On Tuesday, April 14, 2015, Wells College will host Sandra Steingraber for a talk titled “The Whole Fracking Enchilada”. This special event will take place at 7:00PM in the Phipps Auditorium in Macmillan Hall on the Wells College campus in Aurora NY.
This event is free and open to the public, but due to limited seating, this is an advance ticketed event. Please request tickets in advance by contacting the Center for Sustainability and the Environment at 315-364-3304 or by emailing mbrown@wells.edu.
Ecologist, activist, and author, Dr. Sandra Steingraber explores the links between human rights and the environment, with a focus on chemical contamination, climate change, and shale gas extraction via fracking. Hailed as “the new Rachel Carson”, she takes a personal and scientific look at these issues, offering insights into how we can protect our environment and our communities.
Steingraber’s highly acclaimed book, Living Downstream: An Ecologist’s Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment was the first to bring together data on toxic releases with data from U.S. cancer registries and was adapted for the screen in 2010. As both book and documentary film, Living Downstream has won praise from international media. Continuing the investigation begun in Living Downstream, Steingraber’s books, Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood and Raising Elijah: Protecting Our Children in an Age of Environmental Crisis, explore the intimate ecology of pregnancy and reveal the ways which environmental hazards now threaten each stage of infant and child development.
Called “a poet with a knife” by Sojourner magazine, Steingraber has received many honors for her work as a science writer, including, in 2011, a Heinz Award. By donating the cash prize to the anti-fracking movement, she became, in 2012, the co-founder of New Yorkers Against Fracking, a statewide coalition of more than 280 grassroots organizations. Steingraber has been named a Woman of the Year by Ms. Magazine, a Person of the Year by Treehugger, and one of 25 “Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World” by the Utne Reader. She is the recipient of the biennial Rachel Carson Leadership Award and the Jenifer Altman Foundation’s Altman Award for “the inspiring and poetic use of science to elucidate the causes of cancer.” Steingraber received a Hero Award from the Breast Cancer Fund and the Environmental Health Champion Award from Physicians for Social Responsibility, Los Angeles.
This special event is co-sponsored by the Wells College Visiting Writers Series and the Sustainability Speaker Series, a project of the Center for Sustainability and the Environment at Wells College.
Wells is committed to providing access to all events; anyone needing assistance should contact Marian Brown, Center for Sustainability and the Environment, at 315-364-3304 or by e-mail at mbrown@wells.edu, as soon as possible.