Past Conferences

Discarded: Unmasking & Understanding the Waste Stream
2021 Lear-Conant Symposium
Presented by the Goodwin-Niering Center for the Environment at Connecticut College

Our full day, virtual symposium hosted experts from across the country as they explored the diverse and often unanticipated ways that human-generated wastes impacts local and global ecosystems, as well as human communities. It probed the scale and forms of capitalism’s indelible contributions to the stratigraphic markers of a still-to-be-defined Anthropocene. Drawing from recent research in the natural and social sciences as well as the arts and humanities, it examined the structures, human impacts, ecological outcomes, and long-term implications of waste and discard in the twenty-first century.

A full day of talks, interactive online engagement, and the live streamed waste interactive, Purged Possessions was live streamed around the world.

This symposium was FREE and open to all, thanks to our generous sponsors: The Lear-Conant Symposium, Beaver Brook Endowed Fund, Jean Thomas Lambert Endowed Lecture Fund, Co-sponsored by the Connecticut College Office of Sustainability, the Environmental Studies Program, the Ammerman Center for Arts and Technology, and the Anthropology Department.

Schedule of Events

9:00 - 9:20 A.M.
WELCOME & REMEMBRANCES
Honoring Elizabeth Babbott (“Babs”) Conant ‘51 & Helen Fricke Mathieson ‘52
Derek Turner, Karla Heurich Harrison ‘28 Director of the Goodwin-Niering Center
With President Katherine Bergeron

9:20 – 10:20 A.M.
The Collective Unseen & the Potential of Visibility
Linda Lear Environmental Lecture
Robin Nagle, NYU School for Liberal Studies, and New York City Department of Sanitation
Introduction by Morgan Maccione, GNCE scholar Class of ‘21

10:20 – 10:30 A.M.
BREAK 

10:30 - 11:30 A.M.
Waste, Reuse, and Industrial Symbiosis: Closing Material Loops
Jean Thomas Lambert Environmental Lecture
Marian Chertow, Yale School of the Environment, and Yale School of Management
Introduction by Caty Fortin, GNCE scholar Class of ‘21

11:30 – 12:30 P.M.
Waste Dreams: Building Creative Engagement at the Dump
Linda Lear Environmental Lecture
Billy Dufala, Recycled Artist in Residency (RAIR)
Introduction by Milo Becker, GNCE Scholar Class of '22 

12:30 – 1:20 P.M
LUNCH 

1:20 - 2:15 P.M.
On-Site Interactive with the Purged Possessions Project @Conn
Billy Dufala, Recycled Artist in Residency (RAIR)
Anthony Graesch, GNCE Senior Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor of Anthropology

2:15 - 2:30 P.M.
BREAK 

2:30 - 3:30 P.M.
Waste Colonialism
Beaver Brook Lecture
Max Liboiron, Memorial University, Canada, and the Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR)
Introduction by Tess Beardell, GNCE Scholar Class of '21

3:30 - 4:30 P.M.
The Fungibility of Carbon Waste: Plastics, Organics & Thermal/Biological Treatments
Jean thomas Lambert Environmental Lecture
Samantha MacBride, New York City Department of Environmental Protection, and Baruch College
Introduction by Ella Rumpf, GNCE Scholar, Class of '21

4:30 - 4:45 P.M.
BREAK 

4:45 - 5:45 P.M.
CLOSING PANEL DISCUSSION WITH Q & A
Moderated by Anthony Graesch, GNCE Senior Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor of Anthropology

Speaker Bios

Billy Blaise Dufala
Director of Residencies and Cofounder of RAIR (Recycled Artist in Residency)

Marian Chertow
Associate Professor of Industrial Environmental Management and Director of the Industrial Environmental Management Program, Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies
Marian Chertow’s research and teaching focus on industrial ecology, waste management, business/environment issues, circular economy, and urban sustainability. Her research has championed the study of industrial symbiosis involving geographically based exchanges of materials, energy, water and wastes within networks of businesses globally. She has conducted many studies of industrial ecology in China and India, as a means of assessing environmental benefits alongside economic ones. In 2019 she received the highest recognition of the International Society for Industrial Ecology, its Society Prize, for her “outstanding contributions to the field.”

Prior to Yale, Professor Chertow spent ten years in environmental business and state and local government including service as president of a bonding authority that built a billion dollars worth of waste infrastructure. She is a frequent international lecturer, serves as an Advisor to the Center for Energy Efficiency and Sustainability at Trane Technologies, Inc.

Max Liboiron
Associate Professor of Geography and Director of Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR), Memorial University of Newfoundland

Robin Nagle
Clinical Professor of Anthropology, NYU School for Liberal Studies, and Anthropologist-In-Residence, New York City Department of Sanitation
Robin Nagle, anthropologist-in-residence for New York City’s Department of Sanitation, teaches anthropology and environmental studies at NYU, where she is a clinical professor in Liberal Studies.

Samantha MacBride
Section Chief, Research and Optimization, Bureau of Wastewater Treatment, New York City Department of Environmental Protection, and Assistant Professor of Public Affairs, Baruch College

Fueled by grassroots activism, pledging to meet strict greenhouse gas mitigation targets and/or fulfill the promises of Paris Agreements, there is a rally cry being echoed across the globe and in our local neighborhoods - vigorously proclaiming that “we are still in!”

State & local governments, businesses & corporations, colleges & universities - all stepping up to the plate, resulting in dynamic climate action from below. But how significant are the mitigation efforts that are being implemented? Does the momentum of the movement allow for a glimmer of optimism in a historically grim outlook?

Our day long symposium will examine the evolving trend & ask the complex questions that surround this progressive movement.

Saturday, March 2, 2019
Climate Action from Below: A Cause for Optimism?
Lear-Conant Symposium
9:00 A.M. – 5:45 P.M.
Ernst Common Room
Blaustein Humanities Center at Connecticut College

9:00 – 9:30 A.M.
Symposium Check-In & Continental Breakfast

9:30 A.M.
WELCOME & INTRODUCTIONS

9:40 – 10:40 A.M.
Linda Lear Environmental Keynote Lecture
Can We Get There From Here? Climate Governance Experiments, Decarbonization, and Justice
Matthew Hoffmann, Professor of Political Science, University of Toronto

10:40 – 11:00 A.M.
Coffee Break

11:00 A.M. - NOON
Jean Thomas Lambert Environmental Lecture
Cities on the World Stage: Between Promise, Possibility and Peril
David Gordon, Assistant Professor of Politics, University of California Santa Cruz

12:15 – 1:30 P.M.
Lunch
1941 Room, College Center at Crozier-Williams

1:30 – 2:30 P.M.
Marjorie Dilley Endowed Lecture
The American Carbon Pricing Odyssey: Past, Present, and Future
Barry Rabe, Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Center for Local State and Urban Policy (CLOSUP) University of Michigan Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy

2:30 - 2:45 P.M.
Afternoon Break

2:45 - 3:45
Frederick Henry Sykes Memorial Lecture
Hope and Activism
Lisa Kretz, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Evansville

4:00 - 4:45 P.M.
Closing Panel Discussion with Q & A 

5:00 P.M.
Reception
First Floor Rotunda, Blaustein Humanities Center

David Gordon
David Gordon has a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Toronto and was a Social Sciences and Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Ottawa prior to joining the faculty at University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC). His research interests include global environmental politics, international relations theory, and urban studies and focus generally on understanding of how power, authority, and agency are being reconfigured as myriad new actors engage in the governance of a host of complex global issues. In particular, his work cuts into these questions by looking at the role of cities in world politics and the manner in which they participate in the global governance of climate change. He has a book forthcoming on this topic for Cambridge University Press titled Cities on the World Stage: Producing Global Urban Climate Governance and his work has been published in a number of venues, including Environmental Politics, Nature Climate Change, Global Environmental Politics, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews, and Current Opinion in Urban Sustainability.

Recent Publications:
*2018. Urban Transformative Potential in a Changing Climate. Nature Climate Change
*2018. Global Urban Climate Governance in Three and a Half Parts WIREs Climate Change
*2018. City-Networks, Global Climate Governance, and the Road to 1.5C Current Opinion in Sustainability Research

Matthew Hoffman
Matthew Hoffman is Co-Director of the Environmental Governance Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. Professor Hoffmann has a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Engineering from Michigan Technological University and a Ph.D. in International Relations from the George Washington University.  His research and teaching interests include global governance, climate change politics, complexity theory, and international relations theory. In addition to a number of articles and book chapters on climate politics, carbon markets, and global governance, he is the author of Climate Governance at the Crossroads: Experimenting with a Global Response after Kyoto (Oxford University Press 2011), Ozone Depletion and Climate Change: Constructing a Global Response (SUNY Press 2005) and co-editor with Alice Ba of Contending Perspectives on Global Governance (Routledge 2005). He also is a co-author on a collaborative book Transnational Climate Change Governance (Cambridge University Press 2014). His current research project, funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council, is on conceptualizing policy pathways to decarbonization.

Lisa Kretz
Lisa Kretz directs the Ethics Program at the University of Evansville, which houses the Ethics and Social Change major. Kretz's recent and forthcoming publications are at the intersection of areas such as: the theory-action gap, motivational framing for action, ecological emotions (with a special emphasis on hope), moral psychology, the politics of emotion, and activist pedagogy. Kretz also has a number of publications that identify and argue against the immoral treatment of non-human animals. Kretz's work can be found in journals such as the Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, Ethics & the Environment, the Journal for Critical Animal Studies, and Environmental Ethics: An Interdisciplinary Journal Dedicated to the Philosophical Aspects of Environmental Problems.

Barry Rabe
Barry Rabe is the J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Professor of Public Policy and the Director of the Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy (CLOSUP) at the Ford School. He is also the Arthur Thurnau Professor of Environmental Policy and holds courtesy appointments in the Program in the Environment, the Department of Political Science, and the School for Environment and Sustainability. Rabe was recently a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and continues to serve as a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. His research examines climate and energy politics. His newest book, Can We Price Carbon? (MIT Press) was released in spring 2018. He has received four awards for his research from the American Political Science Association, including the 2017 Martha Derthick Award for long-standing impact in the fields of federalism and intergovernmental relations. Rabe co-chaired the Assumable Waters Committee of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from 2015-2017 and has served on recent National Academy of Public Administration panels examining the Departments of Commerce and Interior as well as the Oklahoma Corporation.

