Confluence

I'm currently at the 2012 Living Future unConference, a green building conference, which kicked off yesterday with the "Government Confluence" - a day long summit designed to inspire peer-to-peer conversation for those serving in the government sector. However, there is more confluence than just the name of yesterday's summit. The theme for this year's conference is "Women Reshaping the World", and at the opening Keynote our speaker discussed some of the strong women who have helped shape his life.

Last week, my maternal grandmother suddenly passed away (peacefully in her sleep).  I was very close to Nana - I'm the oldest grandchild, and we shared a love of birds, books, and plantation mint tea. She was an athlete, a career woman, and a mother.  As such, she was a role model for me - there was no reason a woman couldn't do or be anything! I will have more to write later, but the convergence of two areas of my life - personal and professional, struck a chord with me.

A theme of the conference is that we have to address the global needs of women and girls - safety and education - in order to change the world. In addition, we have to listen to women, trust their intuition and their inherent knowledge. At the morning session, one speaker discussed how important it is to let the people of a community lead the process to solve water problems in their community.  And when water problems are solved, such that women and children no longer have to walk miles and miles for (usually not clean) water, then educational and other possibilities open and health is improved.

We need to be doing more in this country to conserve our precious water resource.  While the PNW has an abundance of rain for 6 months of the year, we lack for the remaining months. One of the best quotes so far today is that "Conservation is a low-cost insurance policy against the risk of climate change". The challenge is to see if we as individuals, families, and communities in America can reduce our water consumption (which is greater than 150 gallons/individual/day) by 10% at a time. Even if we do this, we'll still consume much more per person on average than an average individual in the UK.

But our rivers and streams, our wildlife and our communities depend on us doing this.  We need to change our perspectives and start recognizing the confluence of water & our lives.