by Sandra Steingraber. Introduction by Charlotte Brody, Director of Chemicals, Public Health and Green Chemistry at the BlueGreen Alliance
This award-winning author, biologist and specialist on environmental health will explore the threats to climate and public health from extreme energy extraction including hydraulic fracturing (fracking). From strip-mining of frack sand in Wisconsin which releases carcinogenic silica dust into the air — to the deep-well injection of fracking waste in Ohio which has been linked to earthquakes — these new methods of blasting hydrocarbons from the earth are shock-and-awe operations. Of particular interest in this talk are the living organisms that inhabit Earth’s deep geological strata. Far from being inert, our nation’s bedrock is an underground “coral reef” of microbes, another invisible ecosystem that’s linked in ways not yet fully understood to life here on the sunlit surface of our planet. Sandra Steingraber is a Ph.D. biologist, author and 2011 recipient of the Heinz Award for her research and writing on environmental health. She donated the $100,000 cash prize to the fight against hydraulic fracturing, convening the grassroots coalition New Yorkers Against Fracking. In 2010, her book Living Downstream on the environmental links to cancer was released as a documentary film. Her most recent book is Raising Elijah: Protecting Children in an Age of Environmental Crisis.
Restoration Nation Theater | 9:20am, Sun