Cities on the World Stage: Between Promise, Possibility and Peril

Emerging from the shadows of underwhelming state-led efforts to develop a meaningful response to the challenge of climate change, cities have stepped onto the world stage and established themselves as sources of hope and optimism. Mobilized by a potent combination of imperatives, incentives, and ideals, cities have come to claim the role of global leadership, most clearly illustrated in the coordinated efforts of networks like the C40 Climate Leadership Group, ICLEI, and the Global Covenant of Mayors. Collectively, cities offer the enticing possibility of sidestepping political barriers, disrupting the status quo, and opening up the possibility of carbon neutrality and climate resilience. At the same time, the path from promise to performance is full of peril and cities will need to navigate a difficult course between global expectations and local demands. In this talk I set out what cities have accomplished thus far, how they’ve managed to do so, and what challenges they will need to confront if they are to fulfill their promise as global climate governors.
David Gordon
Assistant Professor of Politics, University of California Santa Cruz

Can We Get There From Here?

Climate Governance Experiments, Decarbonization, and Justice
The challenge humanity faces is clear. We need to imagine and work toward low carbon societies very quickly. Thus far, the traditional means for pursuing large scale social and economic change—national lawmaking and international treaty-making—have largely failed or are moving too slowly. Fortunately, a wide array of climate initiatives has emerged into this vacuum, including experimental action by cities and states/provinces, corporations, and civil society. While this experimentation provides hope that humanity can generate the necessary momentum to catalyze decarbonization, the ultimate effectiveness of it remains an open question. In this presentation I will discuss the opportunities and challenges that climate governance experiments provide for catalyzing decarbonization on a broad scale and I will highlight the role that social justice and equity concerns can and must play in these experiments if they are to contribute to achieving a low carbon future.
Matthew Hoffman
Professor of Political Science, University of Toronto

Hope and Activism

Is hope for improved responsible action regarding climate change merited by climate change activism? Prior to answering this question, I propose a working concept of hope. My account is based on an approach derived from positive psychology in which, rather than looking for understanding of hopefulness through studying those who are lacking it, one explores patterns to be found among hopeful persons. The concept of hope I advance distinguishes hope from optimism and roots hope in world-mapping justified belief in the possibility of achieving the hoped-for goal. Thus, hope for improved responsible action regarding climate change is merited only if the articulated goal is, on a reasonable analysis, achievable. I will complicate the account by introducing the theory-action gap, which highlights how notoriously bad humans are at having their actions align with their rational beliefs. This presents a conundrum in that even if humans accept that climate change is one of the largest threats to life on Earth, it does not mean they will act in ways that reflect this belief. Despite such challenges I argue that it is reasonable to have hope regarding improved responsible action relative to climate change because a) such a view is justified by the variety and intensity of climate change activism occurring the world over and b) the fact that the activism exists provides direct evidence of theory-action bridging regarding climate change action. Paralleling the approach positive psychology recommends, we can gain understanding about how to build capacity by taking our cue from effective and resilient activists.
Lisa Kretz
Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Evansville

The American Carbon Pricing Odyssey:  Past, Present, and Future

Carbon pricing in the form of either cap-and-trade or carbon taxation has been on the political agenda in Washington, DC and many states for nearly two decades.   But this climate policy option that is widely endorsed by ideologically diverse economists has struggled in the political arena, reflected in rejection of numerous proposals and reversals in 13 of 23 states that adopted cap-and-trade between 2004 and 2008.   However, there remain important carbon pricing cases operational at the state and regional levels and it is possible to envision new movement on carbon pricing during state legislative sessions during 2019-2020 and beyond.  Rabe's talk will review the past history of carbon pricing in the U.S. and internationally and explore why it has proven so politically challenging.  It will also highlight lessons from more successful and enduring cases, as well as identify leading cases whereby carbon pricing might become politically feasible in the near term.  This discussion will expand beyond traditional forms of carbon pricing to examine production taxes on the extraction of fossil fuels and their possible extension to address methane flaring in various states.
Barry Rabe
Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Center for Local State and Urban Policy (CLOSUP) University of Michigan Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy

The Goodwin-Niering Center for the Environment sponsors biennial conferences focusing on various environmental topics. Experts from academia, government, industry and non-governmental environmental organizations are brought together for an in-depth, interdisciplinary evaluation of the issues. Symposia are open to all students as well as the general public.

This exciting event is FREE and open to the public, but pre-registration is required. Members of the public may register via Facebook (please click "Going" on the event page), or call our offices at 860-439-5417. 

25th Lear-Conant Symposium
February 25, 2017

What can we do to sustain the pollinators that sustain us?
Integral to both our food systems and natural ecosystems, the dramatic decline of our insect pollinators is cause for grave concern. 

Our symposium will explore:

• Threats to pollinators, including: pesticides, colony collapse disorder, habitat loss & climate change

• The value of pollinators, both to human agriculture & natural systems

• Policy measures and small steps that ordinary citizens can take to counteract the pollinator decline

Sustaining Pollinators

2017 Lear-Conant Symposium 
February 25, 2017
Schedule of Events

The Goodwin-Niering Center for the Environment's Lear-Conant Symposium will bring together an all-star lineup with a mix of voices to explore what we can each do to sustain the pollinators that sustain us. 

The symposium is designed not only to educate, but also to inspire. Check out the stellar line-up below and if you’re a member of the general public, be sure to reserve your spot by registering here, or call 860-439-5417

Sam Droege
Sam grew up in Hyattsville, Maryland, received an undergraduate degree at the University of Maryland and a master's degree at the State University of New York – Syracuse.  Most of his career has been spent at the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center.  He has coordinated the North American Breeding Bird Survey Program, developed the North American Amphibian Monitoring Program, the Bioblitz, Cricket Crawl, and FrogwatchUSA programs and worked on the design and evaluation of monitoring programs.  Currently he is developing an inventory and monitoring program for native bees, online identification guides for North American bees at www.discoverlife.org, and with Eric Ross reviving the North American Bird Phenology Program. Sam Droege profile.

Dr. Alexandra Harmon-Threatt
Dr. Alexandra Harmon-Threatt profile.
Dr. Harmon Threatt completed her Bachelor of Science in Environmental Studies degree at Washington University in St. Louis and then continued on to the University of California Berkeley to do her Ph.D. in Environmental Science Policy and Management under Dr. Claire Kremen. Dr. Harmon-Threatt is a pollination ecologist with broad interests in understanding the patterns and processes that govern plant-pollinator interactions for conservation. She is currently an assistant professor of entomology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. With her students she focuses on identifying and understanding patterns in natural environments to help conserve and restore pollinator diversity. With a particular focus on bees, she investigates how plant diversity, fire, grazing and fragmentation affect bee diversity in local communities.

Simon Potts
Simon is also Director of the Centre of Agri-Environmental Research and Deputy Director of the Centre for Food Security. Over the past 30 years, he has worked with researchers, farmers, policymakers and NGO’s on pollinator conservation and the management of pollination services in Europe, Africa, Asia and North and South America. He has written more than 150 peer-reviewed articles, which have been published in journals such as Nature, Science, Ecology Letters, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Proceedings of the Royal Society. For the last 2 years, Simon has worked for the United Nations to co-chair an expert group of 100 scientists to produce the first global assessment of “Pollinators, Pollination and Food Production” for the Intergovernmental science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). He is an advisor to the UK government, European Union, Convention on Biological Diversity, and United Nations on evidence-based policy related to pollinators. When not working on in his pollinator “hobby,” Simon enjoys time with his family canoeing, kiting and running huskies.

Rachael Winfree
Rachael Winfree profile.
Rachael's research interests include how pollinators and the pollination services they provide are affected by global change, the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem services, plant-pollinator networks, and pollinator conservation and restoration. Her work has been funded primarily by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA-AFRI), and has been published in leading scientific journals including PNAS, Science, Ecology Letters, Ecology, and Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Rachael’s research has also been featured in the popular media including Nature, Audubon magazine, National Wildlife magazine, Science News, The Scientist, and National Public Radio (NPR). Rachael received her Ph.D. in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from Princeton University in 2001 and her bachelor of arts degree from Dartmouth College in 1990.

March 27 and 28, 2015

How well are we equipped to deal with current and impending global and local food challenges? How will we possibly feed the large population of the future?

The Goodwin-Niering Center for the Environment's biennial Elizabeth Babbott Conant Interdisciplinary Conference on the Environment brought together a mix of voices to inspire people to think creatively about the food system of the future.

With an all-star line-up of chefs, sustainable and urban farmers, food activists, scholars, and social entrepreneurs, we, in three unique sessions, explored the problems of the present food system, probed the lessons of the past, and gained inspiration from cutting edge food technologies. By taking an honest look at ourselves and our choices, our hope was to meld these lessons to envision a truly sustainable future of food.

The evening culminated with an exciting add-on reception*, “A Taste of Long Island Sound: Aquaculture, Alcohol and Beyond,” featuring a special tasting and talk on the future of sustainable local food by Chef Bun Lai of Miya’s Sushi in New Haven, Conn. This event pleased both our palates and sustainable sensibilities!

There were abundant opportunities for attendees to network over theme-based coffee breaks and a schmooze lunch. Sustainable farmers, activists, and practitioners joined us in conversation, sharing their real life experiences in an informal setting. The conference was designed not only to educate, but also to inspire – participants enjoyed good food and conversation along the way.

View additional event photographs on Facebook and share them with your friends.

Follow us on Twitter and join the ongoing food conversation using hashtag #CCFeedingtheFuture.

Below is a complete schedule of conference events.
Were you there? Let us know your thoughts on the conference and how you feel we can be successful in feeding the future.

Friday, March 27

2:30 p.m. 

Jobs Forum: Is there a future for you in sustainable food?
Olin Hall 014
This is a student-focused event, no registration needed.

Panelists: David Barber, Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture; Allison Hooper, Vermont Creamery; Johanna Kolodny, Food Systems Consulting LLC and Baldor Foods; Bun Lai, Miya’s Sushi; Jiff Martin, University of Connecticut Sustainable Agriculture Initiative; and John Turenne, President, Sustainable Food Systems

7:30-9 p.m.

Patricia Reinfeld Kolodny'68 Keynote Lecture - Beyond Farm to Table: The Future of Food
Evans Hall, Cummings Art Center

Dan Barber, Co-owner and Executive Chef of Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns, and author of The Third Plate
This lecture is free and open to the public.
Book signing at 7:00 p.m.

Saturday March 28

7:30 a.m.
Registration & Continental Breakfast: Food of the Present
Evans Hall, Cummings Art Center

8:30 a.m.
Session I: Present As Future - Challenges Facing Our Present Food System & Hopeful Current Trends
Evans Hall, Cummings Art Center

Welcome & Introductions

Opening Keynote Frederick Henry Sykes Memorial Lecture
Soil Security: A Case for Global Soil Restoration
David Montgomery, Professor of Earth & Space Sciences at the University of Washington and author of Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations

Saul Reinfeld Lecture
Challenges of the Current Food System & Promising Innovations Already Underway
Danielle Nierenberg, President of Food Tank and author of Happier Meals: Rethinking the Global Meat Industry

Coffee Break: The "Paleo-Diet"?

