Today I was lucky enough to attend a talk by Maude Barlow on Solving the World Water Crises. Maude Barlow has been all around the world from UN conferences to the slums in search of solutions for these crises. What the event was about was to raise the awareness about water and to show people it’s just as big of a problem as global warming/climate change. Along with how Humans have a right to water, and how the world has denied millions that right. It so amazing to see her speak because of how much she has down to raise awareness and in taking action to help fix this massive crisis. She highlighted two twin crises that our world faces today, one Ecological, the other Human. Industries today have and continue to use water as a source of human development and disregards how much they use, pollute, and completed destroy. Some of the information she presented was jaw-dropping, to the point where it makes you sit and ponder what is going to happen to our world once we pass. What I really learned today, that I had no idea about, was the massive source of groundwater that many countries have, but are exploiting and polluting. Maude referred to them as the underground “seas”, but what was so interesting was how little governments care about how much industries are polluting these water sources. Along with that, we are taking so much more from these “seas” then earth can replenish. This is such a scary and to be honest an aggravating problem because people and along with governments push this problem to the side as if it’s going to fix itself when really it’ll get to a point of no return that causes conflict/wars. I thought this connected very well with what we have been talking about in class and relating to the triple bottom line of sustainability. We talked about the triple bottom line of sustainability during our third lecture and after learning how it all works this is a perfect example of how society isn’t even thinking about the triple bottom line. In order for our society to be sustainable, we need to be able to maintain change in a balanced environment. Where the social, economic, and environment are all in harmony which increases current/future potential. The problems Maude was discussing show how industries are doing exactly the opposite. Instead of finding a more sustainable way and respecting the environment, industries are destroying them and taking so much from them that ecosystems are just fully failing. I’m very happy I attended her talk because it really broadened my knowledge of our water crises. More importantly, it inspired me to want to do more than just sit and read about. Usually, I’m just reading an article about these problems and it makes me upset, but nothing more comes from it, but after seeing Maude speak I want to take action even if it’s small contributions to start.