Information Finding Championship - Season 1 : Round 12 entry

I thought it was quite interesting that round 12 of the IFC happened to have a related theme to the Jeopardy contest sponsored by earthnation, at least in the sense that they are both related to the environment and how it is connected to humanity.

Anyway, back to the contest... although I am not really the artistic type, I did realize that the miniature origami cranes that i create are very much linked to water, and perhaps I can make some attempt to link the symbolism of water in my work to the them of how we make people more conscious about preserving this precious resource, so here it goes...

You might have the photograph of these miniature origami cranes that I have made in the past:

And also here:

Often it is difficult to tell people about the scale of these miniature origami models, so one of the simple ways I like to do this is to use a drop of water for size comparison. Of course, it isn't quite like looking at it in real life, but it gives you a pretty good idea.

Ironically, when I prepare the flower petals to make the origami models, the first process is to remove the excess moisture from the petals so you can fold the creases. It is a delicate balance of not removing too much moisture so that the petal becomes brittle and tear easily, or leaving too much moisture that the petal becomes too soft and doesn't hold its shape.

So when I am forced to see things on a very small scale and understand the delicate balance required to make things work properly, the idea that there also exists a much larger system that controls how water is distributed, and that its impact on humanity is then multiplied many times over becomes more obvious to me.

So how can we help restore balance to the equation so we don't ruin things for future generations?

I think as with any change that you want to affect, the best way is to start small and look at the finer details. Most of the time when we are trying to restore the balance, it is often surprising how much people take out of the system to start with. The same problems plague the society in terms of wealth distribution (think about how many charities wouldn't need to exist if there are less greedy corporations and individuals taking much more than they need).

When Australia went through a period of drought many local councils enforced strict bans on water use to try and reduce excessive or needless consumption (backyard waterslides used to be very popular in the hot and humid summers), and when the drought broke some places removed the restrictions while others kept them. I think it is safe to say that places that kept the restrictions managed to figure out exactly how much was necessary and required to keep things running smoothly, but places that lifted the restrictions went back to their care free ways of using water because the pain of two minute showers and not being able to keep their lawns green was too much to bear.

But if I ever forget just how precious and remarkable water is, and just how delicate the balance of nature is, I always have these images to remind me!