10:30 a.m.
Session II: Past as Future - Can We Draw on Lessons of the Past to Fix the U.S. and Global Food System?
Evans Hall, Cummings Art Center

Frederick Henry Sykes Memorial Lecture
Food, Diet and Our Evolutionary Past
Marlene Zuk, Professor of Evolutionary Biology & Behavioral Ecology at the University of Minnesota, author of Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us About Sex, Diet, and How We Live.

The Calorie: A Theory of Everything
Augustine Sedgwick, Andrew W. Mellon Post-doctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto

Noon-1:30 p.m.
Lunch: Food & Schmooze
1962 Room, College Center at Crozier-Williams
A gathering of local sustainable food producers, urban farmers, foragers, food security organizations, Connecticut College organic gardeners & Office of Sustainability Fellows

2 p.m.
Session III: The Future Future - Promising Trends and Future Directions for Our Local & Global Food System
Evans Hall, Cummings Art Center

Food System Change in Profit/Non-for-Profit Partnerships
David Barber, Founder of Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, & Jill Isenbarger, Executive Director of Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture

Jean Thomas Lambert Environmental Lecture
Food, Race and Justice
Malik Yakini, Founder and Executive Director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network and Food and Community Fellow for the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

Coffee Break: High Tech & the New Sustainable Foods

3:45 p.m.
Marjorie Dilley Endowed Lecture
Social Entrepreneurship and Advances in Sustainable Food Tech
Andras Forgacs, Co-Founder and CEO of Modern Meadow

Closing Remarks

Special Add On Event!*

5-7:30 p.m.

Reception, Talk & Tastings

A Taste of Long Island Sound: Aquaculture, Alcohol & Beyond
1962 Room, College Center at Crozier-Williams

Featuring local wines and ales, cheeses, local foods, music & more!

Talk & Tastings: Sushi and Sake that Illuminates Localism & Aquaculture in a Climate Changing World
Hosted by Bun Lai, owner, forager, and chef at Miya's Sushi in New Haven, the evening will include sustainably harvested seafood; both wild and invasive, as well as plant based sushi and locally produced sake.

We're incredibly proud to have hosted this incredible speaker lineup for the 2015 Elizabeth Babbott Conant Interdisciplinary Conference on the Environment!

Dan Barber, executive chef of Blue Hill, a restaurant in Manhattan’s West Village, and Blue Hill at Stone Barns, located within the nonprofit farm and education center, Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture. He is the author of "The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food" (Penguin Press). His opinions on food and agricultural policy have appeared in the New York Times, along with many other publications. Barber has received multiple James Beard Awards including Best Chef: New York City (2006) and the country's Outstanding Chef (2009). In 2009 he was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world.

David Barber, co-owner of Blue Hill a working farm, restaurant, product and consulting company supporting agriculture that positively contributes to the world’s food system. The 138-acre farm in Great Barrington, Mass., has been in the Barber family for three generations. Blue Hill restaurant has locations in Greenwich Village and Pocantico Hills, N.Y., and is a leader in the movement to promote ecologically produced food. David is a founding partner and board member of the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Westchester County, N.Y. The mission of this unique nonprofit is to celebrate, teach and advance community-based food production, from farm to classroom to table. This organization works in association with Blue Hill’s second restaurant located on the grounds of Stone Barns Center. David serves on the Board and Executive Committee of Stone Barns Center and chairs their finance committee. He also serves as a member of the Board of Trustees for Connecticut College, the Jacob Burns Film Center and the Collegiate School in New York City.

Andras Forgacs, co-founder and CEO of Modern Meadow. He is a Kauffman Fellow with the Center for Venture Education and a Term Member with the Council on Foreign Relations. Andras holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts with honors from Harvard University. Previously, Andras Co-Founded Organovo, a leader in tissue engineering which pioneered the use of 3D bio-printing to create human tissue for a range of medical applications. Organovo’s bioprinting technology was recognized by MIT Technology Review on its TR50 list of the most innovative companies for 2012 and named one of the top inventions of 2010 by Time Magazine.

Bun Lai, is a James Beard Nominated Chef, a former director of a non-for-profit that serves low income diabetics, an author who has been published in Scientific American Magazine, and a speaker who has spoken at Harvard School of Public Health, Culinary Institute of America and World Wildlife Fund at National Geographic Society. His restaurant, Miya's, founded by his nutritionist mother over three decades ago in New Haven, is the first sustainable sushi restaurant in the world.

David Montgomery, a MacArthur Fellow and a professor of geomorphology in the Department of Earth & Space Sciences at the University of Washington. He earned his B.S. in geology at Stanford Univeristy (1984) and Ph.D. in geomorphology at UC Berkeley (1991). His research interests involve the effects of geological processes on ecological systems and human societies, and interactions among climate, tectonics, and erosion in shaping topography on Earth and Mars. He has published more than 200 scientific papers, four technical books, and is a three-time winner of the Washington State Book Award, for "The Rocks Don't Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah's Flood," "Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations," and "King of Fish: The Thousand-Year Run of Salmon."

Danielle Nierenberg, president of Food Tank and an expert on sustainable agriculture and food issues. She has written extensively on gender and population, the spread of factory farming in the developing world and innovations in sustainable agriculture. Danielle founded Food Tank in 2013 as an organization focused on building a global community for safe, healthy, nourished eaters. Follow her on Twitter: @Food_Tank, @Dani_Nierenberg.

Augustine Sedgewick was born in Portland, Maine, in 1979 and earned his doctorate at Harvard University in 2011. His research and writing explores the interdependence of ways of life and systems of knowledge in the global history of American capitalism, and has won support from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Harvard University’s Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History. His essays have been published in International Labor and Working-Class History and History of the Present, and he is now writing a book on coffee, energy, work and capitalism that will be published by the Penguin Press.

Malik Yakini, is a founder and the executive director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network (DBCFSN). DBCFSN operates a seven-acre urban farm and is spearheading the opening of a co-op grocery store in Detroit’s North End. Yakini views the “good food revolution” as part of the larger movement for freedom, justice and equality. He has an intense interest in contributing to the development of an international food sovereignty movement that embraces Blacks communities in the Americas, the Caribbean and Africa.

Marlene Zuk, is a biologist and writer. She is a professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior at the University of Minnesota, where her research focuses on animal behavior and evolution, mostly using insects as subjects. Dr. Zuk is interested in the ways that people use animal behavior to think about human behavior, and vice versa, as well as in public understanding of evolution. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on a diversity of topics, including a seminar on “What’s the Alternative to Alternative Medicine?” In addition to publishing numerous scientific articles, Dr. Zuk has written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chronicle for Higher Education, and Natural History magazine. She has published four books for a general audience: "Sexual Selections: What we can and can’t learn about sex from animals;" "Riddled with Life: Friendly Worms, Ladybug Sex, and the Parasites That Make Us Who We Are;" "Sex on Six Legs: Lessons on Life, Love and Language from the Insect World" (a New York Times “Editor’s Choice”); and most recently "Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us About Sex, Diet and the Way We Live."

Conference Registration Included a Saturday Lunch: Food & Schmooze!

Conference guests shared a table and discussion with local sustainable food producers, urban farmers, foragers, food security organizations, Connecticut College organic gardeners & Office of Sustainability Fellows. 

Meet our Food & Schmooze table hosts:

CitySeed
Lisa Holmes, President of the Board
What began in 2004 with four New Haven residents in search of a fresh, local tomato, has grown into a statewide effort to get more local food to more people, promoting community development and sustainable agriculture in Connecticut. CitySeed now operates five neighborhood farmers markets, a mobile market, and a Community Supported Market, among other programs, to celebrate and ensure local food access.

CT FoodCorps
Catherine Hallisey ’13, FoodCorps Service Member
FoodCorps is a nationwide team of AmeriCorps leaders with a mission to educate and connect kids to healthy food in school.

CT NOFA 
Northeast Organic Farming Association of Connecticut is the first and leading grassroots association advocating for organic food, farming, gardening and land care in Connecticut, connecting people in the local sustainable food and land care movements with organic resources and education.

Fishers Island Oyster Farm
Sarah Malinowski ‘14
Fishers Island Oyster Farm practice's suspension culture aquaculture, thus providing the most sustainable source of protein on the planet. They recognize that an extraction economy is not sustainable on land or in our oceans. The are a part of the new narrative of farming; one that puts back what it takes out; stepping up their restoration efforts, and are a 1% for the Planet member. Fishers Island Oyster Farm also supports the New York Harbor School and the Billion Oyster Project.

Four Root Farm
Aaron Taylor, Caitlin Taylor, Rachel Berg and Elise Cusano, Owners & Farmers
Four Root Farm is a small and diverse vegetable farm in East Haddam, Connecticut that is committed to growing nutritious, delicious, and highly unusual produce.

Full Heart Farm
Allyson Angelini, Farmer
Full Heart Farm is a small family farm in Ledyard Connecticut that encourages a return to the family table through meal-based farming

Huntsbrook Farm
Robert Schacht, Farmer & Owner
Robert and Teresa Schact have crafted a medium sized CSA in Quaker Hill, Connecticut, with a robust farmer’s market presence for their high quality goods. HBF’s philosophy is simple: to provide healthy, beautiful food grown in ecologically and socially responsible ways.?

Iskashitaa Refugee Network ?Chloe Sovinee-Dyroff, Harvesting Coordinator

Land For Good
Jim Hafner, Executive Director and Rachel Murray, Connecticut Field Agent
Land For Good is a non-profit working to promote farmland and farmers in the six northeast states to increase farming opportunity, healthy lands, and a more secure food supply.

Massaro Community Farm
Steve Munno, Farm Manager
Massaro Community Farm, Inc. is a nonprofit, certified-organic farm in Woodbridge, Connecticut. They are committed to supporting the legacy of farming, feeding neighbors in need, and building community through events and hands-on education for all ages.

THE New CT Farmer Alliance 
Susan Mitchell, Representative
NCTFA is an affiliate of the National Young Farmers Coalition, and are fiscally sponsored by the Connecticut Farmland Trust. Their affiliations with each of these groups allows them to exist as an organization and more effectively operate as a farmer-led and farmer-driven group dedicated to supporting small-scale and direct-market growers who are often first-generation farmers.  

