Good morning everyone and welcome to this very important panel on an issue important for the sustainable development goals important for climate change, but not often discussed I'm welcoming this morning five very impressive experts on the topic of water We have Paul Dwight Jensen Jensen excuse me Elizabeth Watuti Who's the CEO I should introduce who they are the group president of Gunfa's and CEO a founder of the green generation initiative Elizabeth Watuti prime minister Mark Ruther senior minister Tharman of Singapore and James Quincy the chairman and CEO of the Coca-Cola company So what I find fascinating about this topic is I when I think about water I Remember that iconic photograph from 1972 of the blue marble that we look down at the world And it is 71 percent water and yet only one percent of that is fresh water And while today we don't have an actual shortage It's not in the right places for the right people and and and there are four billion people who for at least a month Of the year don't have access to clean water And yet as we think about climate transition it is critical not just for food for agriculture For drinking but also for the minerals that we need to to support climate change And so this morning we're going to use this opportunity to explore the many dimensions of how water is used and Take this opportunity to help our friend prime minister Hutter as he prepares for the UN conference on water Which is happening for the first time in 44 years Which he is co-hosting as we think about some of the recommendations and opportunities that we have to to preserve and conserve and Distribute water going forward So I wanted to start with you Senior Minister Tharman because you have been working on an initiative to really look at the full economics of water and I was hoping you could share with us this morning some of the Frameworks that you've developed to think about this issue in a broader context Well, I think current first you've summarized the problem very well It's remarkable Most of us living in parts of the world where you've gotten used to Getting a bit of water when we need it just don't realize that such a large part of humanity Doesn't have access to safe drinking water A half of humanity doesn't have access to safe sanitation. I think the first thing we have to recognize is That water is going to be the first casualty already is the first casualty of the climate crisis It's intrinsic and it's intertwined with the climate crisis as a casualty But also as part of the solution Because what's happening now is that? Climate water food and energy are becoming more and more insecure at the same time and They're feeding into each other If we keep over extracting water if we keep polluting water It affects the wetlands. It affects the natural carbon sinks It makes it even more difficult to address the climate crisis. So we're in a vicious cycle now We're in a vicious cycle that it means we have to address each of these problems of the global commons together The Dutch government has initiated a major new review global review an independent review Of this water crisis and the solutions required We're launching it later today my coach as an eye But fundamentally it now requires us to realize that it's not just what happens in the Sahel or Some part of the world which is already in severe water stress But it's a hydrological cycle that affects everyone in the world. That's why it's part of the global commons Not just an issue crying out for attention because a large part of humanity is affected But because it's a global issue What happens in one part of the world ends up in another part of the world? That's intrinsic to the climate crisis and water is intertwined with the climate crisis Thank you James as As the chairman of Coca-Cola you have often discussed that water just as Senior Minister Tharman did is integral to the climate crisis and can't be separated and you've launched a number of initiatives That that look at water as part of that system Can you tell us a little bit more about what you've been you've been doing sure? Well, I think self-evidently when you're in the beverage business Water is not just an overall issue for the society. It's intrinsic to the business. We're in You know and so when we look at ESG in our role and and very simply we always think you know You can't have a successful business if you don't have a successful society And so we have to think about our impacts on society whether that's water or waste with plastics the carbon footprint there Or our impact on generating jobs and several other things and so we very early on focused on water because it's self-evident in our products We set out a goal to return all the water. We use In making up averages to the to the environment directly or through replenishment by 2020 Actually, we got there in 2015 So we've been returning all the water we use since 2015. We're now well over a hundred percent and we continue to do so But having reached that goal. We actually realized there is no global average returning it all globally Doesn't necessarily solve everyone's problems Because actually in the end water is a local issue as well as a global hydrological issue So we've laid out our 2030 water security strategy to really focus in On those areas in the world where we have operations where the water stress is particularly Acute and really get into can we help out in those areas and they of course As the senior minister pointed out tend to be in the more vulnerable parts of the world more vulnerable societies less income Less infrastructure, so we're focused there and of course once you start drilling down You very quickly get to the to the point which actually 70% of water extraction is used for small holding agriculture or agriculture in general and actually Agriculture accounts for a big piece of climate change. So the two things come together At the local farm level in these water stressed areas So we've we've done a lot of work and we have a lot of focus on how can we help? Smart agriculture take place. How can we help them extract far less water? Generate actually as much or better Quantities of food and we've done we're doing for example a big project in Bangladesh 33 million people are going to be impacted working with a whole series of other businesses in Joe So we're going from a kind of a global water neutral to how can we really focus in on the high stress scarcity areas? And really focusing on on on agriculture where the extraction is taking place and try and bring that together and solve Water and climate with the complementary programs So Paul James is talking about the integration of those two your company is Right at the heart of the water challenge and trying to support that. Why do you think? So few companies are now talking about it to date talking about water and water scarcity Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. And you know, I think it's fantastic that we have Great attention now here at at Weff and we can sit here as strong water champions But but I think in in general, I think we we do not care enough about this precious precious resource, you know, it's As the senior minister also said and we all know, you know, there's there's just a limited amount of water accessible for for life and for the society and But it is a vital part basically of any process any product that we are that we are producing water is there and it and it's needed And maybe just an example and and there's many of them And not many people are thinking about how much water does it take to produce one liter of milk for instance, right? I mean you may think about how much does does does the cow add into emissions or you know, what did it take to produce the cotton? But one liter of milk takes 600 liter or more 600 liters of water to produce. It's simply simply amazing. So, you know, solving the Solving the climate challenge. It's not just about the emissions. It's also about solving solving water And it actually it's not either or it goes hand in hand. And I think that's super important to realize as also highlighted by by by James But I think actually we forget to add it into our strategies. We forget to add it into the total into end of our supply chain in in in our thinking In that and that I think we need to do something about and maybe just another maybe a little bit scary scary example But but it goes hand in hand, you know around electrical vehicles and batteries, you know, it takes two million liters of water to produce one kilo of lithium Right. It is absolutely insane.  It's just water scarce. So, so that is that is super super damaging. So, you know, I think the The Paris Agreement and the 1.5 degree goal or target that we that we all set together. I think it's something that we can now all relate to And I think it means it means a lot to all of us. It has made us all aware of what it is and we actually building scale based on that And honestly, we have a common language on climate, but we don't have that on water. And that's that's in my view that is exactly what we need to have in order to progress towards a common goal Wonderful. Thank you. So, Elizabeth, you are here in two purposes really one as the founder of the green generation initiative and the other as the next generation. We used to describe there's an American expression which is so inappropriate. We used to say at the coal face which means you're right at the edge of the problem. It feels like for climate change and water. That's not really the analogy we want to use, but you are inheriting the problems that we have created and would love to hear from you your advice to us what you're what you're seeing first of all in the impact of water and your advice to us on how to to start to think more specifically about those impacts. Thank you. When I hear about the phrase a freshwater future. It's the people whose daily lives are still so far away from this phrase that I think about every day. And I want to share with you very two reasons and personal experiences that come in mind every other time so that we can have these experiences and these people in our hearts and minds even as we talk about this freshwater future because there's a big link between freshwater nature climate and the food crisis and the first experience is the ongoing drought that is devastating countries across the Horn of Africa. And right now almost three million people in my country Kenya and over 20 million people in neighboring countries across the Horn of Africa are facing extreme hunger that has been filled by the prolonged drought that's going on. And this has caused consecutive rainy seasons to fail and still brings us to the question of water as well. And also the war in Ukraine has also continued to exacerbate this really already terrifying high levels of food insecurity. And just over a week ago I visited one community that Swajia County in north eastern part of Kenya. And this is a community whose 80% of livelihoods come from their livestock. But again what I witnessed there was really deeply shocking and a deeply shocking example of how this crisis is impacting the frontline communities and also how this interconnected crisis of the food nature and climate crisis is impacting the people across the African continent.  