Precarious Alliance 2012
The 2012 event explores the ethics of water, looking at the uses and abuses of water systems, technology to improve our stewardship of those water supplies, as well as our relationship to this life sustaining resource. How can we meet our needs today without compromising the ability of future generations and other non-human communities to meet their own needs?
Check back for more information as we get closer to the event.
Using the ethics of water as its organizing principle, the symposium will address three distinct, though interrelated tracks: The Tap and Technology; The Earth; and the Idea.
The Tap and Technology: New technologies for water treatment; condition of and challenges facing current public water facilities; how water is made safe to drink; waste water recovery; desalinization; membrane technologies; international perspectives on public access to potable water sources and technologies for water treatment.
The Earth: Water and the Marcellus Shale; effects of water pollution; habitat quality and restoration; environmental remediation and stewardship; invasive species; land-use policy and climate change
The Idea: Just as water is essential to terrestrial life and vital to civilization, it flows into and through every imaginable human discourse and discipline. Appropriately fluid and capable of filling any form, this track will be devoted to the meaning of water: water as life; water as rite; water as spirit; water as myth; water as cause; water as metaphor. Other relevant topics could include: water and human rights; water and agency; the appropriation of water as a symbol of health, purity, etc. to promote environmental and corporate causes; the question of water’s capacity for consciousness, memory, rights.