Provider Farm
Kerry Taylor, Owner & Farmer
Provider farm is located at the historic Woodbridge Farm property in Salem, Connecticut. They grow their vegetables chemical free on 14 acres of soil, and use 20 acres of biodynamically managed pasture to raise heirloom cattle.

Ralston Farm
Phil Haynes ’14 and Bennett Haynes, Co-owners
Ralston Farm, LLC is a small-scale, diverse farm based in Mendham, New Jersey. They farm for a growing 125 member CSA program and work with several local restaurants, growing fresh, high quality vegetables and pasture raised ducks and pigs.

Grace Reynolds ’13
A Connecticut College alum, Grace is finishing up her MA in Food Studies at NYU and is currently working at the Institute of Culinary Education.

Share Our Strength's Cooking Matters
Talia Hahn ’13, AmeriCorps Direct Service Member Alumni
Talia did a tour of duty with Cooking Matters (an AmeriCorps program) and is doing research on food with Ruth Grahn. Share Our Strength’s Cooking Matters Massachusetts empowers families with the skills to stretch their food budgets so their children get healthy meals at home. Cooking Matters Mass. partners with community organizations and volunteer culinary and nutrition instructors to offer six-week cooking courses and one-time grocery store tours to participants

Sprout
Connecticut College
Sprout is a student-run organic garden located behind the College Center at Crozier-Williams ("Cro"). The Sprout Garden offers an opportunity for students to become involved in all aspects of sustainable agriculture, as well as to provide local, organically grown produce to the campus dining halls.

Wholesome Wave
Julia Pon and Leah Johnson ’12
Wholesome Wave strives to create a vibrant, just and sustainable food system. By making fresh, locally grown fruits and vegetables affordable and available, we enable underserved consumers to make healthier food choices. Our innovative initiatives are improving health outcomes among low-income families, generating additional revenue for small and mid-sized farm businesses and bolstering local and regional economies.

April 18, 19, 20, 2013

The 2013 Elizabeth Babbott Conant & Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation Conference

Global Environmental Justice is not just an aspirational goal, rather it is a set of concrete objectives and principles that scholars, activists, concerned citizens and governments are striving to draw world attention to and promote through their actions.

Activists are exposing the injustice of the export of hazardous materials, such as the stream of highly toxic electronic waste (e-waste) that has been moving from North to South, creating contaminated electronic ghettos across India, China and northern Africa.

Corporate mining practices which leave local populations with poisoned water and toxic sludge are becoming front-page news. Impacts on indigenous and urban marginal populations have been especially severe with indigenous people displaced and growing urban slums exposing ever more people to horrific environmental conditions.

And the loss of biodiversity, such as African mega-fauna, is now being viewed in the context of the needs of struggling local populations and the search for ways to preserve biodiversity while meeting the environmental and material needs of local populations.

As awareness of the scale and scope of global environmental injustices has grown, many questions surrounding its causes, consequences, and viable solutions have emerged and are now garnering well-deserved attention.

The 2013 conference highlighted key aspects of environmental injustice through an in-depth examination of:

• globalization’s impact on India
• mining and environmental injustices affecting indigenous and urban marginal populations in Peru
• investigation into the challenges of supporting livelihoods and economic development while simultaneously preserving biodiversity in South Africa

The conference featured broadly interdisciplinary perspectives provided by activists and conservationists, human rights lawyers, philosophers, geographers, and political scientists.

In addition, 18 Connecticut College faculty from across the disciplinary spectrum participated in a two-year immersion study of these issues, and provided panel discussions that delved deeply into their on-site research excursions in India, Peru and South Africa.

View videos and read abstracts of the conference presentations

Visit our Facebook page for a photo album of our 2013 conference

David Carruthers is Professor of Political Science at San Diego State University where he has taught since receiving his PhD from the University of Oregon in 1995. He earned undergraduate degrees in Latin American Studies and Sociology from Southern Oregon University, and studied for a year at the Universidad de Guanajuato, Mexico. Trained in comparative and international politics, Carruthers studies the political ecology of Latin America. His dissertation examined alliances between environmental and indigenous organizations to promote sustainable agriculture and community autonomy in rural Mexico. Research and teaching interests include Latin American and Inter-American politics, social movements, environmental justice, agriculture and rural politics, globalization, and sustainability. Recent research has focused on environmental justice in Latin America and the US-Mexico border region, and on the political and environmental struggles of the Mapuche Indians of southern Chile. Current collaborative projects include analysis of the San Diego-Tijuana border city relationship, and sustainability in Baja California Sur.

Robert G. Darst is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of Sustainability Studies at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. His research focuses on the transnational politics of environmental protection, human rights, and waste disposal. His current project, in collaboration with Connecticut College Professor of Government, Jane Dawson, is a study of the politics of meat in comparative perspective.

Vinay Gidwani is an Assistant Professor of Geography & Global Studies at the University of Minnesota. He received a PhD from the University of California, Berkley, a Masters of Forest Science from Yale University and  Bachelor’s Degree from Bowdoin College. Recently named a McKnight Land-Grant Professor, Gidwani brings his research into the classrooms to prepare the next generation by investigating issues that will drive the economic and political futures of the world's people.

Melina Laboucan-Massimo is from the Lubicon Cree First Nation located in Northern Alberta, Canada. She has been working as an advocate for Indigenous rights for the past 10 years. She has studied and worked in Australia, Brazil, Mexico, and Canada focusing on Indigenous rights and culture, resource extraction, ICTs and international diplomacy. She has worked with organizations such as the Indigenous Media Arts Society, TakingITGlobal, the Indigenous Portal, and Redwire Native Media Society. She has produced short documentaries and researched and worked on topics ranging from the tar sands, inherent treaty rights, water issues to cultural appropriation.  Melina pursued her Masters in Environmental Studies at York University before joining Greenpeace as a tar sands Climate & Energy campaigner in Alberta.

Daniel Lopes Cerqueira works for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights since January 2006, in the working group of its Executive Secretariat in charge of evaluating requests for protection and in the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression. Since October 2009 he is in charge of drafting reports and giving follow-up to the human rights situation in Bolivia and Peru. For the past year he was involved in the change of the Inter-American Commission’s Rules of Procedure, Policies and Practices. He holds degrees in law from the Federal University of Minas Gerais and in International Relations from the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais in Brazil. He obtained a LL.M. in International Legal Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and he is a currently a MSC candidate in the Global Rule of Law and Constitutional Democracy Program of the University of Genoa, Italy. He has published several articles in Portuguese, Spanish and English on International Law, International Human Rights Law, and International Relations.

Alison Ormsby is an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, Florida. She has a PhD in Environmental Studies from Antioch University New England, M.S. in Environmental Studies from Yale University and a B.S. in
Environmental Science from the College of William and Mary. At Eckerd, Alison teaches 10 different courses for the Environmental Studies major, focusing on behavioral science topics such as Wildlife Policy, Environmental Education and Protected Areas.  Her doctoral
research focused on people/park interactions in Madagascar while her recent research focuses on sacred forests in India, Ghana and Sierra Leone.  She served on the Africa Section of the Board for the Society for Conservation Biology and is currently a board member for SCB’s Religion and Conservation Biology Working Group. She is also a member of the IUCN’s task force for Cultural and Spiritual Values of Protected Areas.

Jim Puckett is an environmental health and justice activist, serving as Executive Director of Basel Action Network, a global toxic trade watchdog organization. Previously, Jim served as Greenpeace International’s Toxics Director and as co-coordinator of Greenpeace’s Toxic Trade campaign, both based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaign was instrumental in achieving the Basel Ban, as well as numerous regional waste trade bans. In 1997, he left Greenpeace to return to Seattle to help found the Basel Action Network. He has represented civil society within the Basel Convention since its inception in 1989 and has traveled extensively to research, write, produce films, and campaign against all forms of toxic trade. 

Kristin Shrader-Frechette, PhD, is O’Neill Family Endowed Professor in the Department of Philosophy and the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame where she also directs the Center for Environmental Justice and Children’s Health. Author of 16 books and nearly 400 professional articles, Kristin was the first female president of 3 major professional associations. Her work has been translated and published in 13 different languages, and the US National Science Foundation has funded her research for 28 years. She also has served on many US National Academy of Sciences boards and committees and advised US and foreign governments on energy and environment problems, especially waste management. In 2004 she became only the third American to win the World Technology Award in Ethics. In 2007, Catholic Digest named her one of 12 "Heroes for the US and the World" because of her pro-bono environmental justice (EJ) work with minority and poor communities. In 2011, Tufts University gave her the “Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award” for her pro-bono EJ work throughout the world. To promote EJ, she and her students perform detailed scientific analyses to show the harmful pollution impacts on EJ communities, and supply their analyses to the affected communities, pro-bono attorneys, and government leaders, and thus help save lives.

Adam Whelchel, Director of Science, The Nature Conservancy in Connecticut, earned his PhD in Plant and Soil Science from the University of Delaware in 2006, the same year that he began work with The Nature Conservancy in Connecticut. Prior positions included serving as a wetland ecologist with URS Corp. (NJ), senior ecologist with Wetlands Research Associates (CA), herpetologist for the U.S. National Park Service (CA), and research ecologist for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Pt. Reyes Observatory, and the Environmental Division of the U.S. Navy, San Nicolas Island (CA). Adam is currently responsible for overseeing climate impact assessment and adaptation solutions for both people and nature via the Conservancy’s Coastal Resilience Network (www.coastalresilience.org). In 2009, Adam was awarded a Coda Global Fellowship which has taken him to Kenya, Africa to advance important watershed management and water fund work alongside the late 2004 noble peace prize winner – Wangari Maathai (Founder of the Green Belt Movement). Adam is also serving as a key advisor for Puerto Rico Climate Adaptation Project and a Lead Author on the recently released Northeast section of the U.S. National Climate Assessment.

Local Struggles for Global Equity: Environmental Justice at the US-Mexico Border
David Carruthers, Professor of Political Science, San Diego State University Fusing narratives of social justice and environmental stewardship, the movement for environmental justice holds great promise in Latin America, both analytically and as a rallying cry for popular mobilization. This project explores the promise and limits of local struggles for global environmental equity, drawing its lessons from community responses to industrial hazardous waste and energy production facilities at the US-Mexico border.

Globalization and Inequality: An Overview
Robert Darst, Associate Professor of Political Science & Director of Sustainability Studies, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
What do we know about the relationship between globalization and inequality, both across and within national borders? In order to set the stage for subsequent discussions of specific cases, this presentation will provide an overview of the current state of knowledge (and ignorance) about this question.

