This year’s Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment at University of Illinois (iSEE) Congress was co-organized with the Center for Global Studies, in partnership with the Illinois Global Institute and the Joint Area Centers Symposium (JACS), four of which are funded through U.S. Department of Education Title VI grants. The series of Zoom events brought together a diverse group of researchers, educators, journalists and activists to address global water crises under the rubric of “The Future of Water”, and to introduce the Illinois campus and community to cutting-edge thinking from highly influential scholars on topics ranging from drought to the global politics of water to pollution, public health, and biodiversity.
Associate Professor of International Affairs at George Washington University Dr. Marcus King was the inaugural distinguished speaker in the series. In his April 6 talk, “The Weaponization of Water in the Middle East and Africa”, Dr. King addressed emerging approaches towards the use of water as a tool of conflict in the Middle East and Africa and suggested actions national governments and the international community can take to discourage water weaponization in modern conflicts.
The second event in the series was a round-table book discussion with a renowned author, researcher, environmental activist and iSEE Levenick Resident Scholar in Sustainability Catherine Coleman Flowers. Discussion participants were invited to read Flowers’s book, Waste: One Woman’s Fight against America’s Dirty Secret before the April 14th event. The author, who was joined by the Chief Programs Officer for the Denver-based nonprofit “Water for People” Mark Duey and Assistant Professor of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at UIUC McKenzie Johnson, offered personal and professional insights into her environmental activism and research.
Peter Gleick, a leading scientist on global water and climate issues and co-founder of Pacific Institute, was the third speaker in the series. His April 20th talk, “The Past, Present, and Future of Water,” focused on the role of fresh water in the human evolution and acknowledged the current water crises facing the planet, addressing the possibilities of transition from the difficult water crises of the 21st century to a more positive, sustainable vision for the future.
The series culminated with the Miller Comm Lecture, “From Polio to Covid: Environmental Virology at its Best” by Nowlin Chair in Water Research in Michigan University, Dr. Joan Rose. Dr. Rose’s talk explored the environmental virology attempts to understand the disease risk through the monitoring of viruses in fresh and marine waters, addressing ways in which the ability to monitor community health via surveillance of wastewater allows us to tackle global grand challenges including the implementation of world-wide vaccination programs.
All four events resulted in lively discussion and were enthusiastically received by the university community. For more information on the 2021 iSEE/JACS Congress and access to event recordings, please visit: https://sustainability.illinois.edu/outreach/isee-congress/isee-congress-spring-2021/.
