2009 Nobel ConferenceH2O Uncertain Resource
Nobel Conference XLV
October 6–7, 2009

Water is essential to all life, yet the supply of water is both vulnerable and finite.

Nobel Conference 45 at Gustavus Adolphus College will examine the current state of world water resources. Immediate threats to the health of rivers, lakes, estuaries, coastal waters, oceans, and all forms of aquatic environments will be confronted by leading scientists. Environmental ethics and potable water as a basic human right will be examined alongside human tragedy resulting from contaminated resources. Water is critical and precious. It is key to the well-being and survival of planet Earth.

Read "Periscope Up" to learn more...

About 60 percent of the weight of the human body is water

Rajendra K. Pachauri

Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Director General, The Energy and Resources Institute, New Delhi, India

Peter H. Gleick

Co-founder and President of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security in Oakland, California

William Graf

Department Chair and USC Educational Foundation Endowed Professor, Department of Geography, University of South Carolina

Nancy N. Rabalais

Executive Director and Professor, Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium in Chauvin, Louisiana

David L. Sedlak

Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California at Berkeley

Asit K. Biswas

Professor and President, Third World Centre for Water Management, Estado de Mexico, Mexico

Larry L. Rasmussen

Reinhold Niebuhr Professor Emeritus of Social Ethics, Union Theological Seminary

Shawn Otto (Schedule change)

Co-founder and CEO of Science Debate 2008

Lucinda B. Johnson

Natural Resources Research Institute University of Minnesota Duluth

Ed Swain

Environmental Information & Reporting Minnesota Pollution Control Agency

Derek Walcott (Canceled)

Distinguished Scholar in Residence, University of Alberta, Emeritus Professor, Department of English, Boston University