The Right to Waste: Informal Sector Recyclers and Struggles for Social Justice in Urban India
Vinay Gidwani, Professor of Geography & Global Studies, University of Minnesota
There is increasing recognition of the importance of non-formal or “need” economies to urban livelihoods and urban living.  Yet there is scant analysis of how non-formal economies and livelihoods depend on the ability to use urban space, and how the workings of law enable or constrain this.  Using the case of urban solid waste, Vinay will examine how the force of law (working through legal rulings, municipal ordinances, and so on) has impacted solid waste recycling practices in metropolises such as Delhi, altered their legal topographies and impacted the already precarious livelihoods of those who work in non-formal waste economies.  The predicament of non-formal waste economies is illustrative of the growing vulnerability of many other realms of non-formal production as law and other processes transform urban spaces in India, creating new forms of social exclusion.

From Our Homelands to the Tar Sands
Melina Laboucan-Massimo, Climate and Energy Campaigner, Greenpeace & Cree Environmental Justice Activist
The impacts that extraction from tar sands have on communities in northern Canada will be presented including how these impacts will reach countless communities throughout Canada, the United States and across the globe. The tar sands mega-project will be one of the largest industrial projects on the planet. The aftermath of one of the largest oil spills in recent history will also be presented.

Confronting Indigenous Peoples Rights to Resource Extraction in Latin America
Daniel Lopes Cerqueira, Human Rights Specialist for the Inter-American Commissian on Human Rights
During the last decade, the number and intensity of social conflicts in Latin America have significantly increased, threatening democratic governance and stability. While the cause of these conflicts varies, a significant portion of them, and some may argue the most explosive, are associated with the extraction and management of natural resources. Latin America’s indigenous peoples face challenges that are mainly related to the tension that exists between the rights of indigenous groups to their land, territory, and natural resources and the rights of States to use and exploit these lands. There are an increasing number of judicial decisions regarding the extraction of natural resources in Latin America and indigenous people’s rights. Now indigenous groups have an international legal framework to demand that their rights be respected fully.

From National Parks to Sacred Forests: Community Involvement in Conservation
Alison Ormsby, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, Eckerd College
Dr. Ormsby will compare her research on resident attitudes toward Masoala National Park in Madagascar with her research on sacred forests of India, and contrast the effectiveness of a government-run protected area with community-managed sacred groves.

The High Tech Trashing of the Global South
Jim Puckett, Executive Director of the Basel Action Network & producer of the BAN video, “Exporting Harm”
Electronic waste is ubiquitous and what happens to it raises one of the most fundamental questions of our age. E-waste represents a crisis in its own right, but at the same time is demonstrative of the challenges that we as global citizens and consumers face. Impacts on human rights and the environment result from how we trade, consume, and design the products that increasingly shape our lives. This presentation will dive into the cause of all pollution since the beginning of time, the impacts of mass consumption, and how our current trade rules and norms disproportionately burden the global south. Thoughts will be offered on how we as global citizens can better shape our world, one iPhone at a time.

Killing in Ignorance: How We Personally Cause Environmental Injustice and Why We Must Take Action (video not available)
Kristin Shrader-Frechette, O’Neill Family Endowed Professor, Dept. of Philosophy & Dept. of Biological Sciences & Director, Center for Environmental Justice and Children’s Health, University of Notre Dame
After giving an overview of global environmental-justice problems, this talk focuses on three prominent examples of how each of us causes environmental injustice and, in fact, saves money by imposing our own pollution burdens on poor people, minorities, and those in developing nations. As a result, Shrader-Frechette argues that each of us has justice-based duties to become environmental justice activists, to help stop the harm for which we are partly responsible. The talk closes with suggestions for how we each might “take action” against environmental injustice.

The Inextricable Link - Community Sustainability, Equability, and Conservation in Africa
Adam Whelchel, Director of Science, The Nature Conservancy, Connecticut Chapter
Human well-being is inextricably linked to nature’s well-being. The commitment of communities to restore biodiversity, improve water quality and quantity, and livelihoods through sustainable watershed/rangeland management and better governance practice ultimately stimulates greater social equity in clean and secure environments. Examples will be provided from The Nature Conservancy’s work in Africa.

Panel Discussions & Panelists

Panel I: Globalization’s Unequal Environmental & Social Impacts in India
Professors, Connecticut College: Geoffrey Atherton, Sunil Bhatia, Jane Dawson, Julia Kushigian, Julie Rivkin and Mab Segrest

Panel II: Environmental Justice; Indigenous Peoples and Urban Marginals in Peru
Professors, Connecticut College: Maria Cruz-Saco, Jenny Fredricks, Leo Garofalo, Karen Gonzalez Rice, Yibing Huang and Joseph Schroeder

Panel III: The Challenge of Conserving South Africa’s Unique Biodiversity AND Ensuring Environmental Justice to Local Populations
Professors, Connecticut College: Robert Askins, Jane Dawson, Chad Jones, Douglas Thompson, Derek Turner and Marc Zimmer

The 2011 Conference on the Environment was held on March 4-5, 2011. The conference theme was Smart Growth? Environmental and Social Implications.

"Smart Growth” is a series of concepts developed from urban planning roots that have come to represent an alternative to sprawl. Key features of smart growth are mixed land uses, walkable neighborhoods with housing for a variety of income levels and needs, preserved open space including farmland, new development concentrated in existing communities, and multiple public transportation options.

This two-day conference provided a broad overview of our understanding of the impact of development patterns and suggestions for more thoughtful approaches to planning. Beginning with a session defining the problems associated with historic development patterns, we moved to discussions of the environmental impact of smart growth, and concluded by considering promising directions for smarter urban and suburban development.

The mix of speakers and topics of the talks appealed to a wide audience of college students and faculty, concerned citizens, NGO representatives, and policymakers.

From Famine and Froot Loops® to Food Democracy: Turning Crisis into Liberating Action
FRANCES MOORE LAPPÉ, Author and Cofounder of the Small Planet Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Hunger is not caused by a scarcity of food but by a scarcity of democracy, reflecting the worsening worldwide concentration of economic and political power. But at the same time, in every corner of our earth, Frances Moore Lappé finds powerful examples of citizens finding their voices. They’re reconnecting with the best of their own farming and food traditions to create communities aligned with nature and with human nature, our need to have a voice in true living democracies. These powerful stories, of people taking the biggest risks to show another world is possible, help give us all grounds for honest hope. They show us that democracy is not something we have; it is what we do.

A Field Guide to Sprawl
DOLORES HAYDEN, Professor of Architecture & Urbanism, and of American Studies, Yale University
Dolores Hayden Seana Siekman

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Can you define edge node, boomburb, tower farm, big box, and parsley round the pig? Sprawl is hard to pin down and the terms change every day. This talk will define the vocabulary of sprawl from alligator to zoomburb, illustrating fifty-one colorful terms invented by real estate developers and designers to characterize contemporary building patterns. This "devil's dictionary" of American building accompanies a sharp critique of metropolitan regions organized around unsustainable growth, where sprawling new areas of automobile-oriented construction flourish as older neighborhoods are left to decline.

Urbanization in Connecticut: Tracking its Progress, & Defining its Environmental Impacts
CHESTER ARNOLD, Associate Director, Center for Land Use Education and Research, University of Connecticut
Chester Arnold Eric Leflore

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The UConn Center for Land Use Education and Research (CLEAR) is engaged in an ongoing study of land cover change in Connecticut. Currently, we have data for the 21-year period from 1985 to 2006. The study allows us to characterize trends in many land-cover related metrics, including: the growth of developed land; loss of agricultural land and forest; forest fragmentation; and changes to riparian (streamside) corridor areas. This information, coupled with national research on the relationship of land cover to environmental health, gives insight into the status and trends of key factors of Connecticut’s environment.

Shopping Centers and Sprawl
EMIL POCOCK, Professor of History & American Studies, Eastern Connecticut State University
Emil Pocock Zoe Diaz Martin

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Shopping centers have become ubiquitous icons of American sprawl, but ironically they emerged from quite different visions of suburban communities. Modest assemblages of shops and services were often included in the plans of exclusive nineteenth- and early twentieth-century suburbs to serve the day-to-day needs of local residents. With the proliferation of suburbs after World War II, even larger shopping centers were built independently of residential development as convenient alternatives to downtown shopping.

Alarmed at the loss of community life in the vast expanses of relentless post-World War II residential housing, Victor Gruen promoted shopping malls as multi-purpose synthetic community centers. His early 1950s malls provided space for retail shopping, but also for a variety of other civic, cultural, and entertainment functions, including theaters, meeting rooms, art shows, and post offices in pedestrian-oriented settings. His efforts to preserve a sense of community in the burgeoning suburbs were largely ignored, but his innovative designs (including the first entirely enclosed mall) were copied by developers focused exclusively on retail shopping. The resulting islands of large one- and two-story enclosed malls, surrounded by parking lots and linked to suburbs by networks of limited access highways, became integral to modern suburban sprawl.

Nevertheless, shopping malls cannot be blamed for creating sprawl and may not have even been inevitable. They resulted from a constellation of factors, including growing ambivalence about city life, preference for individual home ownership, private automobiles at the expense of public transportation, and demand for consumer goods. Official policies of post-war dispersal of the population, subsidized highways, tax laws that favored new commercial development, and lack of effective suburban planning made stand-alone shopping centers practical and profitable enterprises that filled many of the needs of suburban living, while they also contributed to modern sprawl.

The Impacts and Controls of Supersized Houses
JACK NASAR, Professor of City & Regional Planning, Ohio State University, Editor, Journal of Planning Literature
Jack Nasar Max Weigert

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“A builder is now constructing a massive mansion some ten times larger than the pre-existing building on each lot … These large land-use changes in such a small area have significant effects on the town as a whole” (McMansions: The Extent and Regulation of Super-sized Houses by Jack L. Nasar, Jennifer S. Evans-Cowley, Vicente Mantero).

Urban design is where design meets public policy. This talk addresses two urban design issues: 1) the extent, impact and regulation of McMansions (supersized houses); and 2) design guidelines to allow residents to build or expand their house without harming the character of the street. First, I will define McMansions and talk about their consequences for smart growth and the economics of communities. I will discuss my survey of 103 U.S. cities on the extent and presence of McMansions and the regulatory approaches that communities use to control them. Secondly, communities need to know what to control and what constitutes “too big.” Using color simulations, six studies tested the perceived compatibility and visual appeal of streets in relation to characteristics of the infill house and its context. I will conclude with design guidelines that emerge from the studies, how to refine them for local contexts, and discuss an ongoing study on the effectiveness of two regulatory approaches that communities use to deal with McMansion.