They don't have water to drink let alone the fresh water. There's no water access to them at all. And these are people that also are hungry and desperate and they're losing hope for this future that we are talking about right now today. So the daily reality of the life of these people that I met in Swajia County is very far away from what the idea of the sustainable development goal number six calls for. That's a clean water and sanitation for all. Their life is completely away from this future that we are talking about. And the second one is a story that I want to share about when I stumbled upon what I thought was a dump site during a program that we had with young people in Kenya. And to my surprise we first thought we were standing on a dump site. But the solid ground we first thought was the fact that these communities around this place depend on this space. And to our surprise actually these were supposed to be a stream. But again it was flowing with plastic waste produced from fossil fuels. And we thought to ourselves what would these communities be using each and every day as water because this is the only source of water as a stream. But again there's no water for them at the end of the day. So my thought is of course the pledges from the businesses and governments to offset the loss of freshwater and natural ecosystems are to be welcomed. But again we have been here before with pledges you know they're made but they're not met and delivery and accountability are crucial as well. And this is something that young people and civil society are fighting for in the climate space with respect to the net zero pledges. It's about committing and doing it because the climate crisis impacts are not waiting to hit in the future. They're affecting every day lives from different people across the continent and across the world as well. So if the goal is to engage young people and harness energy towards an international moment for freshwater in 2023. I think the best thing that governments and companies can do is to stop talking about nature and climate change in silos and actually recognize the interconnections and start telling the news stories about what is important and also about what is possible. And right now the life sustaining relationship that we have between nature and humanity is not being recognized. It's not being valued and neither it's not being protected. And what we are seeing is a way in which humanity is perpetuating an ecosystem that is actually destroying nature and nature is being destroyed faster than it can even regenerate itself. So we have to stop actually destroying our own life support system if we are to have that kind of future that we are talking about. And it has to start right now because we cannot wait for the next years to turn things around. We need to do it where we still have time. Thank you. Well that is quite a well aimed indictment that all of us pledges made and not met. So we have the opportunity now with this UN conference on water to do better. So Prime Minister what are your goals for this upcoming conference and how can all of these different stakeholders support those goals. Basically it is about just articulating them. The two are first of all not again in conference which is not leading to any action. So it has to be action oriented. It's the first conference in 44 45 years on taking place on water. Why was Tajikistan Tajikistan is a glacier country. The Netherlands is laying half of the country below sea level. When you land at Schiphol airport it is four meters below sea level. So we like to say God created the earth the Dutch created the Netherlands with all the dice etc for all the centuries. So it's from let's say the mountains to the sea. We could together Tajikistan. And we both want this conference to be action oriented as possible and it has to be cross-sectoral. I'm so happy with the fact that you are here on this panel. You bring the perspective from your country and what it means for people in real life in day to day life if we cannot solve this problem. And if you again at the conference where we have all this posturing and nice talks and then saying well we should do this and then five years later nothing has happened. And this is integral. SDG 6 is not standing on its own. It has an impact on so many other SDG goals. And therefore it has to be cross-sectoral. You mentioned this example of small farming. Small farming for example. And when you look for example at a thing I learned about how you can produce compost from waste and therefore reduce the amount of water a farmer needs to use to produce his crop. So it is also this type of small innovations which will bring us forward. And you can only get there if you do this across the various sections of our economy. And therefore that would be my final comment on your question. We need the involvement of big business. I do not believe we can solve these kind of issues if it is just governments or NGOs that is the three governments NGOs and the business community. Because the Koch you the company I work for Unilever and so many others we collectively these companies have so much knowledge but also the logistical power to get this done to get with NGOs and governments. So that's how we want to shape this conference and to make it again as action oriented as possible. Wonderful. So Senior Minister Tharman, Elizabeth left us with a really powerful image of a river of plastic, a dump site. You've just come back from a conference in Geneva talking about these issues. How can we inject that sort of imagery that's the combination of plastics, fossil fuels, recycling, water shortages, food into this dialogue more effectively do you think? And how do we link those economics in a way that really can land and be understandable? So I think we have to be first motivated by what Elizabeth said that this is basically a crisis of lives and livelihoods for such a large part of humanity. And we need to find as Prime Minister Rota said, practical concrete solutions to address it. The key that links the two is governance at every level, local, regional, federal, within sovereign states and international. We have to, one way or another, we're going to have to invest more. And we're not going to be able to mobilize and sustain investments at a much higher level. Essentially, if you're talking about, if you just talk about the low and middle income countries, it needs about $300 billion per year, $300 billion per year. Varsely more than what is going into all the innovations required today. Just to scale up innovations, innovations which already exist but need scaling up by the public and private sector. And to do that, we need governance changes at every level. This is not the responsibility of a water official or water ministry. It is a whole environment responsibility. In Singapore, not that I want to dwell on my own country's experience. Every quarter, the entire cabinet gets a report on water. It's not the responsibility of just the ministry in charge of the environment. The entire cabinet gets a report on water. And the Prime Minister, starting from our first Prime Minister, takes deep interest in it and there's an exchange on the report. The latest metrics, what's happening here, how do we solve the latest problem? It's a whole-of-government approach. We were vulnerable, like the Dutch were historically. And necessity is not just the mother of invention, but the mother of governance, of solution-oriented whole-of-government governance. And it's not difficult to do, just having that governance mindset where everyone is involved, because it's not the water ministry or the environment ministry that's the one that's using water. It's the economic ministries, it's everyone. And we need a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach to solving the problem, starting with valuing water, which is not just a market concept, it's not a commercial concept. It's a public sector concept. It's a concept that's essential to solve this problem for humanity because of value water. So these are solvable problems. We can mobilize the funding required. We can invest in an equitable fashion to scale up solutions that exist around the world with the right governance. So you said that the governance mindset, it's not hard. It looks hard given that we aren't doing it yet. But I think we do have this opportunity, as Prime Minister Goetze just said, we have the right representatives of stakeholders here on this stage. And it would be, I'd like to turn to talking about some of the suggestions that we have to help us think about some of the initiatives that should be on the table. Senior Minister Tharmin, you had referenced something that Paul also said, which is we don't have a powerful metric yet for this. It's a whole-of-society problem, but not something simple to measure yet. James, you've been ahead of this issue for two decades. What are your suggestions? What are the sort of initiatives that you, from your vantage point, would suggest be on the agenda for the conference that we see coming in 2023? I think just to start with the Senior Minister, there is an intersection of governance at its multiple levels and the natural interests of business and the natural interests of communities. And let me throw out some examples which are very familiar to me. I spent many years working in Latin America and we had an objective of replenishing water and we looked at it and actually you go actually reforestation because when you are in a lot of hilly areas the water runs very quickly down the hill if there aren't trees and actually scrapes off the earth and runs very quickly out into the ocean. So it doesn't go into the aquifer so the aquifer is not replenished. You need to slow down the movement of the water which is trees. Why aren't there any trees? Where did they all go? The local community burnt them for fuel. They're poor. They don't have natural fuel sources. So unless the government brings electricity to the area they're going to keep chopping down the trees you put in and then the water is going to keep running off. So we worked with a number of governments to make sure that infrastructure was coming to the villages that allowed the community to see value in keeping the trees. Actually you generate a market dynamic whereby they are then the custodians of the forest involved in planting and keeping them. So they have a market-based economy. The government has brought in the infrastructure on electricity. The water runs off slower. There's less oil erosion. The aquifer gets worse. So you need all these things to come together. There's no...the government can make the framework but unless there's a market-based answer it's not going to work. The same with plastics. You need a circular economy. You don't need to just attach a philosophical public service value. You need a marketplace value to it and that is what will generate circularity. And that is not just a dynamic that will play out in the water-stressed areas. The examples from Kenya, my example from Latin America they tend to be more arid water stress. Let's go swing our way back to Europe, back to the Netherlands which has got an abundance of water. Actually Europe ends up with much more flooding because of climate change. So actually there are parts of the world where we need to redo the marshes. Actually, funnily enough, right next to our Dutch plant is a marsh area. We're interested in regenerating the marsh. The marsh because we don't want our plant to be flooded. So with the right planning frameworks you can see the regeneration of these natural solutions. You have to bring together the government framework. The community around it has to see a market-based reason to support that solution and not do the opposite and then businesses can come