Cloudy with a Chance of Solutions | Radcliffe Institute

The Radcliffe Institute's annual science symposium in 2012 focused on the important and challenging topic of water. Water is a theme that encompasses issues as varied as environmental contamination, public health, agricultural shortages, and geopolitical disputes. "Cloudy with a Chance of Solutions: The Future of Water" focused on the ecological and human health hazards of environmental contaminants, the threats to drinking water of fracking, the promise of new technologies for water treatment, the need for national water policy, and the role of urban and other areas in conservation. The majority of the talks focused on the "hard science" of water-related issues; others offered the perspectives of experts from the policy, business, or urban-planning worlds to put the scientific discussions in a broader context and to link them thematically.