City Friendly Transportation Planning: A Pathway to Sustainability
NORMAN GARRICK, Associate Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Connecticut
Norman Garrick Clare Murphy Hagan

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Since 1950, conventional urban transportation planning has been largely directed at providing fast and efficient mobility for private travel – freeways were built, streets were widened and buildings were razed for parking. Most cities went along with the program and suffered tremendously, but there have been a handful of cities that resisted the status quo and developed an alternative city friendly approach to transportation. These cities focused on transportation solutions that were compatible with, and enhanced their urban fabric, life and character.

Transportation planners have largely overlooked the story of how and why these trailblazing cities forged a different approach. But the transportation policies that these cities adopted contain important lessons about the path forward for creating sustainable places. The success of these cities has spurred a growing number of municipalities to adopt their own versions of city friendly transportation planning. They are now also beginning to reap the benefits that come from reducing car dependency. In this presentation I will tell the story of some of the places that pioneered city friendly transportation planning and how this approach can help to rein in sprawl and help to revitalize traditional urban centers.

Evolving from Sprawl: The Way Forward
ANTHONY FLINT, Fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
Anthony Flint Rebecca Horan

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After a half-century of car-oriented outward expansion, environmental imperatives require a turn inward to that greenest form of human settlement: our cities. The Obama administration’s support of new energy, smart growth, transit and inter-city rail is hindered by public finance in crisis, uncertainty in the housing markets and the economy, and political polarization. Just at the moment when the era of sprawl might be declared over, challenges have never been greater for metropolitan regions. In this presentation I will assess how a vision for planning and key urban infrastructure might shape the 21st century city.

What's Smart about Smart Growth? A Regional and Metropolitan Assessment
OWEN GUTFREUND, Associate Professor of Urban Affairs & Planning, Hunter College (CUNY)
Owen Gutfreund Raymond Palmer

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This talk will assess the equity and outcomes of growth management initiatives. The benefits of such efforts tend to be unevenly distributed -- both spatially and demographically, perpetuating and exacerbating regional inequities. By considering these questions from metropolitan and regional perspectives, questions of social equity and environmental justice can be highlighted, with implications for different - and "smarter" approaches to planning for growth. Also, a historical perspective will be introduced, showing how "smart growth" policies of previous generations produced many of today's unfair and unsustainable land-use problems.

Barriers to Smart Growth: Facing the Reality of Land and Housing Markets
MARGARET WALLS, Senior Fellow, Thomas J. Klutznick Chair, Resources for the Future
Margaret Walls Catharine Brookes

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Local communities across the United States have employed a variety of smart growth-oriented policy tools. The success of these measures in altering urban development patterns, however, ultimately depends on the actions of private landowners, profit-maximizing developers, and budget-constrained housing consumers. In this paper, I discuss experience with a range of policies – infill development incentives, transfer of development rights and purchase of development rights programs, urban growth boundaries, and others – and explain how the design of these programs often disregards key aspects of private markets.

Smart Growth: Residents’ Social and Psychological Benefits, Costs, and Design
BARBARA BROWN, Environmental Psychologist, Professor of Family & Consumer Studies, U of Utah
Barbara Brown Scott Siedor

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Smart growth and allied movements, such as new urbanism, tout many societal-level benefits: preserved open space, less costly infrastructure, less automobile dependence and pollution, and more equitable housing and transportation opportunities. But does smart growth offer social and psychological benefits to residents? Both past social science studies and local planning efforts are filled with examples of how many residents fear and dislike crowding, “different” neighbors, and urban neighborhoods. Yet many residents of smart growth communities experience place attachment, enjoy neighborhood social contact opportunities, and achieve more transportation choices. I draw on local studies within Salt Lake County and refer to studies elsewhere to examine social and psychological benefits and costs of life in new urban and smart growth neighborhoods. I suggest that the traditional car-dependent suburban ideal is so powerful that smart growth proponents need a better understanding of how residents experience their communities in both smart growth and low-density suburban neighborhoods. When problems arise in these neighborhoods, research also suggests a number of solutions: better designs, greater understanding of the broad range of benefits and costs of both smart growth and suburban alternatives, and better communication of neighborhood qualities to promote smart choices by residents.

How Do You Want to Live? Where Do You Want to Live? Why? Lessons for Smart Growth Reformers, Drawn From Southwestern Cities in the United States
MARYANNE BORRELLI, Associate Professor of Government, Connecticut College
MaryAnne Borrelli Fiona Jensen

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From the perspective of those in more humid climates, southwestern cities seem to exemplify urban practices that celebrate resource consumption. And, as housing foreclosures continue throughout this region, economic strictures add a sense of failure to this implicit criticism. Yet it is far more accurate to say that southwestern settlement practices and cities reflect value judgments made throughout the United States, which have shaped policy at every level of government for generations. Southwestern cities therefore merit close and careful study precisely for what they reveal about our national priorities, and thus about our personal preferences in the midst of environments that are at once fragile and resilient. As such, how and to what extent southwestern cities have embraced smart growth practices may well foreshadow the extent to which these innovations will be accepted and practiced in more humid (and perhaps more sustainable) urban centers.

Sustainable Design and Social Purpose
DAVID RUBIN, Landscape Architect, Partner, OLIN, Philadelphia
David Rubin Kelsey Cohen

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Recognizing that American cities are at a tipping point, Rubin seeks to change thinking about landscape for its transformative power to affect the lives of all citizens. It is the most democratic of disciplines to influence urbanity, wherein everyone gets to participate- whether over privileged or underserved. Rubin will explore tangible evidence that landscape can play a catalytic role in the necessary revitalization of the city. His topic explores the belief that nothing should do just one thing, and a multipurpose landscape lends to economic, environmental and social sustainability. Using examples of built and proposed work, he will identify the potential for urban living and regeneration of the American City.

Marjorie Dilley Lecture
Using Small ‘d’ Democracy to Create Smart Growth in Two New England Towns
KEVIN ESSINGTON, Director of Government Relations & Communications, The Nature Conservancy in Rhode Island
Kevin Essington Flora Drury

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The Nature Conservancy identified the Borderlands, a heavily forested rural area on the Rhode Island-Connecticut border, as a conservation priority in 2000. The Conservancy worked with partners to conserve thousands of acres in that time, but also launched multiple partnerships to promote better land use policies in these 20 towns. Through regional engagement, we identified two towns, Killingly (CT) and Exeter (RI) as being ‘ripe’ for in-depth engagement on promoting village-style growth, to protect the rural landscape and encourage sustainable economic development. This talk will discuss the methods used to set the stage in these towns for real changes in how they make decisions about growth.

Rural Smart Growth: The Role of Local Farms & Food in Advancing Livable Communities
JULIA FREEDGOOD, Managing Director, Farmlands & Communities Initiatives, American Farmland Trust
Julia Freedgood Janan Evans Wilent

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Over the past 25 years, 41 million acres were converted to development, an area the size of Illinois and New Jersey combined. More than half of that area was working agricultural land. Over this period, the U.S. population grew 30%, but developed land use increased 57%. Our food supply is in the path of this development: 91% of our fruit production, 78% of our vegetables and more than half our dairy and poultry production. This presents both challenges and opportunities for smarter growth and building sustainable communities. This session will address rural development in a smart growth context, finding ways to sustain agriculture near cities, keep farmland in farming and create livable communities.

Framing, Presenting, & Contesting Smart Growth Policies & Strategies in the Political Marketplace
JOHN HANNIGAN, Professor of Sociology, University of Toronto
John Hannigan Katie Lynch

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New ways of operating cities don’t appear spontaneously in the political marketplace, but rather are conceived and framed in a multitude of ways in often competing policy arenas. This is especially the case for smart growth, which, as Anthony Downs (2001) pointed out nearly a decade ago, “refers to many different bundles of specific policies” appealing in varying degrees and ways to disparate groups (anti or slow-growth advocates and environmentalists, pro-growth advocates, inner city advocates, better growth advocates). In this challenging context, it is vital that we establish a shared and politically feasible understanding of the problem of urban sprawl and smart growth solutions.

In crafting and legislating urban and environmental policy initiatives two cardinal problems emerge. First of all, public support must be secured and the issue placed on the political agenda. As Eric Lawrence and colleagues (2010) observe, problem definition and framing are critical elements in influencing public opinion and policy preferences. In securing public support for a national urban agenda, Lawrence et al. found evidence to show that policies that are constructed broadly (“ the plight of America’s cities”) rather than narrowly (specific city problems); that are aimed at positively perceived target groups (children, elderly) versus those that are negatively regarded (drug addicts, street youth); and that promise the delivery of resource to a wide swath of beneficiaries versus a minority (‘distressed cities’) have a better chance for success. However, public support does not automatically ensure that a policy will be embraced. This second task demands that interest groups skillfully articulate their demands within the confines of the political marketplace. Thus, Cruz (2009) found that Florida cities and counties were most likely to adopt smart growth regulations such as urban containment, density bonuses and smart growth zoning where interest groups and local governments engaged in mutually beneficial exchanges and where the match with political institutions was right. This was facilitated by strategic framing practices on the part of smart growth proponents.

In this presentation I attempt to do two things. First, I will propose a three-stage, social constructionist model of policy framing and political marketing [invention, and labeling; presentation and legitimation; contestation and consensus building] to help us understand why and how some urban visions and initiatives succeed and others fail. Second, I will apply this to the specific case of smart growth strategies, especially in the context of environmental concern and discourse. Hopefully, this will contribute to the consideration of promising new directions for urban and suburban development.

Download a printable version of conference speaker bios.

Chet Arnold is a Water Quality Educator for the University of Connecticut, Department of Extension, and the Associate Director of the University’s Center for Land use Education and Research (CLEAR). Mr. Arnold has been with the University since 1987, and is the co-founder of the Nonpoint Education for Municipal Officials (NEMO) Project, a national award-winning program that uses remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) technology to educate local land use decision makers about the relationship between land use and water resource protection. The Connecticut NEMO program has become the model for, and coordinator of, the National NEMO Network, which now has 31 projects in 29 states. As the Associate Director of CLEAR, which he helped to create, Chet focuses on the integration of the Center’s research, technology, and outreach functions, and how these activities can best benefit Connecticut communities. He has authored several national award-winning journal articles, and has been the Principal or Co-Principal Investigator on over 100 grants.

