Lawra Lathan has the world and water on her mind.
The St. Albert resident says she's looking to get into international development, and knows water will be a central element of it. We need water to boil food and clean our clothes, yet we're polluting more of it every day.
"There's not going to be a lot of clean water left in the world if we keep using it the way we're using it," she says.
Lathan, 20, is one of around 500 young people headed to the University of Alberta next week for the Ignite Change Now Global Youth Assembly conference. They'll be hearing from some of the world's top experts — and each other — about the world's water situation and how they can change it.
Big issues
This conference, held every two years, aims to help youth explore global issues and motivate them to act, says Renée Vaugeois, executive director of the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights, which organizes the event.
"It's about creating a movement of youth who are thinking differently, thinking critically," Vaugeois said.
This year's theme is "Our world, our water," and will cover everything from the Alberta oilsands to African development.
"Water is a potential source for the next global conflict," Vaugeois says.
The conference happens to open on July 27 — a day before the one-year anniversary of the United Nation's declaration of clean water as a human right.
"We really want youth to explore being involved in politics," Vaugeois says, as you can't ignite global change without it. To inspire them, they've brought in Liberal member of Parliament Justin Trudeau to talk about being young and in office.
Giving a light-years-long view on water is Jaymie Matthews, a British Columbia-based astrophysicist who specializes in exoplanets.
It's been just 15 years since scientists discovered the first known planet outside our solar system, Matthews says. Now, we know of about 560, and are on the verge of finding one that has liquid water.
"We only know of one example of life in the universe," he says, and that's water-rich Earth. "If you're going to have life as we understand it, liquid water is an essential solvent."
But that planet won't be a backup home for us anytime soon, he adds.
"Our ability to screw up this place is far more advanced than our ability to travel anywhere else," he says, adding that planets like Venus show us how problems like climate change could easily make our world uninhabitable. By studying other planets, we can better learn to take care of this one.
Danika Littlechild, a lawyer from the Ermineskin Cree Nation near Hobbema, will talk about her work on water governance and aboriginals.
"Many First Nations do not receive treated water," she notes, relying instead on wells and trucks. Others lack sewage systems, and dump sewage dangerously close to wells. "They simply do not have the resources or the capacity to address these issues on their own."
The provincial government is pushing water markets as a way to improve water services, she says, but those markets could make water unaffordable to many indigenous peoples.
"There needs to be a fundamental shift in the way we think about water," she says — a shift that aboriginal beliefs can help us make. "Understanding the true sacredness of water in terms of our environment … is something young people can really engage in."
Lathan says she's looking forward to learning more about the world's water situation.
"We are the future of this planet," she says. "We have to learn everything we can."
The conference runs from July 27 to 30. For details, visit www.youthassembly.ca.
