World Class Conference Speaker

Bob Sandford has addressed hundreds of Conferences and gatherings all over North America on a great variety of subjects including the nature, history and culture of the Canadian West.

Currently, he is speaking extensively on Water and Water-related themes to audiences who are concerned about the future of water in the West.

Below is a list of available programming that can be customized to educate and entertain your particular audience.

 

Presentations On Water & Water-Related Themes

by

Bob Sandford

Chair,

United Nations
Water for Life Decade
Canadian Partnership Initiative

For Booking Information and Fee Structure Contact

Presentations On Water Stewardship

Water & Our Way of Life
Canadian Identity As Established By Water

Based on his book of the same title, Bob Sandford explores how water has played a formative role in establishing our identity as Canadians and how it defines us still in the world’s imagination. Rich in story and imagery, this presentation reminds us of just how much water in all its remarkable forms contributes to our prosperity and to our unique way of life in Canada. It reminds us also, that abundance of water is not something we should take for granted. In conclusion the presentation offers ideas on how we might value water differently to ensure our prosperity in the future.

Water, Weather & The West
Water Quality and Availability In Western Canada
In an Era of Growing Scarcity

Growing populations, increasing industrial use and heavy agricultural demand are beginning to tax water supplies in many regions of the Canadian West. As many southern rivers are already fully allocated, future economic and social development will depend upon what we know about our surface and ground water resources and how effectively we manage them – especially in the face of climate change. The take-away message from this presentation is that Canadians need to be mindful that, though our society is fueled by petroleum and lubricated by oil, it runs on water. In conclusion it offers a realistic picture of the issues related to water that Canada will face in the future.

Moving Together But World’s Apart
Lessons for Canada and The West
From the Front Lines Of the Global Water Crisis

Bob Sandford is the Canadian representative on the Rosenberg International Forum on Water Policy. This renowned forum meets every second year to compare the results of various approaches to managing water crises. This presentation places Canadian attitudes and habits with respect to the management and use of fresh water into a comparative context. Based on international example, it encourages Canadians to dispel the myth of limitless water abundance and work toward establishing a new water ethic in Canada consistent with global realities.

Ever The Twain Shall Meet
Using Water To Build Bridges Between Science
& Public Policy In A Rapidly Change West

Scientists and politicians think differently. One lives in a fact-based world; the other in a world in which facts matter far less than consensus. Scientists gain academic and professional status by advancing shared knowledge. Politicians gain status and power by acting on what they think is the public mood at any given moment. This presentation argues that science is not likely to change, nor is politics. We need to build a better bridge between them if we desire to be successful in creating the West we want. In conclusion, this presentation offers insight into how this bridge can be built.

Water For Tomorrow
Alberta’s Ground-breaking Program
For A New Era of Water and Land-use Stewardship

The Government of Alberta’s Water for Life Strategy has been identified as a potential landmark in water management not just in Canada but in the world. This presentation outlines the structure and goals of this important strategy and points to the crucial role the strategy must play as Alberta begins to address growing water scarcity, not just in the semi-arid south but throughout the province. In conclusion, this presentation argues that this ground-breaking strategy needs to be fully supported at all levels of government and by citizens if Alberta is to avert serious water quality and availability problems in the future.

Dinosaurs Don’t Dance
Living With Transboundary Treaties
In An Age of Global Change

The crafting of durable, adaptable and lasting transboundary water treaties is one of the most difficult of all of the diplomatic arts. Examples abound of water treaties that do not respond to the circumstances that have emerged since they were signed. This presentation employs examples from all over the world to discuss the terms and conditions that appear to be necessary to ensure that compacts and treaties between different jurisdictions and nations relating to shared water resources remain useful and vital over time. In conclusion, it puts into relief the importance of these agreements to successful adaptation to new conditions created by global warming and climate change.

Presentations On Water-Related Climate Change Issues

Inheriting The Wind
What We Know & Don’t Know
About Climate Change Impacts On Water

Because they live to explore the unknown, scientists tend to focus on what they don’t know rather than what they do know, especially when it comes to climate change. Decision-makers in government and business, however, need to base their actions on a sound foundation of knowledge and risk assessment. This presentation outlines the main thrusts of current knowledge about climate change and global warming and then details gaps in our knowledge, particularly as it relates to potential impacts on water resources in the Canadian West. In conclusion, this presentation urges scientists and policy makers alike to work harder to express their interests clearly so that each can understand the other’s needs. 

When Worlds Disassemble
Managing Crucial Water Resources
In The Midst of Dramatic Ecosystem Change

The foundation of the entire global protected places program, of which our mountain national and provincial parks are an important part, is that these representative areas will remain biogeographically stable. But global climate change impacts are already invalidating this assumption. The maintenance of global biodiversity will require us to aim to protect what will effectively become “a moving target of ecological representativeness”. Biodiversity managers will have to figure out how to become “creation ecologists” as they learn to adapt to change.  This presentation puts into relief what this means to communities and the economy the mountain West as we know it today and how our attitudes and current practices will shape the future.

Some Like It Hot
The Economic, Social and Political Costs
Of Denying Global Warming

The widespread pretence that current disagreements over climate change policy have arisen from disagreements about the state of scientific knowledge has allowed policy makers at both federal and provincial levels in Canada to avoid dealing with their real responsibility, which is to engage in questions of political values in view of the present state of scientific knowledge in order to determine what, as a society, we should be doing about climate-related threats and opportunities. This presentation discusses the economic and social impacts of improperly framing the climate change debate and the political risks and consequences that attend denial and delay. In conclusion this presentation offers a list of tools we can give politicians to help them lead our society toward both mitigation and adaptation success.

Presentations On The Nature, History & Culture
Of the Rocky Mountain West

More Than The Sum of Its Parks
Ecology & Wonder In The UNESCO
Canadian Rockies World Heritage Site

Based on a major new book by the same name, Bob Sandford aims in this summary presentation to revolutionize the way Canadians and their guests think about what has achieved by way of the preservation of vast regions of the Rocky Mountains. The major premise of this new history is that over the last century and a quarter Canadians have somehow managed to collectively recognize what they had in the mountain West and to act upon that recognition. The creation of our Rocky Mountain national and provincial park system and its ultimate designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site may in the end be Western Canada’s greatest cultural achievement – one that shapes the country and its people for generations to come.

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