together. And I think that actually generates solutions for us that are expandable and can really make a difference to the water and the climate change. Paul, what would you add to that from the perspective of the private sector? Yeah. Well, thank you. I think I'll just kind of build a little bit here on my own story here. You know, Cornfors is founded back in 1945, by the way, by my grandfather. And you know, saving water, caring about climate, caring about the world as such is not new to us. But I think as also a relatively new CEO here into the business, there's a couple of elements here that actually help frame where we are going. And one of them being, I think, the SGDs helped us really articulate kind of the overall messages, the purpose, the direction of where we are going. So that helped Cornfors also in that journey. And then I think the SBTIs, so the science-based targets now makes it concrete, right? And I think that is great. It makes it really actionable. Now we can go do something about it. Is it easy? No, it's not. And then we would have also done it some time ago, wouldn't we? But I think back to that I mentioned earlier, we have a common language on climate. And I think with that and that development now with the SGDs and the SBTIs, this has given us the opportunity to take our own medicine. And I think we have some great examples here in the room from the private side, but also from a country level where fantastic examples are live right now that others can be inspired from. So again, I think that way of moving forward on climate is exactly the same recipe we will need on water. And I think that is a great opportunity to talk about because we are here and here in this forum, but I've also had the chance to actually talk to numerous CEOs and other influencers down here in Davos. And you know, people are excited about this. People want to contribute. But what they're looking for is that common framework, that common language, common targets, so that we can move in the same direction together. And I think we can definitely do that. And I think also as water champions here, I think in the next year, it's coming actually quite close, so we need to move faster, Mr. Prime Minister, on it and getting to the facts around that. Wouldn't it be fantastic to actually build a kind of 1.5 degree goal on water? I mean, something that we can really all targeted go for. And that is something that I believe would be fantastic. And actually there's also a lot of technology that's also available to solve some of the issues out there already. And we will for sure like to be part of that journey and contributing to a better world when it comes to water. So James and Paul, to both of you, just to stay on the private sector initiative, what do you think is missing? You mentioned a clear target that there is energy behind this. And yet it's not something, frankly, that we read about much. We hear a lot about companies, ESG goals, but not water specifically. What do you think is missing? How do we motivate more companies to be out front talking about this and integrating it into their ESG strategies? I think the simple answer is no pun intended, you've got to go with the flow. And if going with the flow means you've got to attach it to climate change, then we attach it to climate change. And it is a powerful part of the solution set for climate. And we have our own water goals. I mean, we've been on the journey. It's so important to us we have our replenishment goals and scarcity goals. But in general terms for most businesses, I think we need to attach it to climate. And again, it has to be a market force. The senior minister said if water doesn't have a price, it will never be valued. I mean, it takes how many millions of leaders to make a kilo of lithium? That's a lot of water. So we have to value these things. And that's been one of the great barriers on water is that actually, as I said, 70% of the water is used by small scale agricultural farmers. Imposing a price on them is very economically damaging. But unless water has a value, it's going to be very difficult. So if we could value water in the same way we could value carbon, then the market will be the mechanism to drive the result. Yeah, maybe just a short follow up to that. I mean, can you make it sound a little bit easy and like that everybody has got DSG and a focus on water? I don't think so. So I think this is a major shout out to the world to actually start putting this on the agenda. I think big, small, gigantic government, what not, companies, they can all engage in this journey here. But let's create a common framework so everybody can move in the same and the right direction here on this. So more emphasis. Thank you. So Elizabeth, you spoke really powerfully about the impacts on the community. And James mentioned some initiatives that we're working in Latin America to create market initiatives. We've seen a great example for lithium that some companies are now doing direct extraction, which uses very little water in part due to community pressure. What else do we need to hear from communities and how would you push us to act more directly given what you're seeing? I think I would say this is actually a human problem. And it's not that we lack the technology that we need. It's not that we lack innovations. It's not that we lack everything that we need right now. It's a human problem. And for us to solve this human problem, we're going to need human solutions. It's all about how we really take these issues into our hearts and into our minds. Because if we do not have these frontline communities at the center of every decision we are making and at the center of every action we are taking, then we're still going to be moving so many steps backwards. And I think for me, it would be great if we have our way of living in a way that we are actually not taking from the arts, but actually giving more back to the arts ecosystems. Because our way of doing things is in a way that we take so much from the arts ecosystems, but only give too little back to the arts. And what happens is that we are the ones who continue to bear the worst impacts of these impacts. Because the communities that I've talked about, these are communities that live in a continent that contribute less than 4% of the global greenhouse gas emissions. But they are the ones that bear the biggest brand of these impacts. So how can we still continue in our normal way of doing things where we still take away from nature and give less back to nature? I think also what we need to do is to think around how we can go beyond the circular economy and just actually move towards a regenerative one. Because our systems right now, like I mentioned, our economic models right now are not really putting our nature, our ecosystems as a priority. And every time we talk about nature, we talk about water, we talk about all these things. But we don't talk about how we can actually still continue to protect the already existing and intact ecosystems. Because if we continue to carry on as before, then we're not going to be solving any problem. We're only going to be making things worse for these communities. This is about lives. It's about livelihood. It's about people who are not waiting for these things to impact them tomorrow. So they need us to take immediate action. So this is about accountability. It's about delivering because we've been here before. We've had these things before and we continue to hear them. But unless we allow ourselves to actually be accountable and actually be responsible for the fact that these lives and livelihoods depend on the decisions we make today, then I think we will still be talking about the same things every now and then. But I think it's possible for us to actually turn these things around. But we actually have to be moved by taking into account that these are human problems and they need human solutions as well. So human problems, human solutions. You've got some initiatives on the stage. How can we encourage all of these stakeholders to help continue to put more drive behind these initiatives? What's missing in your view in this discussion that we should think about for next year? Well, first of all, this is a fantastic panel because we have all these various societal forces here. The business community, government, NGOs, society. My take out for this discussion and this debate is that you have to focus on a couple of issues. One, of course, is governance. And governance could maybe even help to get the human focus back as soon as possible at the local level. I know that in my country we have these local water authorities. They are helping 25 local water authorities in countries in Africa and other parts of the world in 15 countries on very practical stuff. So that there's practical stuff focusing on, for example, how to adapt to climate change, a big one, but also how to improve and expand service delivery, very practical, and to improve their credit wordiness. And what basically they're doing is they're focusing on to scale up and replicate what is working for us and in those parts of the world they're helping. But also to tell them, please discontinue or change what is not working, stop this, innovate what needs to be improved. And then, of course, there's the question of funding. There is a second theme coming out of this debate, we need the money. Now, one of the things we are doing and many other countries are doing is that our public climate financing towards developing countries already goes into adaptation, most of it, more than half, or about half of our funding in that area goes to adaptation. This is something we as governments can work on to ask others to do more of. But this brings me to a third issue which has to do with the sort of framework. And Jutram, and you were chairing, co-chairing, I believe, and that's very important, this global commission on the economics of water. And I believe that will also be a mobilizing force to get all the information on the table, including, and this was an old initiative years ago, the Valuing Water Initiative. But we have to feed this into, I think, also if that was the idea, I thought it was the idea to do, into this commission to make sure that we have that data on the table. And then if we can bring that together, and indeed have businesses and governments and NGOs sitting there in March next year, but in the run-up to that moment, bring to the table all these practical initiatives and show us what can be done. And at the end of the day, the test is whether in your villages you are mentioning the two examples in your first intervention this morning, whether it is an answer to that, the stream of plastics, the access to water, because that at the end of the day is the test. Of course, there are many other issues. I mean, you mentioned that in the Netherlands we have too much water, but these days we have not enough. There is a drought issue now. It was there in 2020. It is again, we have a huge drought issue in the Netherlands this year. We have never experienced this. So we have too much or not enough. Almost never there is just enough. Okay, but we are a rich country and we can deal with this. But still, this means that every part of the world has its own challenges and problems. But of course, at the ultimate test is whether it helps us in the fight against climate change and it helps us in improving lives in these local communities. That is the crucial question. And I agree with Elizabeth. It is about the human focus. There is