for water right now. The university has just embarked upon an ambitious, seven-year research project that will redefine water security in our own backyard and around the world. I’m going to talk about how non-specialist, average citizens like you and me are crucial if we are going to leverage all this great science into a sustainable water future.
The talk will open U of S Water Week, a series of lunch time presentations to celebrate World Water Day. Garth Materie from the CBC’s Blue Sky will be hosting.
The folks at the university really want to reach out to citizens right now, to engage people in what they are doing on the science front, and this isn’t just public relations. Because in about seven years, some of the brightest people on the planet are going to hand us a blueprint for a water future that can serve both human beings and ecosystems. Building it is another matter, however. Scientists cannot do that for us. We have to do this ourselves, as a society.
As someone keenly interested in building direct partnerships between lay citizens and professional scientists, I am delighted and honored to be the only non-scientist on the Water Week roster, glad to walk through a door that is opened. I would love to see my friends and colleagues from town. For those too far away, the talk will be available online, and I will post a link. But it would be better to just be there.
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