For 45 years, Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, has hosted international experts for the annual Nobel Conference. This year’s conference, H2O: Uncertain Resource, is scheduled for October 6-7 and will focus on global issues pertaining to water. “This year’s conference should attract a broad audience because water is essential to all life and our supply of water is both finite and vulnerable,” Conference Chair Mark Bjelland said. “Water resources are bound to key socio-ecological issues, including global population growth, migrations to arid regions, increased use of irrigation, industrialization, climate change and international resource conflicts. This panel of world-renowned speakers will provide the Nobel Conference audience with an overview of water resources issues. They will help us understand the connections between these issues and everyday life in our country and around the world.”

Among those scheduled to participate is St. Lucian poet Derek Walcott, who is currently a distinguished visiting professor in literature and drama at the University of Alberta, Canada and is also the 1992 Nobel Laureate in Literature. He will be speaking on Tuesday, October 6, at 8:15. Other participants include Rajendra K. Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in Geneva, Switzerland; Nancy N. Rabalais, executive director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium; David Sedlak from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley; Peter H. Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute in Oakland, CA; Larry Rasmussen, emeritus professor of social ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York City; and Asit Biswas, president of the Third World Centre for Water Management in Atizapán, Mexico.

Originally reported at http://weekly.blog.gustavus.edu/2009/09/25/tickets-run-dry-for-nobel-conference-2009-h2o/

The photo can be found in its original context at http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23689480-nobel-winner-quits-oxford-poetry-race-over-sex-claims.do;jsessionid=629561293FABA2A6128EFAB73F9888D7