always the risk that we have these high-level debates and we produce reports, et cetera. But at the end, one drop of water lands somewhere in Kenya. No, it has to be a stream of water landing in Kenya. So, Elizabeth, you have got a global audience here, not just on the stage and in the audience, but through live stream. We are not living up to the commitments we have made. And you are seeing that on a day-to-day basis. What would you want to push all of us to do in addition or maybe doubling down on some of the ideas you have already heard presented on the stage? I think one of the main things that I would push everyone to do is actually do more and remind ourselves that we are still not doing what SANS tells us that we must do to get to where we need to get and to meet our targets. And again, we are not going to also meet our climate targets without nature as well. So we have to make sure that all these issues are not being solved in silos. These issues are all connected. And so we cannot have issues whose drivers are similar, but our solutions are everywhere. So we have to solve these issues together. We have to make sure that we are actually not solving them in silos. And most importantly, we have to move with urgency because this is about people whose lives and livelihoods are affected by every delay in action. So we cannot still continue to delay action if we really care about the people who are on the front line. And most importantly, we have to keep reminding ourselves about the stories of people whose lives depend on the decisions that we are making every day. And I think what is most important is that we actually be selfless because everything that we do today is about every person who is impacted in another part of the world. And just because these impacts are not happening where you are, it doesn't mean that they are not happening at all. They are people who actually have stories to tell about how they are being impacted. And so we cannot close our hearts and our minds into these issues. They have to be at the center of every decision that we are making. But most importantly, we have to deliver our pledges and our commitments because we cannot continue to be at the same place every now and then. And it's important that we do this for these communities. It is important that we do this for humanity. And again, when it comes to nature, this is our life support system. And if we are destroying our own life support system, then we are not being justice to ourselves and we are not being justice to the next generation that is going to inherit this planet. So it would be great if we actually leave this place better than we found it. We have to keep reminding ourselves each and every day because it's about generations to come. It's about people whose lives right now depend on it. And we will not have this freshwater future if the wild today is not liveable. So we have to start today and right now. One practical solution is you need to bring Elizabeth with you whenever you're talking about this issue over the next year. This is very powerful. And it is very inspiring. It also inspires me to do even more. And you are so right. It is through the silos, across sectors. And I think that it also has to do with how can we scale and replicate. So when we have examples of what is working, how can we make sure that they are scalable in other parts of Africa, Asia or Europe or whatever, and also how to replicate them? And if it is not possible and it is just working at one village in Kenya, it's also fine because you want to deal with the issues there. But if we can scale them and replicate them, that is also helpful. And somehow package them in a way that others can quite easily access that information and do the same. And therefore, again, as I think comes out of this discussion, this is about confidence. This is about money, but it's also about this framework. By the way, the web plays an important role here. The fact that we sit here together, but also that in the coming month, the web will try to bring together these various tracks, which are sometimes working a bit siloed at the moment, separate from each other, but to bring them together will be very important. In a sense, it's also the web 2.0 being also very active in between the meetings. I don't know about you, Prime Minister, but I was listening with admiration when the senior minister was talking about how in government the reports that cut across that every ministry has been given accountability, which is what our colleagues were talking about in the private sector, the measurements, the accountability. How did that initiative get started? What advice would you have for the people listening from the government sector as to how they can replicate that level of accountability? I suppose countries like Singapore and the Netherlands started this early because we were vulnerable. We were water vulnerable. The world is now water vulnerable. And it means starting with, it's not just about what each ministry or department does or what each segment of society does. We've got to accept that water, like carbon, has to be priced. And that's not about efficiency at the end of the day. It's about equity and sustainability. Elizabeth talked about selflessness. We need both that selflessness and the realization that it's in our self-interest to be selfless. Because what the draught in the Netherlands Prime Minister Rotte spoke about wasn't because of some misdoings by the local community in that area. We are all affected by what happens in every part of the world. That's why the climate crisis and the water crisis are about the global commons. What each of us do contributes to the problem somewhere else in the world. We spoke about the fact that irrigation practices, they need to be completely redone so as to use less water and to have less pollution in the runoff. But think about what all of us as consumers do. A large part of the water consumed in North America, let's say, in advanced group of societies goes towards producing grain for cattle, for livestock. A very large part. So the same questions we ask ourselves on climate, how much beef should we be consuming. Are the same questions that we have to ask for water. And there is an intersection of solutions that addresses both climate and water rather than pitches climate against water that we've got to focus on. You spoke about lithium, you can say the same about copper by the way. Very water intensive products. And if we think of climate by itself, we can solve the problem with the right will, with the right resources, with the right pricing. But we might be creating an even larger problem on water. So we've got to think of them together and find solutions that basically solve both of them together. But being selfless and being self-interested is the same thing when it comes to the global commons. Can I just emphasize one thing, what Singapore is doing extremely well, which is rigor. And rigor doesn't cost money. It doesn't cost one dollar to have the Prime Minister ask every man of the cabinet to have your retro report and what do we learn from this. And we are not doing this in the Netherlands to that extent. So I'm learning from this example, I think we should do that better. Because also we all have these reports, but we are not discussing them at that level of detail. This doesn't cost you one cent. It's just a question of focus, of rigor, and that's something we can learn from Singapore. And I just wanted to mention later today, there is the champion of water community also coming together here at the Web. Liesje Schreinemacher, our Minister for Foreign Aid and Foreign Trade, will be there also to collect initiatives. So I think this is not the final say today, but just the start of a whole day of water debate. So the challenge is pricing in this externality. It's the selflessness and the self-interest. And both of you touched on the market, market initiatives, a measure. How do we start to attack the problem of pricing water appropriately for its usage? Any ideas? That's clearly in the government's bucket, I think, going forward. And I think the challenge is not to price water because actually in most places there is a price for water if you're an industrial user. The question is how can we give it value for the vast number of users, recognising that most of them are on a few dollars a day income. And so charging them for water is going to be catastrophic. But then we need to find a mechanism that encourages them and provides them new methods of irrigation first and foremost that allows them to use a lot less water. And then if they don't, there's some price to not using more water. So it is a micro level problem. And maybe there are mechanisms in that micro finance sector where you can give credits first to use a certain amount of water, give credits to have investments in simple things, drip irrigation. And yet if they use more water, then they don't get a credit for it. So then they have to start paying for it. There might be solutions in there, but it's not sexy like going to Mars. It's actually very straightforward stuff, millions, if not billions of times. Paul, the tricky cold call question, how do we do this? Anything to add? Well, I think it will be important and putting a pricing on water. But I think in different parts of the world, you are in different situations. And just kind of adding one business model into that, I think is very difficult. But I focused pricing on water or a tax or whatever it is. If you don't live up to it, like we have a green tax now established in Denmark also, slowly getting some of these mechanisms there in place I think is important. But I think you got to add it or scale it depending on the situation and the maturity that you are in as a country. But overall, I think that's also a great point to add into the overall UN conference coming up. Prime Minister, I mean you said yourself that Netherlands is dealing with droughts and floods. Would you imagine my country dealing with droughts? Second time in two years. But you can afford it. You can afford to solve it. Exactly. And that's different from Kenya and so many other countries. And that's why we need to work on it, to get this done. And I'm famous like what James was saying about the very practical aspects of valuing water. I'm not an expert on this, but it is clearly a separate work stream we have to work on. And a lot of work has been done already. And I hope the Commission could also take this further, also in a run-up to the UN water conference. But it will help us to create that conference into an event which is as practical as possible. And actionable as possible, and also in a run-up that we don't wait for New York 2023. But in a run-up, things start to happen and start to be replicated and scaled. That's what we need to achieve. And that's what we are doing at the moment with so many organizations. So it's not just starting now. But this is an event to at least give extra impetus to the event. So Elizabeth, to make this credible, what would you want to see on the ground? As you look out your window with the communities you work with, what would tell you that we were moving beyond empty pledges and into real action? From what I'm hearing, we're definitely in the same storm. That's the climate crisis, the water crisis, nature crisis. But we are not in the same boat. And by not being in the same boat, there are people that definitely have the least capacity to adapt to this crisis and the least amount of resources to deal with