    18 Apr 2011 @ 13:59, by Heiner Benking
Global Water Intelligence and the International Desalination Association - IDA
Global Water Intelligence is concerned with water production and processing technologies, a very wide field, very important and critical: purification, desalination, drink-, grey-, waste-water infrastructures, exploration, distribution, financing, ...
But maybe we need to check what is considered "intelligent", is it wise and appropriate? Does it solve or create problems? AND last-not-least, are we including diets, life-styles, mindsets? I recommend to check out these recommendations:
Wasan Island Water recommendations more at Council on Global Issues description EARTHFOCUS GYC 2010 recommendations and the recent UN Year of Water and UN [link] and the World Day for Water - UN Human Rights Council and maybe this site about foodprints, handprints and mindprints. See also the UN World Day for Water contribution in this blog.
READ MORE @ [more] below
In the evening there was a moving speach at the Global Water Awards Dinner by Kofi Annan. [links to come a.s.a.p.] check meanwhile:WATER Meets MONEY Here is the announcement:  Kofi Annan spoke about nothing less than "Water and the Future of the World". As former Secretary General of the United Nations he "has always put water at the centre of his policy agenda. Whether establishing the Millennium Development Goals or setting up the Global Compacts for corporate social responsibility, promoting world peace, or furthering the green revolution in Africa, Annan has consistently recognised the importance of water. In this address he will tie together the various threads: water for peace, food, industry, and people, to offer a vision of how water can be managed for the good of the world rather than a cause of conflict, poverty, hunger and despair".
I recommend the UN- AMR (Annual Ministerial Review 2008) e – DISCUSSION ON ACHIEVING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT outcomes
and please also check these 3 points for discussion as presented for AFRICA BEYOND POWERTY in 1995 in Nairobi for WFS and the WFSF.
and this recent work on desertification also from the Toronto and Wasan Science for Peace group: ******* description *****
- I hope there is enough time for this in the discussions, in the lobby, or later, as Marseille 2012 in dawning on us soon !!
6th World Water Forum, Marseille, 12-17 March 2012
So let us speak about the uniting intelligences and keeping a human face.
PS:
As the issues are highly complex, I urge to not get perplexed, but see a lot of good work under way: [link] -- [link] -- [link] and maybe this Encyclopedia on Systems and Cybernetics with some work done to provide some ways to combine the frames with the facts and sign-systems: [link]
As unfortunately WATER AND YOUTH 2007 is not online any more, I can only recommend this follow-up: A Special Edition on Water based on the work of youth since 2007 in a collective, positive and productive effort, and written by youth so more simple and still to the point as todays politainment and edutainment and scientainment "newspeak".
In the final debate a moment ago an excellent final event!!! - with a lot of voting during the whole conference!!! I asked if we should not have a combination of OLD & NEW THINKING, but there was no voting.... I will transcribe !!
!!!!! please goto: [link]
The sessions this morning were excellent: check WaterHealth and now starts the Smart Network Revolution - presented by IBM ! check the programme !!
it resonantes - but we should check why "intelligent houses" we were building for the GLOBAL CHANGE exhibition 21 years ago - too so long to get inot the minds of the people. I think a study is needed how the words were ridiculed when we talked about Passive House, Zero-Energy House,... description the contrariasn were ignoring or fighting over words - time to get to collective positive blue-green-yellow-read agendas !!
see Within/Between and Beyond Summit and Agendas and the GLOBAL CHANGE exhibition and LOCAL AND GLOBAL CHANGE exhibition and let us remember to along and across scales - as at theat time the term "Glocal" was coined.
[link] description
[link] description so we were just joking about "intelligent water" but also intelligent houses and towns, maybe an intelligent civilizations and futures ! - well we have to work on that !! maybe check Cradle to Cradle entry 3 weeks ago.... C2C description.
I am also eager to hear the last session wrapping up ! by Wenonah Hauter and Anil Naidoo! - A FAR-OUT DEBATE of 2 advocates on both sides of the fence... THE GREAT WATER DEBATE - pls check the programme and come back !!
Interesting was also the reactions of participants when they were confronted with the demonstrations outside against water piracy.... greeds and not needs in mind as Ghandi made clear. Maybe check the link to Elinor Ostrom (slide 3) and Global Commons I mention repetedly not only in this blog.
or see GLOBAL COMMONS, Diets, Lifestyles, Water, Soil,.... all the issues tabeled for UN-Climate COP-15 in Copenhagen a the Survival Academy. (very large Slides presentation - needs editing ... but to get started on the WATER matter without getting lost in perplexity. Maybe also see the interview in the Water primer mentioned above. Youth-Leader - Humanity 4's. Special Edition on Water. (80 pages !!) Quick views of Heiner Benking and Helmut Burkhardt, two members of the Council on Global Issues... Please check slide 37-38 with a systemic perspective on Water !! more on the UN Day on Water March 22 in this blog below....
and please goto: [link]
LATE NOTE:
THURSDAY - so after I have slept 2 nights after these full, exciting, and critical days.
