There’s a slightly tongue in cheek saying, that students go to Berkeley because they want to change the world and to Stanford because they want to rule the world.
I remember the first day I stepped onto the campus at UC Berkeley. Images of 60’s counterculture, Ken Kesey and Timothy O’Leary running through my head.
That day, I met Prof David Sedlak for the first time and was thrilled when he signed my copy of Water 4.0!
Which did change my world, as it gave me much deeper understanding of the history of the 3 previous water revolutions. David subsequently participated memorably in the Brave Blue World film, telling us that “the water crisis isn’t an act of God, it’s a man made problem”. And a solvable crisis, which he roadmaps the solutions to very succinctly in his latest book, Water For All.
It was therefore a special occasion to be back at University of California, Berkeley , to host an Our Blue World screening event for World Water Day with our Sponge City Hero, Kongjian Yu, Turenscape as guest of honour.
Kongjian had been in the Bay Area visiting and discussing Nature Based solutions at various locations including at the Google Campus.
Kongjian’s next vision, is for Sponge Planet and he spoke powerfully of the role of water as an agent in mitigating a changing climate and challenging the prevailing assumption that demonises carbon as the sole contributing agent, as opposed to an indicator.
In a moment of incredible synchronicity, Paul Hawken launched his new book, Carbon: The Book of Life, this week in the Bay Area, which tells the incredible story of carbon as such a powerful and positive part of life. I took in a book reading this week and Paul has been a gracious mentor and supporter to our project. Carbon & Water are the keys to life.
My friend Michael Flynn of NASA Ames, was on hand to share his experiences of working with water off-planet, which only serves to heighten the value of water on-planet. Dr. Stuart Cowan of Buckminster Fuller Institute had inspiring stories of the regeneration projects they are working on.
Perhaps the most memorable interaction was with one student, who just happened to be walking past the theatre, saw the sign, attended the screening event and panel, and who came up afterwards and said the experience had copper fastened her decision now on where to focus her studies. You never know the impacts these things have.
Today there are two workshops happening on campus, as well as a screening of a film that pairs beautifully with Our Blue World, Seaweed Stories directed by Jake Sumner and produced by Emy Kane and Lonely Whale.
I am looking forward to both workshops, and the opportunity, “turn on, tune in and drop out’, at least for the day. 😊
To receive the key take-aways from these workshops from BlueTech Research please just message ‘interested’.
Berkeley Water Day: Addressing Water Challenges of a Changing Climate
Ocean Stories Symposium
https://lnkd.in/exzb9-hF