MaryAnne Borrelli is an Associate Professor of Government at Connecticut College. Her study of environmental policy issues focuses on cultural and natural resource management issues in the southwestern and intermountain regions of the United States. Her archival and fieldwork studies have led her to conclude that environmental politics and identity politics are closely intertwined, with United States environmental policies reflecting the nation’s enduring belief in American exceptionalism and manifest destiny. Professor Borrelli is also known for her research and publications on gender dynamics in the United States presidency, examining the role of gender and representation in the cabinet selection and confirmation processes, and in the office of the first lady. The recipient of several research grants, she has published book chapters, peer-reviewed journal articles, a co-edited volume, and is working on her second authored book. She earned her Ph.D. in political science from the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences at Harvard University.

Barbara Brown is an environmental psychologist and professor in the Family & Consumer Studies Department at the University of Utah and she edits the journal Environment & Behavior. Her research focuses on the linkages between the physical environment and human behavior, with special focus on the processes of privacy regulation, neighborhood satisfaction and attachment, and healthy behavioral processes. These processes are studied within the contexts of walkable and new urban environments, transportation, housing, neighborhood crime, and general community viability. Brown has a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Utah.

Kevin Essington is the Director of Government Relations and Communications for The Nature Conservancy in Rhode Island. He is responsible for working with state and federal elected officials to promote smart environmental policies and to see that environmental programs are fully funded. He has worked on policy issues related to land use planning, forestry, and watershed restoration at the local level for over 15 years. He has negotiated or facilitated the conservation of over 4,000 acres of privately owned properties, including the first archaeological conservation easement in Colorado and a $25 million acquisition in Rhode Island. He also specializes in conservation site planning, having developed and facilitated over twenty conservation action plans in the U.S and abroad. Kevin has an M.A. in Environmental Policy and Management from the University of Denver and a B.A. in History from the University of Michigan.

Anthony Flint, is a fellow and director of public affairs at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a think tank in Cambridge, MA. He has been a journalist for over 20 years, primarily at The Boston Globe, where he covered development, urban design, housing, and transportation, and authored a column on urban design and public space called “A Sense of Place.” He has been a visiting scholar and Loeb Fellow at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design, and was a policy adviser in 2005-2006 at the Office of Commonwealth Development, the Massachusetts state agency coordinating housing, environment, energy, and transportation. As a Citistates Associate he is a frequent contributor to Citiwire.net, the news and commentary service organized by Neal Peirce of The Washington Post Writers Group. His work has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Hartford Courant, Planning magazine, Planetizen, Planning magazine, Architecture Boston, The Next American City, GlobalPost, and publications of Harvard’s Kennedy School. He is co-editor of Smart Growth Policies, an evaluation of statewide smart growth programs, published by the Lincoln Institute in 2009, and author of three blogs: “At Lincoln House,” the Lincoln Institute blog http://www.lincolninst.edu/news/atlincolnhouse.asp ; “Developing Stories,” at the author's website http://www.anthonyflint.net/, and "This Land," at The Boston Globe website http://www.boston.com/community/blogs/this_land/. His first book, This Land: The Battle over Sprawl and the Future of America, was published in 2006 by Johns Hopkins University Press. Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took on New York’s Master Builder and Transformed the American City (Random House, 2009) won a Christopher Award in April 2010.

Julia Freedgood is American Farmland Trust's Managing Director for Farmland and Communities and leads AFT’s Farmland Protection and Growing Local initiatives including planning, projects and policy efforts to keep land available and affordable for agriculture and to help agriculture and communities work together to create healthy and sustainable food systems. Freedgood joined AFT in 1989 and has served in several capacities including the direction of AFT's Technical Assistance and Land Protection divisions. Freedgood was AFT’s program leader for the rural strategy as part of a consulting team that updated the Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, growth management plan, Envision Lancaster, which was awarded the 2006 Outstanding Planning Award by the Pennsylvania Planning Association and earned a 2009 National Smart Growth Achievement Award from the Environmental Protection Agency. She oversaw development of Maryland’s Statewide Plan for Agricultural Policy and Resource Management; a Farming Program Plan for an Urban County in San Diego, California; and an economic development strategy for working lands along Maryland’s eastern shore among other projects. She has written, edited and produced numerous other publications, including Cost of Community Services Studies: Making the Case for Conservation, evaluating 15 years of COCS studies by AFT and others; Saving American Farmland: What Works; and Your Land is Your Legacy: A Guide to Planning for the Future of Your Farm. She also produced AFT’s critically acclaimed video documentary, “Farmland Forever” and is the author of numerous articles on sustainable agriculture and farmland protection. Freedgood was executive director of the Federation of Massachusetts Farmers’ Markets and program manager for a project at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy called “Sustaining Agriculture Near Cities.” She received a Master’s degree from the School of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University in 1988 and a Bachelor’s degree in U.S. social and economic history from Hampshire College in 1978. Currently a member of the town of Chesterfield’s Conservation Commission, she also has served on the town’s Open Space and Community Development committee. Examples of other professional appointments include: faculty associate with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, officer of the Hilltown Land Trust and Advisory Council member for the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program and the Sustainable Agriculture Network.

Norman Garrick is Associate Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Connecticut. Dr. Garrick is also a member of the national board of The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), co-chair of CNU’s Transportation Task Force and Trustee of the New York City based Tri-state Transportation Campaign. He specializes in the planning and design of urban transportation systems, including transit, streets and highways, and bicycle and pedestrian facilities, especially as they relate to sustainability, placemaking and urban revitalization. His work on sustainable transportation and urban planning, street and street network design, and parking policies for livable communities has been widely disseminated both to an academic audience and to the wider public through the press, radio and TV. He is also a 2008 recipient of the Transportation Research Board’s Wootan Award for Best Paper in policy and organization. In addition to his academic and research career, Dr. Garrick has worked as transportation consultant on a number of design charrettes, nationally and internationally, including urban revitalization projects with the Prince of Wales Foundation in Kingston, Jamaica and Freetown, Sierra Leone. In 2004, he was recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, which afforded him the opportunity to live in Kingston, Jamaica and devote four months to study the evolving nature of the urban form, the transit system and the state of motorization in the sprawling Kingston metropolitan region. Garrick received a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of the West Indies in 1978, a Master in Science in Civil Engineering (1983) and a Ph.D. from Purdue University in 1986.

Owen Gutfreund is an Associate Professor of Urban Affairs and Planning at Hunter College, where he teaches urban history, urban planning, and international affairs. Previously, he served for many years as Director of the joint Barnard-Columbia Urban Studies Program. A specialist in urban history, Owen has published Twentieth Century Sprawl: Highways and the Reshaping of the American Landscape (Oxford University Press, 2004), and was one of the authors of Robert Moses and the Modern City: The Transformation of New York (W.W. Norton, 2007). He is an Associate Editor of the forthcoming 2nd edition of the Encyclopedia of New York City, and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Urban History. Owen is currently working on Cities Take Flight: Airports, Aviation, and Modern American Urbanism, a book about the impact of airports and air travel on American cities and towns. He is on the on the board of the Skyscraper Museum, was a faculty fellow at the Columbia Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, was chair of the University Seminar on the City, and was also chair of the New York Council for the Humanities. He is a widely acknowledged expert on urban issues, and has appeared on PBS (including the Blueprint America series and the Nightly Business Report), on NPR (Morning Edition, Marketplace, and Day-to-Day), and on radio stations in New York, Ohio, Utah, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, D.C., and New Zealand. He has been interviewed by the New York Times, USA Today, the Associated Press, and Forbes, and he has twice written op-eds that were featured in the New York Times. He has also presented his research to a wide range of academic groups, including the Urban History Association, the Society for American City and Regional Planning History, the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, the Social Science History Association, and the Society for the History of Transportation, Traffic, and Mobility. He has delivered keynote addresses to the Conference on the Small City and the International Forum on Metropolitan Development (in Shanghai), and has been a plenary speaker for the Urban History Association. Gutfreund received his B.A. from Vassar College in 1985 and a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1998.

John Hannigan is Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto, where he teaches courses in collective behavior, urban sociology, and environment & society. He is the author of two books: Environmental Sociology (2006) and Fantasy City: Pleasure and Profit in the Postmodern City (1998). The latter was nominated for the 1999–2000 John Porter Award of the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association. Environmental Sociology has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Portuguese. He is presently working on a new book entitled Disasters Without Borders: The International Politics of Disasters (Polity Press, 2012). Hannigan attended University of Western Ontario and received his Ph.D. from Ohio State University.

Dolores Hayden is the author of several award-winning books about the history of American built environments. Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth (2003) documents seven historic landscapes characterizing American metropolitan expansion from 1820 to 2000 in order to argue that sprawl has surged since the federal government began to subsidize development. A Field Guide to Sprawl (2004) extends Building Suburbia with a dictionary of slang illustrated by Jim Wark's aerial photographs from across the United States. She is an alumna of Mount Holyoke College, Cambridge University and received her Ph.D. in architecture from Harvard University. Hayden is Professor of Architecture and Urbanism and Professor of American Studies at Yale University.

Frances Moore Lappé is the author of 18 books including the three-million copy Diet for a Small Planet. She is the cofounder of three organizations, including Food First: The Institute for Food and Development Policy and, more recently, the Small Planet Institute, a collaborative network for research and popular education seeking to bring democracy to life, which she leads with her daughter Anna Lappé. Frances and her daughter have also cofounded the Small Planet Fund, which channels resources to democratic social movements worldwide. Frances appears frequently as a public speaker and on radio, and is a regular contributor to Huffington Post and Alternet. Frances has received 17 honorary doctorates from distinguished institutions including The University of Michigan and was a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2000-2001. In 2008 she received the James Beard Foundation ‘Humanitarian of the Year’ Award for her lifelong impact on the way people all over the world think about food, nutrition, and agriculture. For more about Ms. Lappé visit http://www.smallplanet.org/.

Jack Nasar is currently Professor of City & Regional Planning at The Ohio State University, serves as editor of the Journal of Planning Literature and is a Fellow of the American Institute of Planners. He studies human perceptions, evaluation, and behavior in relation to the environment and ways to change behavior to save the environment. Professor Nasar has a Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University in Man-Environment Relations, a Masters in Urban Planning from New York University, and a B.A. in Architecture from Washington University. He is a Principal Investigator on a $150,000 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Active Living Research Grant, has won over $1.8 M total in external funding, has published 80 peer-reviewed journal articles, seven books (three authored, four edited) including Visual Quality by Design (Haworth, ASID), Designing for Designers: Lessons Learned from Schools of Architecture Schools (Fairchild). An invited lecturer around the world, his honors include the Environmental Design Research Association Career Achievement Award, the Lumley Award for Excellence in Research (College of Engineering, Oregon State University), the Ethel Chattel Fellowship (University of Sydney), and the Distinguished Alumni Award from the School of Architecture at Washington University, St. Louis.