The WATER MARKET is immense as shown in the beginning, and indeed it divides if you feel that either through markets and the private sector, or though the deep look into life and our human lifestyles and how we (mis)use "science" we can find the RIGHT WAY.... The demonstrations in Berlin and elsewhere have shown that transparency is needed !! (see needs&greeds above) BUT also that we need to revisit our frames of reference, how we make science with an ethical and pragmatic slant, including sectors, times and spaces/scales dimensions, AND how we make sure we know more and more about less and less. WITHOUT the needed normative and participative dimensions ! See my interview with Christakis in EUROPEsWORLD about the Predicament of Mankind and Problematique 40 years ago !!: [link]
this was about the good old thinking I mentioned in the DEBATE contribution (above).
But let me come back to our isolated, "silo" ande "box" thinking. We tried to think WATER, FORESTS, YOUTH, HEALTH, .... together - at least with some young people. Also at hte Climate GLOBAL YOUTH MEETING we heard about Forests and Soils and the WATER-CYCLE, but who was talking about integrated intelligent solutions? Kofi mentioned technologies I learned about in the 70ies, now ready to be marketed, but did he speak about water and soils, agriculture and climate ??
Me ? I feel lost here - but the topic is much too important to be left for marketers, scientist or politicians. WE HAVE TO ASK FOR HOW IT ALL CONNECTS and throuch pragmatics and ethics is not detrimental for living things and the ecosphere !!
IN response to KOFI ANNAN - I really enjoyed meeting him again AND fully appreciate his life-achievements and committment, BUT why didn't he mention the water-cycle- or cradle2cradle lifecycle concepts, why didn't he mention TERRA PRETA, bio carbon sequestation, mircroorganisms, and milk-acid fermentation, old techniques I refered to in the "DEBATE"....
Maybe this is the "old-think he and Gorbachew urged to overcome, and maybe is advisers from the "science space" are old think?
I can only hope that some people have time to check our GYC Conferences in Geneva (EARTHFOCUS Foundation [link]) in this blog below, Nov 2010 and March 2011, go to AQUATERRA - maybe only in German [link] and maybed check: THE NEW WATER PARADIGM written somewhere in Czechoslowakia... Water for the Recovery of the Climate - A New Water Paradigm - [link]
My last "5 cents" !? before WATERDAY April 22, tomorrow WATER DAY is comming !!!?
Maybe see this article about IGNORANCE or COMPASSION? as it has been last month hitting the streets: Ecological Awareness: Exploring Religion, Ethics and Aesthetics, Studies in Religion and the Environment, [link] Ignorance or Compassion? - www.benking.de/futures/ECOTHEE--ignorance-compassion.pdf
in retrospect: maybe too many technocratic and marketing oriented people gathered around WATER INTELLIGENCE and so physical and chemical processes ruled and biological and societal/cultural aspects only linger and the edges. I feel we need to also include INTELLIGENT MINDS and CIVILIZATIONS, or the crash is a crash of mind-sets and rule sets. Lichtenberg wrote (roughly) who only understand Chemistry is not not getting it, so this is it, we have to confront other fields, sectors, proportions, consequences, cultures and times - BEYOND THE NEED TO AGREE !!!
Kofi Annan set the stakes high in his talk when linking water and civilizations survival. He is right ! Lets go for it or we get dumbed down in sweet isolation!!
so let us go for UNITY IN DIVERSITY [link] and SCHAU !!: [link]
LET ME NOT GET UNFAIR please !
I think this event out of a series of events is outstanding and needed ! Good and attentive people and very timely and needed ! and this since many years !
I have read the documentation of the 2010 GLOBAL WATER SUMMIT, and I must tell you it is full of concrete details, facts we have to keep in mind to get an idea of the dynamics, proportions and consequneces involved ! People just guess, judge and vote out of "Whim" - but even the written docu provides top insights, even when metings sometimes need to be in full trust and F2F, so "closed meetings" are no problem for me - I think they are often needed to build trust and allow learning. Nevertheless TRANSPARENCY is a key driving factor in last years docu, and was appreciated here in Berlin.
Of hight interest to me was also the GREEN-ORANGE-BLUE of GrowingBlue. See C2C and Blue Econonomy below!  and the TRANSFORMING THE WORLD OF WATER report from the Global Water Summit 2010. The documentation from Paris is highly recommended. It includes a keynote from Queen NOOR of Jordan and MAUDE BARLOW are outstanding ! and of high relevance and immediacy, I will check availability online. Last not least, the documentation also includes AL GORE and MOHAMMED YUNNUS - but this is "old coffee" - the work of this form and kind of "intelligence" - in time and with long breaks for exchange and ample opportunities for "Butterflies und Bumblebies" is recommended - this is the "Pro" - the "Con" is who can afford it !? - but it was fully booked and so the right people were there...
And they were putting critical issues onto the table or discussed F2F openly - this is much needed these days... so I am eager to get the Berlin documentation a.s.a.p. and have told so Christopher Grasson at the "harvesting" Publishers Dinner after the event All three days were very professionally organised and extremely dense and deep !
A last CONTRA-"CON" ?
I mentioned in my contribution in the debate that we need participatory and normative aventues, not just tech-driven prognostic "futures". The effect? The Organiser, even when having nearly lost his voice, came over and checked avenues, even when the conference was top-notch with "participants7stakeholder? voting??".... I referred him to some Axioms and what is meant by "STAKEHOLDER" dialogues.... [link]
and maybe check back TALKING POINT and HARNESSING COLLECTIVE FUTURES ... here:
[link] and some literature: [link]
I recommend to check and translate/transform this work to "modern times" as it is old&new - just as I mentioned in my DISPUTE question in the last plenary - see above !! [link]  Any questions?
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