the crisis as well. And some of these impacts right now are actually beyond human adaptation because there are certain things that humanity can actually not adapt to. And that also calls for the urgency. And I think for me, this kind of fresh water future is going to be determined by the things that begin to change today. But the fact that women will not have to work for long distances and miles to look for water and food for their families. The fact that they will not have to dig hand dug wells that are not even safe for consumption to give water to their children. And the fact that children will have food and water, people will be able to live in a community where they don't have to actually have conflicts of resources because we will teach ourselves how to actually give back more to the earth's ecosystems than we take. And this is going to be a kind of a future where we do not have the rising inequalities, a future where the climate change impacts don't have to actually be impacting people who have even least contributed. And this is only going to be made possible if we deliver and allow ourselves to also be held accountable because then this is about the actions we are taking today, the decisions we are taking today and how we are actually choosing to respond to this crisis. And all these things are going to be realized, it's possible. And this is the kind of future I envision. This is the kind of world I want to see. But this world is not going to be possible for me. It's not going to be possible for every child out there if we don't begin to do things right now because we cannot promise a future and assume that people will get that to that future if the world today has certain things that make it not liveable. So we have to begin turning things around right now to give that kind of future to me, to the children and the next generations that are to come. Yes. Elizabeth here is talking about maybe just a concrete example that is also scalable. So last year we contributed with a clean drinking water for 1.6 million people, many of them in Africa. And next year it's going to be 2 million, that would make me really proud. And then in 2030, 300 million people that do not have access today will get access to clean drinking water. This is by sustainable solar pumping solutions. And it's not just about the product, it's actually about the business model. It's about the local education on people on the ground so they can actually maintain, understand but also learn about the precious value that water actually is on the ground and then they can actually start this from an introsustainable future for society. How does that work? Absolutely, we can take into the technical details. No, not technical, but practical. A pump is actually a groundwater pump into the ground. It is run by solar cells, the water pumps up and it's actually cleaned by a cleaning unit. So there's a standalone local installation.  It's a fantastic little system. We have actually worked with Coca-Cola on that in a couple of places as well. So we are, and anybody can join in on that great approach. We would love to welcome people. And how do they do that? Local NGOs are helping us on the ground. How do they join in? What's the context? Please contact me, contact Grundfos. Absolutely, we'd love to join in. Thank you. We hear those initiatives and I heard about it, but not as eloquently as you just here put it. It might be solvable. And it's also affordable. It's good solutions, absolutely. So other practical solutions. I mean, Paul, this isn't really inspiring at the end of a rather depressing discussion of the current situation. Other things that you've seen in your global travels, Paul, James, senior minister that we'd want to bring in here, or Elizabeth, that you've seen some positive signs on the ground. The good thing, by the way, is that far more so than in addressing the climate crisis, where some of the technologies required carbon capture, green hydrogen and so on are still being developed. In water, the technologies exist by and large. They have to be made affordable and you make it affordable by adapting the technologies, so they're suitable for every village in every country, but you also make it affordable through scale. And we need to scale this up. It requires some finance, but the finance will come if, in fact, the technologies are working to deliver value and value is not just the commercial value, it's how it's changing people's lives. I mean, what Elizabeth said about women having to look for water, 40% of the time of women in rural Africa is spent daily, 40% of the day is spent looking for firewood and water. So it's a life-transformer, and if they save that 40% of the time, imagine what else they'll be able to do. If I can add one other example, which is a totally different issue around water, which is when you have too much, and of course in the past you will build dykes, and they are ugly, they're concrete. What we have developed with countries like Bangladesh, Indonesia and others is the concept of building with nature, that you have some small interventions, for example, building a small island or some other sort of artificially created island or whatever, which is then re-rooting the flow of water. And by doing that is bringing down the risks of flooding in a way that you are not impacting on the environment because these dykes can have a huge impact on the environment and also on ecological systems. So also here, the technology is there and it's sometimes even cheaper to do it in that way than to build these concrete dykes and you have all these houses disappearing behind the dykes. One of the most unique things about the frontline communities is the fact that most of these communities have also chosen not to actually be victims and they're also working on solutions on the ground to try and deal with some of these impacts and I see a lot of resilience with how they're trying to do certain things and what excites me the most is the fact that some of these solutions are actually greatly inspired by the late Professor Angare Mathai who has also greatly inspired the work that I do each and every day and for her she started by working with women because she discovered that by working with women and by helping women plant trees around their communities and their farms they would be able to get food, to get water and to also get firewood to sustain their everyday lives and I've also seen so many youth groups trying to even clean up streams around them by planting bamboo trees along the riparian and this is because for some of these places the pollution levels of this rivers is actually making it an inhabitable for people that live around there because this is the water they want to drink but then it's flowing with plastic waste it's also very unsafe to drink it's not safe for consumption so they cannot still continue to watch as the streams flow this way so they step up and choose to do it by themselves even though they are not the cause of it all so seeing these initiatives coming up with youth groups and women especially should sound a message to us that the frontline communities are not just sitting back and choosing to be victims they're stepping up and what we can do is to actually also make sure that our investment choices go into these frontline communities because most of these solutions are struggling to scale up they do not have the much needed resources as well and the much needed capacity to scale up and make them much more impactful so we cannot be talking about reinventing new solutions when there are already solutions that people work on every other day how can we actually scale them up and how can we make sure that they are replicated elsewhere each and every day because these are the people these are the stories that we need to be talking about these are the people that we need to actually be bringing on the frontline and also they are the ones that are trying to turn things around because they have seen that these impacts are only going to make things worse and instead of waiting for people that have much bigger capacity and much more resources they've chosen to step up as well and also one of the things that has that continue to make me really talk about what the future looks like is working with children because this is a generation that is going to be greatly impacted by the consequences of climate change and if anything it's the young people and children of today that are going to have to live longer with the consequences of the world's inaction and the consequences of every decision that is made today so by working with these children and I'll just give a practical example of a time that I worked with children to a stream nearby their school that was again polluted and flowing with plastic waste and this was to view the world in a perspective of a five-year-old, a ten-year-old and they asked me two questions when we got into this stream and one question was who did this and the second one is what can we do about it so it tells you that these people are not choosing to be victims they are determined to clean their own air, to clean their own water to grow their own food within their school compounds by even growing food trees around their schools but again we have to get behind this generation it's about every sector, it's about also seeing how much more can we do these people that's the best that they can do but I would assume for governments and a big company they can do much more than these communities can do so if we all get back together and do the best that we can do and I know the best that I can do is not the best that maybe you can do so it's about making sure that we are actually stepping up and working together and complimenting each other's work as well because while these people are trying to do certain things within their school compound I always like to give example with the children that I work with while they are planting trees within their school compound and trying to green their own school they see big businesses and corporations falling deforestation and that is undermining their efforts in their school so it's about how we compliment each other's efforts and make sure that every sector is actually doing the best that they can to turn things around because it's possible Thank you Elizabeth We can't end on a better note than that I just want to thank our guests we have the technology, we have the people to implement Paul Dwight Jensen, James Quincy, Senior Minister Tharman Prime Minister Huta, Elizabeth Watute Chair Thank you and Chair of the UN Conference Karen Harris from Bain & Company Thank you so much for joining us this morning


Well, six teachers from the Lakeland viewing area are among those chosen as candidates for the 2019 Minnesota Teacher of the Year Award. This year's winner will be chosen from a field of 168 overall candidates. The number of candidates this year is the third most in the 55-year history of the award. And it includes these teachers from around the Lakeland viewing area, June Dogren of Brainerd Public Schools, Steven Booth of the La Porte Public School District, Katie Leiser of Long Prairie Gray Eagle Public Schools, Julie Ernest of the Roseau School District, Mandy Galant of Wadena Deer Creek Public Schools, and Keri Slindi of Blacktuck. The 2019 Minnesota Teacher of the Year will be announced May 5th. Over the coming weeks, a 25-member panel of community leaders will name a group of semi-finalists and finalists. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.


