ASPEN - Are we in an endgame struggle for survival or do we face the greatest opportunities in the history of civilization?

Both.

Granted, the messages remain grim, perhaps even darker than I had expected here under the blue skies at the Aspen Environment Forum. But of all the gatherings I’ve attended this year, I’ve never felt such a tipping point of camaraderie and conviction that unify business, environmentalists, investors and the public.

Perhaps it’s just the crisp air and the informal, collegial atmosphere nurtured by the Aspen Institute’s tradition of convening diverse groups to tackle complicated, timely issues. Maybe it’s the powerful imagery we’ve seen presented by National Geographic photographers such as Jim Richardson who gave us an appreciation for soil, Paul Nicklen who took us to the melting poles, Jim Balog who shared the majesty of ice and Nick Nichols who tortures himself to make the most captivating wildlife pictures in the most remote parts of the world.

But unlike some conferences, there isn’t an air of back-room negotiations or tag-teams of special interests working the coffee bar. Surely, some participants and speakers wear their convictions and contentions on their sleeves, and some are resolute skeptics or doomsayers. But as Amy Coen told me last night, “This just feels different.” She’s president of Population Action International and is here to speak on the human footprint and climate issues related to population. “We all need to learn to listen better and this is a good place to do that.”

Just before the forum, organizers asked me to be one of six speakers to help open the forum with a “big idea.” But how could I give these big thinkers an even bigger idea?

I turned to the biggest thinkers I could find.

First, I went to our 7-year-old daughter for inspiration. Just before I left home to come to Aspen, we listened to Jack and the Beanstalk together. It’s all about magic beans. But in water, climate and energy we know there are no magic beans, no matter how hard we try to find them. Solving these issues requires commitment, innovation and mass collaboration.

Second, I found Pulitzer-winning biologist E.O. Wilson at breakfast Thursday morning and he enthusiastically described his latest book, a venture into fact-inspired fiction that’s a present day version of Orwell’s Animal Farm. “Anthill,” which he just completed and sent to his agent, is a story about an ant colony’s struggle for survival in the expansive world of a picnic area. Story is the realm in which we can explore new worlds and shape powerful drama, he said.

“We’ve done the science,” Professor Wilson added. “The human mind is based on scenarios, so now it’s time to tell the stories.”

Throughout the evolution of human culture - and Professor Wilson knows a lot about evolution - we’ve shared our stories, our histories. So that’s the other part of my Big Idea: We need to tell better stories.

Better stories, no magic beans. Simple, yes? As old as history and fairy tales.

The “Big Idea.”

The forum wraps up today with a panoply of sessions, ranging from “Living with Coal,” which is sure to generate vigorous discussion, to “Journalism and Coverage of the Environment.”

The forum certainly has sparked discussion and debate that will carry on long after we go back to our offices, whether in the headquarters of a major corporation wrestling with the “now what” of sustainability or a research camp upon the Greenland ice. Unfortunately, no one will leave the forum with a magic bean to fix the world’s woes. But we leave inspired by our colleagues and their passions to creating a better world. We all agree that at every tick of the clock there are the expansive, personal stories of drama, tragedy, hope and inspiration unfolding in our own backyards and around the world.

How we tell those stories - and how we respond - will define whether we’re writing our prologue or final chapter.

I’ll post a wrap up of our water session shortly - meanwhile, watch video selections from the forum here

Related links

Water: Aspen Environment Forum - Circle of Blue
PlumTV - interview
PlumTV - Aspen Environment Forum conversation
Grist - Big Ideas at the Aspen Environment Forum

On March 22 we observed another World Water Day, and this week we marked the fifth anniversary of the military conflict in Iraq. Water and war are bound together by more than the coincidence of time — they are related by blood. Drought and Deluge are the weary parents of Desperation, Destruction and Despair.

Five years ago Mikhail Gorbachev, the former leader of the Soviet Union, put his heart forward on the podium as he addressed the media at the World Water Forum in Kyoto, Japan. Impassioned, he pleaded for the world to awaken from apathetic stupor and respond to one of the world’s greatest unfolding tragedies. The simple lack of safe drinking water, he said, condemned thousands of children to die each day — a needless, inexcusable tragedy. The drama of this appeal, coming from a man whose iron nation had rusted from within, spoke to the classic theme of the rise and fall of man. Only this man was determined to get up again and carry future generations on his shoulders.

