The Mine

Australia may just be the canary in the coal mine of the industrialized countries. As it reaches a point where its global ecosystem cannot absorb the effects of ever intensified production, a 2002 water resource audit showed that surface and groundwater sources where over allocated by 26% and 31% respectively (Strang, 2009).

As I'm reading the introductions of two of the books on water crisis I borrowed from the library, I note words I think I should address somewhere, somehow, throughout this research...

health
recreation
rainfall
holistic
temperature
rainfall
national security
pesticides
population growth
culture
illegal
hydrology
responsibility
boundaries
petroleum
evaporation
oil
history
looming
crop
crisis
habitat
rivers
ICIDI
WCED
UN
IMF
IIWW
PCBs
World Bank
chlorine
urban expansion
human rights
climate
salination
ideologies
parasites
common good
aquatic organisms
riparian zones
indigenous/aboriginal
carcinogenic
diversity
lifestyle
civilization
irrigation
neolithic
green revolution
heritage
privatization
conflict
development
viruses
extinction
pathogenic
bacteria
stewardship
democracy
context
species
ethnographic
hydroelectricity
transport
energy
dams

...

Yes! And there is more! Reading this list, (which was randomly written down) I naturally make connections, and perhaps you do too. The study of water in agriculture can easily be too broad a subject, yet the synthesis of a comprehensive world view is also likely to get me closer to understanding the various push&pull components that drive the world system that governs us... by us.

We are interwoven with water, physically, politically, emotionally, mentally... how not to address all the components?

"The deepening water crisis is a result of having treated water as an externality. It was an externality of the Green Revolution, which led to a tenfold increase in water use for the same crop production, thus decreasing water use efficiency by a factor of ten." Dr. Vandana Shiva 2007 (Ray, 2008)

The Mine
Planet Earth, the Blue Planet, is home to 3 to 100 million species (13 million is the most accepted number) of which 34, 000 plants and 5, 200 animal species are now facing extinction.
http://www.cbd.int/2010/biodiversity/?tab=0
That is 5, 201 including Homo sapiens, says James Lovelock (http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2008/mar/01/scienceofclimatechange.climatechange) or the Voluntary Human Extinction Mouvement (http://www.vhemt.org/aboutvhemt.htm#vhemt).

The Art
I also have some words for thought for today:

Perspective entails blind spots (inspired from Chris Aiken, dancer and teacher)
Stage Vulnerability in Affirmation (inspired from Marc Boivin, dancer and teacher)
Collective Coherence (either Chris, Marc or Andrew L. Harwood)

I'm inspired to work with the image of the Container and the Liquid Content as imagery while creating movement. Chris Aiken spoke a bit about it and let us try it out during the AH HA workshop. I find beautiful the image of fluids being the connecting substance... where the convection happens. Also, having the choice of moving the liquid content of a part of the body prior to its container, say the marrow before the bone. It makes the dance quite fascinating to do... or try to :)

References:
Ray, B. 2008. Water; The looming crisis in India. Lanham : Lexington Books. 231 p
Strang, V. 2009. Gardening the World; Agency, Identity, and the ownership of Water. New York : Berghahn Books. 317 p.