The Will to Power is one of the most fundamental concepts in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. It is also one of his most complex concepts, as it was never systematically defined in his works, leaving its interpretation open to debate. Nietzsche had considered writing a book under the title The Will to Power, which he announced in the Genealogy of Morals, published in 1887. These things will be addressed by me more fully and seriously in another connection, with the title On the History of European Nihilism, for which I refer you to a work I am writing, The Will to Power, Attempt at a Revaluation of All Values. However, in 1888, Nietzsche had abandoned the entire project of The Will to Power and decided to write a new four-part Magnum Opus with his notes gathered in the abandoned project, under the title Revaluation of All Values, and actually finished the first quarter, The Antichrist.  During this time, Nietzsche's sister Elizabeth and his friend Peter Gast took possession of all his unpublished notes and edited them to publish The Will to Power. Elizabeth claimed that this text was her brother's Magnum Opus. Sadly, she wanted to use it to pursue her personal agenda in National Socialism. This work has since then been superseded by an expanded second version containing 1067 sections, which includes Nietzsche's original notes. This is what has come to be commonly known as The Will to Power. Although it remains a posthumously published work, rather than a text completed by him, it is still an excellent anthology of selections from his notebooks. We will be focusing on what Nietzsche actually wrote and published himself during his active years, as well as making some references to his unpublished notes where it is appropriate. Nietzsche's early works, Human, All to Human, The Dawn, and the Gay Science, provide his first psychological insight on the desire for power. He writes, The reason why a powerful person is grateful is this, his benefactor has intruded into his sphere. It is a milder form of revenge. Without the satisfaction of gratitude, the powerful man would have shown himself powerless and would hence be considered so. Therefore, every society of the good, in other words, originally of the powerful, places gratitude amongst the first duties. Nietzsche explains that if somebody does something for you, there is an implication that you were powerless and needed his help.  Then you thank him and the implication is reversed. He has done something for you as if you were the powerful one and he your servant. In that sense, gratitude may be considered a mild form of revenge. In another aphorism, Nietzsche observes the effort of people to arouse pity. Ask yourself whether that ready complaining and whimpering that making a show of misfortune does not at bottom aim at making the spectators miserable. The pity which the spectators then exhibit is in so far a consolation for the weak and suffering in that the latter recognize therein that they possess still one power in spite of their weakness, the power of giving pain. As we can observe, the early Nietzsche does not find his desire for power admirable. More often than not, he used it to explain behavior he happened to dislike. This would later change with his genealogy of morals, which human all too human laid the seeds for. He explains that the desire for power exists both among the powerful whose highest team of gratitude Nietzsche would explain does and among the impotent whose desire for pity Nietzsche construes as prompted by desire for power. Here we stumble upon a crucial point that an apparent negation of the desire for power is explained in terms of the desire for power. Even asceticism, humility, self abasement and renunciation of worldly power are motivated by this way. He writes, Indeed happiness taken as the most alive feeling of power has perhaps nowhere on earth been greater than in the souls of superstitious ascetics. In another aphorism he states, power which has greatly suffered both indeed and in thought is better than powerlessness which only meets with kind treatment. Such was the Greek way of thinking. In other words, the feeling of power was priced more highly by them than any mere utility or fair renown. The powerful have no need to prove their might either to themselves or to others by oppressing or hurting others. Only the weak man wishes to hurt and to see the signs of suffering. This certain association of power to the Greeks was a decisive step in the development of this conception into an all-empressing monism as will to power. With these insights the possibility of a psychological monism suggests itself. All psychological phenomena might be reducible to the will to power. Nietzsche, however, is not primarily in search of any basic principle. He does not jump to this conclusion yet. In 1883 the concept of the will to power came like a flash of lightning and in a frenzied feeling of inspiration Nietzsche wrote, thus spoke Sarathustra, where the will to power makes its first appearance. It is introduced as one of the three major teachings Sarathustra has to offer, the other two being the ubermensch and the eternal recurrence. He writes, only where there is life there is also will, not will to life but will to power. There is much that life esteems more highly than life itself, but out of the esteeming itself speaks the will to power, thus life taught me. Nietzsche was fundamentally concerned with commanding or exercising power over oneself, not over others. The will to power is a dynamic force in continuous becoming and striving, manifesting itself in the encounter with obstacles.  Sarathustra embodies the struggle of the will to power as obstacles inevitably give way to resistances. He is completely uninterested in gaining power over others as he states, I lack the life's voice for all commanding. In fact, he keeps insisting that the last thing he wants is the ability to command his disciples but rather that they follow themselves. Nietzsche summarizes the will to power most succinctly in the Antichrist. What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power. The will to power. Power itself in man. What is bad? All that proceeds from weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power increases that a resistance is overcome. The secret that Sarathustra has learned from life is self-overcoming, the characteristic of the ubermensch. As we have seen, the key problem is self-commanding. However, it is not as easy as it sounds. In fact, many people embody what Nietzsche calls the last man, the antithesis of the ubermensch. Those who are all alike and follow others, a herd mentality, too afraid to do anything extreme and remain in mediocrity all their lives. They do not take risks because of fair or laziness. However, Nietzsche does not write for them, but for that small percentage of people who want true fulfillment and happiness out of life. The only way to achieve the highest level of happiness is to take risks. For believe me, the secret for harvesting from existence, the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment, is to live dangerously. There's almost a 0% chance that you won't experience some form of extreme pain in your life. Nietzsche tells us not to run from this reality, but to face it and overcome it in order to grow. Think of the metaphor of climbing a mountain. There are obstacles and difficulties ahead. One can even risk falling from the heights and injuring or killing oneself. However, once you reach the top of the mountain, you'll be able to see the most beautiful views imaginable. He who climbs upon the highest mountain laughs at all tragedies, real or imaginary. Those who do not overcome their obstacles will miss the most amazing moments of life and live mediocre lives. Nietzsche's concept of sublimation is key to understanding the will to power. He believes that a sexual impulse, for example, could find satisfaction in the attainment of something else, such as creative spiritual activity, instead of being fulfilled directly. One of his main critiques of Christianity is that it did not supplement the instincts, but rather repudiated them. As the instincts are what makes us human beings, it is against life itself, contrary to the will to power, in which instincts are the main dry-forcing humans. This contrast of the abnegation, repudiation and extirpation of the passions on the one side and their control and sublimation on the other is one of the most important points in Nietzsche's entire philosophy. The man who can develop his faculty of reason only by extirpating his sensuality has a weak spirit. A strong spirit need not make war on the impulses, it masters them fully and is, to Nietzsche's mind, the acme of human power. He points out that most of the great philosophers were not married and explains the masses follows, as for the chastity of philosophers, finally this type of spirit clearly has its fruitfulness somewhere else than in children. Perhaps it also has the survival of his name elsewhere, its little immortality. And in his notes he writes, Making music is another way of making children. The will to power as the only interpretation also supposes its opposite, namely decadence. Decay must be explicable from this striving for growth, just as weakness must be comprehensible in terms of the principle of strength, he writes. But what if pleasure and pain should be so closely connected that he who wants a great possible amount of the one must also have the greatest possible amount of the other, that he who wants to experience the heavily high jubilation must also be ready to be sorrowful unto death. Human beings do not seek pleasure and avoid displeasure, they seek an increase of power which is confronted by displeasure as an obstacle to their will to power. It is therefore natural for human beings to have a continual need for displeasure in order to grow. The will to power opposes the prevalent notion of the will to existence, he writes, Indeed, the one who shot at truth with the words will to existence did not hit it, this will does not exist. For what is not cannot will, but what is in existence, how could this still will to exist? Only where life is, is there also will, but not will to life, instead does I teach you will to power. In Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche considered himself an anti-Darwin. Darwin proposed that we evolve through natural selection, whereby one's ability to survive will leave the most copies of itself in successive generations. Herbert Spencer, a follower of Darwin, coined the well-known phrase survival of the fittest. However, unlike Darwin, he believed that all living beings seek first and foremost self-preservation. Darwin does not propose self-preservation, but rather that behaviours that are advantageous are the ones preserved in natural selection. Thus, Nietzsche misattributes self-preservation to Darwin. In The Gay Science, Nietzsche writes, To will to preserve oneself is the expression of distress, of the limitation of the genuinely basic drive of life, which aims at the expansion of power. And in this willing, frequently risks and even sacrifices self-preservation. The struggle for existence is only an exception, a temporary restriction of the life-will. The great and small struggle always turns upon superiority, upon growth and expansion, upon power, in accordance with the will to power, which is just the will to life. What is clear is that Nietzsche's survival is not merely self-preservation, but is primarily struggle for increase of power. Everything strives for power for the most unconsciously. Beyond good and evil has the most references to the will to power in his published works, appearing in 11 aphorisms. Nietzsche reiterates that life is not self-preservation. Physiologists should think before putting down the instinct of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic being. A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength, life itself is will to power. Self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results. Furthermore, in his notes he writes, It can be shown most clearly for every living thing that it does everything, not in order to preserve itself, but to become more. Just as a tree will naturally grow to seek its roots and gain resources, so will a person seek to develop his health, wealth, strength and status, which are all expressions of his will to power. Schopenhauer had