I had a chance to interview Mr. Gorbachev at the forum, and I felt optimistic that his message was at last going to get some attention. The press corps seemed tuned in to a good story. But as he talked to me, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, that the video monitors in the halls were being tuned away from forum coverage and into CNN. The Iraq war had begun, and the flames of conflict drew all eyes away from the ticking time bomb of water. Mr. Gorbachev was whisked away to do commentary on the war, his attempt to save the world’s resources evaporating behind him.

I cannot know what was on his mind just then. I wonder, if like me, he suffered a deep pang of irony. We drop our gaze from water when violence burns us. And yet, if we are to conquer war, we must court water.

Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on the Millennium Development Goals, was a guest on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show this past Thursday. She asked him about water, which, she said, many have called the gold of the 21st century.

“If you look at where the violence in the world is right now” Professor Sachs said, “in the worst cases — places like Darfur, Sudan, like Somalia, like the Middle East, like Pakistan, Afganistan — these are all water-stressed regions. We call them Islamic fundamentalist regions. We should call them water-stressed regions. We should understand that these are places that are hungry, where livelihoods have been put in grave danger, where old, traditional ways of living such as pastoralist communities are under life and death threat. And we then blame religion or we blame militarism or we blame terrorism without understanding those are symptoms of a much deeper challenge, and water is at the center of it…And we’re already, in my opinion, seeing the resulting violence that can come from it. We send the army in response — we solve nothing. We spend tens or hundreds of billions of dollars. We need to send engineers, not the army. And it’s until we understand that the fundamental problems need to be addressed — not the symptoms — we’re going to continue to get it wrong, waste lives, waste our money and not find solutions.”

I think the engineers should have company. As Peter Gleick, founder of the Pacific Institute and a central advisor to our own journalism project, Circle of Blue, asserts, we have the technology. What we’re missing is the political will.

Political will comes from engaged citizens, and engaged citizens require information, motivation and inspiration. That’s where journalists come in, and we have real heroes when it comes to covering the world’s conflicts. The Iraq war, for example, has become the most dangerous war for reporters in history, according to Andrew Marshall, former Iraq Bureau Chief at Reuters.

“Covering the news in hostile places is a worthwhile thing,” Marshall says. “It can bring about change, it can inform the world. And it is worth us risking our lives.”

Marshall’s commentary introduces the new multimedia presentation, “Bearing Witness,” produced by Reuters and MediaStorm, the Emmy-winning online production company in New York. In “Bearing Witness,” we see, hear and feel the intensity of the conflict and horror of war. A father clutching his young, dead son, soldiers leaping from a burning military vehicle, mothers in gut-wrenching despair for their lost families.

Words alone can’t put the war and its reverberations into perspective. But MediaStorm and Reuters have pulled together, in one package, one of the most comprehensive, iconic multimedia and photojournalism presentations about the Iraq war. Its timeline is richly illustrated with captivating imagery that creates a visceral historical context. This is the kind of coverage that has brought scrutiny to the premise and practices of modern war.

This is the kind of coverage we need to focus on water and our other great challenges. And not just on the drama of tragedy, but also on the promise of opportunity. We have to bear witness and give water the global stage that eluded Mr. Gorbachev at that ill-fated forum. We have to connect water issues to our world affairs and, more crucially, our daily existence. If I might take a turn from Mr. Marshall, I am convinced that covering water extensively and deeply is a also worthwhile thing. It can bring about change. And it is worth us investing our lives.

I believe it can be done, starting with the courage and talent of journalists, and extending into the arts, sciences, education, culture and all the ways we as a society speak amongst ourselves. We can look farther and deeper into the roots of violence and show how very often water lies there. We can make the subtleties and complexities of a fundamental subject compelling, personal and comprehensible. We have the technology. We as communicators must summon the will.

The world water crisis is tapping on the world’s front door. Drought and Deluge’s children are already at home in so many places. Let us remember Mr. Gorbachev’s plea, and turn our conflicts into collaborations. And let us turn our attention to the young citizens of the world. Their future is ours to write.

See Related:
Water and Conflict Chronology

Last week at Circle of Blue we launched WaterNews, a daily update from the front lines of the world’s water crisis. This coverage is expanding to include additional comprehensive journalistic and scientific reports of this complicated, yet crucial story that’s touching everyone.