"Climate-Proof Water Resilience"

Replenish the Earth:

Defuse your risk exposure to painful water scarcity.
Trapped between rising thirst and evaporating supplies, freshwater stress threatens our health, political stability, economic growth, and natural communities. As forced unilateral regulations and rations fail, can voluntary measures succeed?
Yes. Turns out, every diverse society across time thrived under local self-governance as users negotiate to earn, own, and trade the water they save. Their resilience strategies go by different names – Khwe !xaro, Arabian aflaj, Balinese subak, Moroccan khettara, Chinese harez, or Persian qanat – but all share the same patterns and contours.
After breaking down in Africa’s largest desert, Jamie discovered how these ancient mechanisms still work and can now be adapted, enhanced by tools that relieve our urban, industrial, and agricultural thirst. In talks, workshops, courses and writing he has distilled a timeless essence into pragmatic measures where you can help ensure more than enough water, for all, forever.

TAKEAWAYS:
* Know the source of water scarcity: a centralized supply overwhelmed by infinite demand
* Grasp the root of the problem: a priceless resource remains worthless in exchange
* Discover the exceptions that prove the rule: timeless resilience systems in depth and breadth
* Learn the seven steps to designing modern voluntary water governance platforms
* Explore how to adapt, a choice to offset your local water use and achieve water neutrality

POTENTIAL BREAKOUT/WORKSHOP 1:
SEE AN AQUIFER HALF FULL: LEARN HOW TO DESIGN RESILIENT GROUNDWATER GOVERNANCE FROM THE BOTTOM UP. A 7-STEP COURSE TO REVERSE DEPLETION OF THE INVISIBLE, PRICELESS RESOURCE YOU DEPEND ON

POTENTIAL BREAKOUT/WORKSHOP 2:
NEGATE YOUR IMPACT: BECAUSE THIS LIQUID RESOURCE IS LOCAL, CONFINED, TANGIBLE, ACCOUNTABLE, MEASURED, AND PAID FOR, TRADE IN WATER USE CREDITS CAN THRIVE WHERE CARBON CREDITS DON’T. LEARN HOW YOUR COMPANY OR CAMPUS CAN OFFSET YOUR FOOTPRINT AND ACHIEVE WATER NEUTRALITY – OR BETTER.

Jamie Workman is a provocative and engaging speaker who has presented hundreds of keynotes and workshops that help helped urban, corporate and academic audiences radically alter how we approach the conservation of freshwater, ocean fisheries, and wildland fire – from the bottom up.

As founder of the public benefits corporation, AquaShares Inc., Jamie designed and developed the world’s first online water credit trading platforms, building resilience from California to Morocco to Mexico.

Jamie was founding editor of the International Water Association’s magazine The Source, senior advisor to the World Commission on Dams under Nelson Mandela, and White House-appointed speechwriter to U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt.

Beyond hundreds of articles and essays, Jamie is author of the award-winning Heart of Dryness: How the last Bushmen can help us endure the coming age of permanent drought, and Water: Diminishing Resources; he's co-author of the forthcoming Replenish the Earth: Groundwater governance from the bottom up, and Sea Change: Unlikely allies and a success story of oceanic proportions.

Jamie rowed crew and studied at Yale & Oxford; he developed and taught new courses on natural resource conservation at Wesleyan and Whitman colleges. But his real education came from blowing up dams, releasing wolves, fighting wildland fires, guiding safaris, smuggling water to dissidents, breaking down in Africa's Kalahari Desert, and becoming a husband and dad (not ranked in that order).

I do like to use slides, not with words/numbers/bullets, but rather to show people and places and to dramatize the narrative arc. A PowerPoint projector and screen with hand held remote is immensely helpful.