written long before Darwin about his concept of the will to live. Nietzsche had read Schopenhauer extensively in his youth, and he became a sort of father figure for him. Although he later grew apart from his philosophy, as he would say, one repays a teacher badly, if one always remains nothing but a pupil. Nietzsche rejected the will to live in favor of his will to power. Schopenhauer's will is a metaphysical concept inspired by his readings of Kant's Pneumon, or the unknowable thing in itself, which exists independently of human sense and perception. It is the opposite of phenomenon, which refers to any object of the senses, such as sight and sounds. For Schopenhauer, the will is the cause of all suffering, as human life is a ceaseless struggle for satisfaction. We are constantly pursuing objects of desire to become happy, but when we achieve them, we do not become satisfied. It merely liberates us from our previous pain. We remain in a constant state of suffering and restlessness, until we inevitably die, thus the pessimism of his philosophy. Nevertheless, he does believe that we can achieve momentary bliss and peace of mind, whereby the will ceases its desire of striving. This comes from aesthetic experiences, such as music and art. However, the only way we can free ourselves from our miserable existence is through the total negation of the will and lead an aesthetic life in order to minimize suffering. Nietzsche, as we have seen, embraces suffering, as it is precisely what helps us grow in life. Pain is necessary and not to be devalued. Since obstacles cause pain, we must overcome them, so that we can advance our power. As he says in one of his most popular phrases, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. As an experimental philosopher, Nietzsche sought to break with the delusion of the metaphysicians who believed that they could solve all of life's riddles with one stroke, with one word, and become unriddlers of the universe. He claims that philosophers will to truth, in other words, their parent decide to dispassionally seek objective absolute truth, is actually nothing more than a manifestation of their will to power.  Will to thinkability of all being, that's what I call your will.  But for you it shall behave and bend, thus your will wants it. It shall become smooth and subservient to the spirit as its mirror and reflection. That is your entire will, your wisest ones, as a will to power.  This is your ultimate hope and intoxication. In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche tells us to suppose that we succeeded in explaining our entire instinctive life as the development and ramification of one basic form of the will, which includes everything from procreation to nourishment. If so, the world seen from within, it would simply be will to power and nothing else. Some interpreters have emphasized this view of the will to power as a metaphysical general force underlying all reality, making it more directly analogous to Schopenhauer's will to live. This brings some confusion as Nietzsche's against metaphysics. Many Nietzschean scholars have insisted that the will to power is less metaphysical and more pragmatic than Schopenhauer's. While Schopenhauer thought the will to live was what was most real in the universe, Nietzsche's will to power can be understood primarily as the key concept of a psychological hypothesis as well as a useful principle for the purpose of the individual's life. However, we cannot deny that Nietzsche views it more and more as a basic force of the entire universe in his later life. What can we make of this contradiction? Martin Heidegger's work continues to have an enormous influence on how Nietzsche's notion of the will to power is interpreted as a traditional metaphysical unity. However, there is a crucial distinction to be made in terms of metaphysics. Wherever Nietzsche rejects metaphysics, it is only the Platonic Christian tradition in which being is understood as fixed and static, such as Plato's will to forms or the Christian concept of heaven. Nietzsche's will to power symbolizes an eternal becoming, thus it does not possess a substantial, durable character. It is a monism in which even being is conceived as becoming. Being is thus not opposed to becoming, but rather becoming include being. Keeping this in mind, it is possible to talk about the metaphysics of the will to power. A crucial point must be made in Nietzsche's concept of power. It is characterized by intrinsic relationality. Power is only power in relation to another power. In other words, there are no first things which then have relations with each other, rather things are what they are by virtue of their relations. Nietzsche's concept of power implies that reality is dynamic. There is no fixed cause that can be separated from that causation. This structure implies that power must be understood as a necessary striving for more power. Power is a necessary striving to expand itself, and is only power insofar as it can maintain itself against other powers and strives to predominate over them. However, speaking about a will to power is misleading. For all realities will to power. It is not an independent unity, it is always a variable and relational multiplicity held together, and those wills to power exist only as a multiplicity of wills to power and so on at infinitum. It is always at war with itself. It is a single basic force whose very essence it is to manifest itself in diverse ways and to create multiplicity, not ex nihilo, but out of itself. In Nietzsche's worldview, nothing has existence and meaning outside the game of power relations. Because of this, there is no withdrawal from this game. This chaos is not mere burden that we have to ever come to survive or make our life easier. It also plays a very positive role. It is the basis of all creation and creativity. Without it, nothing novel could emerge. One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. To conclude, Nietzsche's conception of the will to power is not primarily a metaphysical principle. His central concern is with man, and power is to him above all a state of the human being. The projection of the will to power from the human sphere to the cosmos is an afterthought, wealth and military might, whenever signs of great power to Nietzsche's mind. And he realizes fully that power involves self-discipline and self-overcoming. This is, in fact, the central point of the will to power.


Welcome back to my channel. My name is Nneka. I make videos on personal finance, beauty, lifestyle, skincare, all that fun stuff. It's been a minute since I posted a video on YouTube, so I thought this would be the perfect video to kind of just get back and get back into my life. Like, welcome into my home. So throughout this video today, we're going to be doing a tour of my one bedroom Williamsburg apartment. Disclaimer, this is a rent-controlled unit, and I will be sharing how much I pay and rent at the end of the video. But just to give you a heads up, I do pay less the market rate. Other than that, make sure you subscribe so you can keep up with me, and let's just get right into this video. Great. So I want to kind of give you guys the option. Do you want to start in the living room, dining room, kitchen, the bedroom, or the bathroom? Pick your own adventure. Oh well, just kidding. This is a Netflix. We're starting in the bedroom. Okay, so we're standing in my bedroom right now. Actually, I need to flip this around so you guys can see. I have this really cute, like, full-length mirror here when you walk in. So that's really nice. My laundry hamper's right there. There's also, like, this little bookshelf tower thing that I'm absolutely obsessed with.  And then when you come in, I do have just, like, a little, I guess, work area here, even though I don't really use it too much for work. I have a bunch of just, like, yoga stuff and, like, workout stuff here. We do have a gym in my building, which is nice, but definitely don't use it as much as I should.  So cute. But the peace tiller that sounds really about this whole apartment is truly the views. So it's a bit of a cloudy day right now, so you can't see as much as you usually could, but you can see Long Island City here. And then if you kind of turn this corner, you can really see the Empire State Building on a non-cloudy day. This is my bed. So cute. And I'm super obsessed with just, like, personalized journals and planners. So I usually leave these in my bed because that's where I do the most journaling, but I'm gonna do, like, a full 360 now.  This is truly the best thing. So it has a really nice size closet. And I got these little shelves from Ikea. They're, like, super helpful. And I truly have just packed this closet full, and probably need to get rid of some stuff, honestly. I'll close that. So, bedroom. Let me put you guys down somewhere. A bit of an awkward angle, but it works. Yeah, so this is my bedroom. It's a really, really good size for a New York apartment. Honestly, I would say this is the largest bedroom I've ever had in New York. And before, I was, like, renting room. So that's really saying a lot. Like, even when you have roommates, bedrooms typically aren't this size. But I really, I really love this place. It's so great. Anything else about it? Oh, here. So on my bed here, I really want to, like, paint this. I don't know if I want to do, like, wallpaper maybe, or paint, but definitely want to put something, like, kind of against this cute little backdrop just to make the headboard stand out. I got this from Ikea. It's amazing. I really love it. And then most of my sheets are Brooklyn and the Shulgy ones are from, I want to say Urban Outfitters. And then I got this pillow from Marshall's. Let me see. Anything else about my bedroom? I honestly think that's it. The windows are super huge. So the lighting is amazing, especially when I'm kind of facing the window. So that's my bedroom, which we just did. And then here, I have just this little mirror. I got it from Ikea. Super cute. I love it. Here, I also want to do, like, a collage type thing. I think that would be really cute just to take, like, selfies and stuff here. And then below, I have my cat's litter box that's, like, disguised as a folk plant right now. I think I'm going to do another litter box situation, but not really sure what I'm going to do right now at the moment, but definitely a work in progress. But when you come in to the apartment, so this is the entrance, I have another closet here, which is just filled with, like, coats, cleaning supplies, like, paper towel and stuff, linen, sheets, things of that nature, pretty regular stuff. So when you come in straight ahead is the bedroom. And then if you hook a left, you come into the bathroom. Honestly, like, my favorite room. So we have this huge mirror, this came with the apartment.  Amazing for selfies. I take so many here.  And then I just like to keep my, my double cleanse steps out here. So I've been using this. Oh, McWatt take cleanser, which I really like. And then this used to the people cleansing balm. Don't like it that much, but, you know, I bought it. And it's there. So that's that one of my favorite, favorite, favorite things about this bathroom is this like little built in shower caddy. So I was able to actually get rid of my shower caddy. And we have a three shower head situation here. So we have like the regular shower top. And then we have this spray thing, which is really nice. Um, oh, and then we just have the tub. It's not, it's not three. I was really excited. But the tub is like really nice and deep too, which I also love. So I take a lot of baths in here. Um, toilet, I mean, toilet is a toilet, not much to see there. But then we have this really nice kind of storage unit behind the door, which is nice. So it's like really hidden. And like, honestly, when it's closed, it takes up like no space. I literally lived here for two months before I even knew that this was here.  