“For the first time in history, we see more people living in the cities than in rural areas… and they are forming larger and larger homeless populations within those cities.” That’s Brent Stirton, senior photographer for Getty Images, speaking to us this morning about human migrations and climate-related water redistribution in Peru. We hailed Brent on iSight video fresh off the plane from his assignment near Cusco where he was documenting impacts of climate change and water pollution on the diminishing groups of rural pastorialists who, for generations, have existed off of glacial-sourced water supplies. Brent tells us that many of these people moving to the cities are ill-suited to the urban life, driving serious long-term humanitarian concerns. As we see time and again, the front lines of the global freshwater crisis are inexorably intertwined with persistent cultural, economic and development shifts. We’ll be sharing Brent’s fresh reportage with our audience for “The Future of Water” this afternoon in Paepcke Auditorium at the Aspen Ideas Festival.

It’s not often you get to recite a poem for a former poet laureate. But this is the Aspen Ideas Festival, and anything can happen. At the speakers’ dinner tonight, our intern Aaron Jaffe and I found ourselves in fascinating conversation with poet Billy Collins about art’s role in shaping public opinion. Somehow the topic veered off the mighty track of global social movements toward humorous rhymers such as Ogden Nash, whom Collins admired. Here was my chance. For Collins and another participant, a senior U.S. intelligence official, I recited Nash’s “The Python.” I fib no fibs.

It could have been a key fob or even a set of gourmet mustard, the sweet tangy kind or perhaps spicy horseradish. I had just finished my speech to the Aspen Rotary following a luncheon on top of Aspen Mountain as deep teal thunderclouds wove around distant peaks. In the closing moments of the meeting, the club’s president-elect, Tom Bracewell, presented me with a certificate indicating that the club would make a donation to immunize 20 children against polio. In a millisecond, I found my imagination racing across the world to a dusty scene of young children standing in line with nurses holding their outstretched arms — they’d be getting prophylactic tattoos of sorts, protection against the hideous disease that’s often transmitted by dirty water and poor sanitation. Polio is almost history in much of the world due to Rotary’s worldwide vaccination programs. And soon, I hope, there will be 20 more children who need no longer live in fear of another waterborne virus.

With feeling.
Selfless. Sensual.
People like to have meaning.
These might sound like words from a new-age counselor, not scientists.
But these reflected the thoughts, frustrations and tribulations expressed by panelists during “Science and the Public Sphere: Getting Out the Truth — a Media Roundtable” at the Aspen Ideas Festival this morning. So how do you make science sensual and with feeling? NPR and ABC News journalist Robert Krulwich, who’s darned good at it ,said scientists have to do a better job connecting with the public, helping them find meaning in life.

Shanghai’s experiencing isolated showers. But will the forecast call for pain?

China scholar Li Cheng challenged the audience’s sense of hygenic urgency yesterday at the Aspen Ideas Festival when he described what might happen if everyone in Shanghai took a shower even once a week.

Atlantic Monthly journalist James Fallows summarizes:

On the environment (a huge theme in discussions of China here): when a rural dweller moves to the big city, his or her demands on the water supply increase thirty-fold. This reminds me of a statistic I heard last year in China: if the average Shanghainese resident took a shower even once a week, the city’s water supply would be used up.

In the separate morning session, A Year in Shanghai, Fallows described some of his behind-the-scenes perspectives gleaned from reporting his recent Atlantic article, “Why China’s Rise is Good for Us.”
Some of the key takeaways:
- Environmental factors will be most limiting to China’s continued growth;
- Most in China don’t seem to realize how bad the situation is. For example, the Yellow River doesn’t reach the ocean;
- Seven percent of the glacial ice mass on the Tibetan Plateau is melting each year. What will happen to every river in Asia with a decline in snowmelt?
- China is undergoing the largest mass human migration in history with more than 150 million people moving from rural to urban areas;
- The new definition of foreign aid is you save yourself.

With the gravity of describing a state secret, the counter clerk at Carl’s Pharmacy on Main Street in Aspen leaned over and whispered to the customer who was buying a bottle of water. “You know, water is the next oil,” she said. The irony wasn’t lost on the customer, a Chevron senior executive, who described his experience to me. (He’s here as a sponsor of the energy series at the Aspen Ideas Festival.) Considering the obvious and not-so-obvious connections between water and energy, the clerk was right on the money, not to mention that the bottle of Fiji water cost $2.45.

I’ve landed in Aspen just in time to hear Dr. Peter Gleick and his Big Idea at the opening ceremonies of the third annual Aspen Ideas Festival. “Maybe less is better,” Gleick declared to the audience gathered this afternoon in the Greenwald Pavilion. The world should be prepared for shifts in economies, scale and living “within fixed limits.” This will be “a different challenge for a lot of us” as growth-based economies are no longer supported by massive population increases and are no longer sustainable. It’s a big idea that we haven’t quite got our arms around yet — one that has massive implications, and one that’s antithetical to a seemingly infinite mode of environmental and economic Manifest Destiny. It comes down to defining and embracing what’s “sustainable” on our little blue dot.

Sallai Meridor, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., was waiting quietly to board his flight to Aspen. I introduced myself and he knowingly smiled when I said I’d be leading a session about water at the Aspen Ideas Festival. “I grew up thinking about water,” he replied, his voice revealing an intimacy with water tracing back to childhood. It’s hard to have a long conversation about Israel without talking about the chronic water shortages of the region, and about the interrelated opportunities for conflict or cooperation. Even though water is fundamental to survival and that most of us in the United States have plenty of clean water to drink, how can we make thinking about water — in the most global, unified sense — as basic as drinking it? We’ll be sharing at least some of the answers here on Friday.