I love this so much. Like you can see here I have an empty version of it. I've already brought a new one. Um, and then just like some nail stuff, some nail polish down here. Here I've been keeping a lot of my skincare empties because I want to make a video about it. But one day at a time, I really, really, really, really, really love this. But that is a different video for a different day. Um, otherwise, any questions about the bathroom? Honestly, my favorite room of the place. Oh, and I got the shower candy thing. So when I do take baths, I can just put this here, you know, you get the idea. And it matches like this, like perfectly. It's just, uh, so great. So great. Um, let me see. I think that's really it for the bathroom. I honestly don't think I'm going to do much to this space, except maybe put like a poster or something here. But otherwise, I think it's good. Like I have enough storage. Oh, so here I just keep like some makeup stuff, some hair stuff. And down here is like most of my hair stuff.  I really keep all of my like little scrunchies in here. Some purple patches, some vagina stuff. But yeah, like it has enough storage. I don't think I even like anything else in here. It's perfect. And then this is the kitchen. So we have these really beautiful like matte black cabinets, which I love. I just keep some cat stuff in there. And then we have these down here. I keep my toaster down here, some extra candles, um, miscellaneous things like nation jars and stuff. I also keep my handheld Dyson down here. And then I keep my big Dyson and the entryway closet that we saw earlier. Nice deep sink, which I also love so much. Um, and then this is probably my favorite part. So we have like a hidden, uh, refrigerator situation, which is really nice. And then also like a hidden freezer situation that I love. Hidden dishwasher, like, uh, it does not get much better than this. And then obviously under the sink, I just keep more cleaning stuff, extra like paper bags, like, you know, shopping bags, whatever. Here, I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with the space, but I typically keep just like teas, um, dish towels and like baking stuff in here.  And this is where I usually keep all my pots and pans. Oven. It's really nice. It's like, um, oh wow, it looks so weird on the camera. Um, it's just a regular oven. Like you choose if you want whatever function here. And then that's where you choose the temperature. And then I just have a electric stove. I prefer gas, but you know, you can't have everything. And then I recently made some zucchini bread, so it's just sitting there. Um, and then my latest and greatest purchase for the kitchen is this island. I think I might want to move it a little bit more into the kitchen, but right now it acts as like a barrier between like my kitchen and the rest of my space. Just have some of these little plants. My mom got me this, um, not the plant, but she got me the pot. Um, I got this from Ikea, have some sage here, more notebooks, some books because I'm always reading and writing stuff. And then this came from Ikea when I bought this thing overall. I have my bag up there just because I was cleaning and it was in the way. Um, and then I also bought these cute little like hanging planters from Ikea that I do want to like at some point hang somewhere. Just don't know what yet. Okay. So we are just about at the end of the tour.  Um, but I really like I'll actually make a quick review over here.  Okay. That's a little better. Um, so we're almost at the end of the tour. Really what's left is just like my kind of living room space, but my absolute favorite part of this apartment are the floor to ceiling windows.  Look at that. It's amazing. Um, and then I also have one over here. So the views honestly are the best part of the apartment. So let me flip you over here. You can see the train station. It's like right there. I wish there was a train going by, but whatever. So I have this really nice window here floor to ceiling. Um, here's kind of just where I keep my kitty stuff, but here's kind of like an overview of what my living room situation is looking like. Again, this apartment is super spacious, especially for a New York apartment. Um, right now I just have my TV on the floor. One day I will get it mounted, but I actually want to get a smaller couch. So this is what my couch situation is looking like. I want to get a smaller couch and actually put it where the TV is right now. But for now, I just have this couch, this little side table that I got from a West Amself sample sale. This couch is also West Elm, but I got it off of like Facebook marketplace for $500. So such a steal. Here's my like array of plants. Um, that one day I will have and some planters one day. Uh, but right now they're kind of just hanging out and chilling. Here's the view. You can almost, almost, almost see the Empire State Building. Just not quite. It's a little too cloudy, but, um, I overlooked the BQE, which is super nice and super convenient for like Ubering and stuff. I'm like right off the highway. Um, but overall, yeah, this is my apartment. I really love it. Hey guys. So as promised, since you made it to the video, I will be sharing exactly how much I pay and rent. So right now I pay 230, wait, $2,362 a month. That did so much. I still pay an arm and a leg, even though it's rent controlled. It's so much money a month to pay and rent, but it's all good. I really love my apartment. As you can see, like the floor is ceiling windows, the hidden appliances, the beautiful spacious bathroom, and just like all the views totally make it worth it to me. Um, market rate, like other one bedrooms in this building go for like 3,300 a month. Sometimes even 4,000 a month. I haven't seen my exact kind of floor plan and layout listed, but comparable buildings are definitely like 4,000 a month. And in this building in particular, when I did see other one bedrooms, they were listed for 3,300 a month. So same with 1,000 a month, you know, love it, love to see it. Um, yeah, but that is really everything on my end. I am going to be doing some kind of DIY decorating projects, decorating projects in my apartment. So if you want to kind of stay tuned for the evolution of my apartment, make sure you subscribe. I think the first project I'm going to do is the collage wall. I want to do in the hallway between the bathroom and like my bedroom. So stay tuned for that video. But otherwise, thank you so much for watching. My name is Nika, phone me on Instagram, on Twitter, you know, all the different socials. And I will see you guys in my next video. Thank you!


Hey, this is Doug from We Are Open Corp, and this is a recap of Workshop 1 as part of community conversations, and this one was all about creating value in your community. If you'd like these slides, then you can access them at bit.ly forward slash value dash cycles. In the workshop, we introduced ourselves, three of us from We Are Open Corp and three from Participate went through the agenda and went through the objectives. Understanding different types of value that community members can bring to a community of practice, imagining context-specific scenarios, and recognizing and applying created value. Along the way, people got to ask questions. What is a community of practice? Well, it's a group of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly. This comes from Etienne Wrenger's work, and this is summarized on Wikipedia. One example that we're going to use in this workshop recap is from the open recognition is for everybody community, and you can access this most easily through badges.community. Here it is on the Participate platform, and this is the example that we'll use. When it comes to value cycles, what we're talking about are five different ways in which you can engage users and create value within the community. This comes from some work done in 2001, which built on some work from 1994. Now, the diagram that's used in that original text is awful-looking, but actually quite useful. It shows how all the different value cycles work together. For example, cycle one, there's about immediate value and there's potential value, etc. But we got our wonderful wizard, Brian Mothers, to think about different ways in which we could represent that. One would be like an Escher, never-ending series of stairs. Another one might be like a series of tropical islands that you can hop between, but the one that we've settled on is a series of gears or cogs, and you can put these together in new and interesting ways. If we look at the different cycles, cycle one is about immediate value, so what happened and what was my experience of it? Whereas cycle two is about potential value, creating resources, like what gets produced as a result of the activity. Third, we try and apply that value to a particular context and that's all about the practice. So different types of practice might be presentations or courses or meetings or whatever. Cycle four is about return on investment so we start measuring stuff so we know how much things have changed, etc. And we quantify feedback. And then cycle five is about reframing value. So looking at things in new and interesting ways based on the value created in the community. So if we think about this and through the lens of badges, then there's different ways in which we can create that value and recognize it and value it as well, value the value. So the first way in cycle one, this is all about immediate value. The ways in which you might notice that in your community is that you might discover something new that you care about or be pushed outside your comfort zone. And you might see that through new discussion threads or people participating in community events. They're moving on to potential value. This is all about kind of resources. So people might have new ways of looking at the situation or they might have started reconsidering their assumptions or some people joining together to create documents. And you might see that through interviews or some things that people create or people self-reporting stuff in forums. Cycle three is about applied value. So this is about repurposing documents that might be created of comms license stuff or lesson plans or whatever. People making better cases for the thing that the community cares about and gaining in confidence. And you might see that through again self-reports and feedback, but also just innovation that you see within the community. Two more cycles. Cycle four is about return on investment. So like realized value and performance improvement. So you might see this through individual successes or the increase in reputation and recognition or a critical problem being solved. And you kind of could look for data sources for that. Again, around feedback, around an evaluation of a project that's running within the community or any kind of scorecard which shows numbers going up. And then finally in terms of reframing value, this is about reshaping what is considered success within the community. So you might see this through different relationships of stakeholders, changes within institutions that have members who are part of the community, different frameworks. And you might see data on this through new stakeholders getting involved, different relationships with existing stakeholders or people changing their strategic plans and priorities. So in terms of applying this to our community, in terms of open recognitions for everybody, you can see the immediate value, for example with people introducing themselves to the community. And you can get badges for that. So open badges are ways in which you can showcase recognition within a particular environment. We've got lots of different kinds of badges for different kinds of cycles. So immediate value and applied value, et cetera. So the idea is that you recognize the value that's been created within the community. In this case, it's productive community calls and in-person events leading to strength and relationships and documentation that being packaged up in a way that's easy to understand for people who are new to the community. And then we survey people at the end of the year so that they can get insights into their wider practice. So all of that fits together in badged ways and also in non-badged ways as well. You can see the bottom five out of five there for one of these community calls, thinking that actually we're at the inflection point here. So recognition and reflection as well. Thinking about what you could do as a result of this recap, you could go and have a look at the participate platform tinyurl.com forward slash y94kaa7x and you could get a badge for describing your own value creation story and it takes you through it in a structured way. So if you're interested in this, please do have a look at these slides, get in touch with us and also we'll meet you on the participate platform as well. Cheers for now.