Emil Pocock earned a B.A. in American Studies at the University of Maryland and a Ph.D. in History and American Studies at Indiana University. His earliest published works explored the social and political organization of communities on the trans-Appalachian frontier. In recent years, Pocock has returned to his American Studies roots to pursue long-standing interests in the emergence of suburban consumer society, especially as manifest in shopping centers. His current research is focused on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American glass-covered urban shopping arcades. He also maintains an experimental “Shopping Center Studies” web site that promotes shopping center history and research.

David Rubin earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Fine Arts and the History of Art at Connecticut College. Rubin ultimately integrated his passion for art and his interest in the natural world through landscape architecture, culminating in a Master’s degree from the Harvard University School of Design in 1990. His extensive background in fine arts allows him to sensitively merge art and science to transform social and environmental systems. Current projects include the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Lenfest Plaza in Philadelphia; design guidelines and implementation for a significant plaza and park for Wishard Hospital in Indianapolis; and both Washington Canal Park and Potomac Park Levee in Washington, DC. David's collegial and optimistic personality is infectious and has earned him a reputation among clients and colleagues as an indispensable team member who promotes vigorous collaboration, essential to the design process. David and his fellow partners at OLIN received the 2008 Landscape Design Award from the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum for excellence and innovation in landscape design and dedication to sustainability. David recently collaborated with two of his fellow Partners in teaching the first-ever landscape architecture studio at Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles, and he has previously taught at the Arboretum School of the Barnes Foundation and the University of Pennsylvania.

Margaret Walls is Senior Fellow and Thomas J. Klutznick Chair at Resources for the Future a non-profit research organization in Washington, DC. Dr. Walls has conducted economic research and policy analysis on a range of environmental and natural resource issues for over 20 years. Recently, she has analyzed transfer of development rights (TDR) programs, including case study evaluations of several operating programs and economic assessments of the costs and effectiveness of TDRs for preserving open space and farmland. She has also assessed the value of open space in suburban settings and evaluated subdivision “clustering” requirements. In conjunction with the University of Maryland’s National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education, Dr. Walls organized the Smart Growth @ 10 conference in 2007 to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of Maryland’s landmark land use program. Her work has appeared in a number of peer-reviewed journals including, among others, the Journal of Urban Economics, Land Economics, Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Journal of Public Economics, and Journal of Economic Literature; she is also the author of 13 book chapters. Dr. Walls received her Ph.D. in economics from the University of California – Santa Barbara in 1988.

Water is life´s most precious resource. And while it is everywhere, useable freshwater is a relatively scarce commodity spawning generations of conflict.

Experts gathered at Connecticut College April 3 and 4, 2009, for "Water Scarcity and Conflict," the Elizabeth Babbott Conant Interdisciplinary Conference on the Environment. Lectures and discussions examined the root causes of conflicts over water use, assess weaknesses in the current physical and political infrastructure and suggest ways in which water can be used in a more sustainable manner.

A highlight of the conference was a keynote lecture by Amy Vickers, president of Amy Vickers and Associates Inc., an international consulting practice specializing in water conservation, and author of the Benjamin Franklin Award-winning book, "Water Use and Conservation." Vickers gave a talk titled, "Water Use and Abuse: Innovations in Conservation."

Conference participants, including students, scholars and professionals from off-campus, heard from 13 additional expert speakers, including Peter Gleick, a leading expert on the sustainable use of water and co-founder and president of the Pacific Institute, a nonpartisan research institute in Oakland.

Read the presenters' biographies and view videos and descriptions of the talks.

"Water Scarcity and Conflict" was sponsored by the Goodwin-Niering Center and co-sponsored by the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the Elizabeth Babbott Conant Symposium Fund, the Marjorie Dilley Lecture Fund, the Jean Thomas Lambert Environmental Lecture Fund, the Beaver Brook Foundation, the Connecticut Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, the Connecticut Institute of Water Resources and Rivers Alliance of Connecticut.

Description of Talks

Water: New Thinking for the 21st Century
Peter Gleick

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Peter Gleick will present a summary of the world's current freshwater crisis -- from the failure to meet basic human needs for water, to growing political and military conflicts over water, to the new and severe risks of global climate change -- and will offer insights into how to address this crisis. Gleick is the leading proponent of a new way of thinking about sustainable water management and use, called the soft path for water, that integrates smart management with appropriate use of economics, technology, and institutions in a way that can help meet basic water needs for all, protect aquatic ecosystems, and sustain the health and well-being of the world's population.

Water Follows the People: The State of the Platte River Ecosystem After 150 Years of Flow Regulation
Ellen Wohl

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People of European descent began to substantially alter the distribution of water within the Platte River basin in the early 1860s. More than a century of diversion and storage of stream flows and withdrawal of ground water have now caused widespread and dramatic alterations in the physical, chemical and biological properties of streams across the basin. River protection and restoration form an integral component of questions of resource sustainability as population in the region continues to grow rapidly. This presentation briefly summarizes the history of river changes, the current status of rivers within the basin, and continuing efforts to protect and restore rivers in the region.

Water Conflicts in the Arid West: The Quest for Certainty and Control
Reed Benson

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The American West has known water scarcity and conflict since the 1800s, and has responded by pursuing two primary goals: control of water allocation for the states, and certainty of water supplies for users. Reed Benson will briefly discuss how these twin goals have shaped western water law and policy in various contexts. He will conclude by examining how endangered species protection and climate change adaptation pose serious challenges for the West, in part because they threaten state control and user certainty.

Development of Water Use Management Alternatives for the Fenton River Near Storrs, Conn.
Glenn Warner

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The impacts of water supply wells located in the shallow alluvial deposits near the Fenton River near Storrs, Conn., on instream flow and fisheries habitat were evaluated through field studies and modeling. Management plans for water use from the well field based on stream flows were developed from the study.

Interlinking of Indian Rivers – Pros and Cons and Environmental Concerns
Kaggere Lokesh

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“Water water everywhere, but not a drop to drink” is the famous adage that suits well to the Indian water scenario. As the countries in the world are experiencing change in terms of development and improved quality of life (QoL), India is also undergoing such a change to bring in a good quality of life for its citizens.

By the turn of 2020, India dreams to achieve the status of a Developed Nation. For its dream to come true, there is a tremendous need of functioning infrastructure and resources such as water and power. It is in this direction that the country’s water resources need a relook to be managed effectively for their efficient usage and delivery. Though the country can boast of excellent water resources, currently they are poorly managed.

There is a tremendous pressure on water – sanitation and power sectors by the increasing population and industrial development. The reason being, water is a state subject and not a federal subject. The National Water Policy promulgated in 1987 clearly states that the water resources have to be used legitimately, protected and not exploited. It brings in also the water quality aspects, but most of the time not followed by the states or the agencies involved in the water sector.

To meet the increasing demands of water for various purposes, the government of India has envisioned a long term plan of interlinking Indian rivers. Though it is in right perspective, it has several critical issues to be addressed. They are the pros of interlinking, the consequences in terms of volume of water to be diverted, the number of projects to be designed and completed, land requirement, the time frame for completion, the displacement of human population, rehabilitation efforts etc. Over and above, there is a lot of concern with respect to environmental issues such as destruction of biodiversity, changing land use pattern, deforestation, pollution aspects, soil erosion and loss of fertility, damage to flora and fauna, flood and drought mitigation.

If the interlinking of rivers is taken seriously and implemented properly by considering the above aspects along with the political issues between the states and between the countries, the huge investments in terms of money (expected to cost over US $200 billion) will be justified then through long term benefits such as secured drinking water supply systems, food security through modern agricultural practices, power generation, navigational benefits, effectively controlled floods and droughts and improved quality of life.

Water Use and Abuse: Innovations in Conservation
Amy Vickers

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Are we entering a new era of water scarcity or are we confronting an old error of water waste? In the United States, the biggest water conflict we may be facing is the one between our water wants and our water needs. Our culture has a dubious relationship with water, from lawns and leaks to bottled water and creeks. Despite growing public awareness of looming water shortages, drought declarations, and major strides in water efficiency technology in recent years, by several measures water demand is increasing, particularly among people living in single family homes. Further, excessive groundwater withdrawals, including those by commercial bottled water companies, may be significant factors that are contributing to signs of water depletion, particularly in New England. Rejecting “sustainability talk” as a doomed approach to preserving the status quo, Amy Vickers will reframe today’s water challenges and present cutting-edge whole system conservation approaches that not only save water and boost water quality, but also strengthen communities and local economies, improve public health, and lead us to a more balanced connection with nature. Lastly, Ms. Vickers will discuss H.B. 778, a bill recently introduced into the Massachusetts legislature that calls for a moratorium on new and expanded commercial bottled water extractions.

Connecticut’s Stream Flow Standards: Balancing Human and Ecological Needs for Water
Lee Dunbar

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Legislation enacted in 2005 directed the CT-DEP to develop comprehensive stream flow standards that balance societal needs for water with the needs of fish and wildlife that depend on the availability of water to sustain healthy, natural communities. The statute further directed CT-DEP to make use of the “best available science” in developing regulations that “preserve and protect the natural aquatic life” while recognizing the “needs and requirements for public health, flood control, industry, public utilities, water supplies, public safety, agriculture, and other lawful water uses”. This presentation describes the process used by CT-DEP to develop stream flow standards as well as the key scientific and policy issues that shaped the final outcome of this process.

Balancing Human and Environmental Water Needs with Increasingly Scarce Water Resources
Mark Smith

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This presentation will review examples of how protection of freshwater resources and their associated biodiversity are being integrated into state and national water management frameworks. By examining several examples from across the United States and around the world the presentation will outline the similarities and differences among the approaches used in water management policies and describe some of the most effective examples that explicitly link the goals of providing water to meet human needs with the goals of protecting freshwater resources. The presentation will describe how new tools and improved science is informing the development of these policies and programs and offering solutions that previously were impractical.

Interstate Water Sharing Agreements: What Have We Learned?
Lynne Lewis

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In this talk Lewis will discuss the history and economics of water sharing in the Southwestern United States, water sharing agreements including interstate compacts and lessons learned from the successes and failures of those agreements. Highlighted will be disagreements over water sharing and resolutions of those disagreements as well as the flexibility of interstate compact allocation mechanisms to adjust when river characteristics change (e.g. climate, population, etc.). What lessons can be applied elsewhere such as during interstate water negotiations between Florida, Alabama and Georgia? What have we learned about flexibility in times of uncertain streamflow or changing climate?

Balancing Public Water Supply and In-stream Flow Needs: A Public Water Supply Perspective
John Herlihy and Peter Galant

This presentation will describe the key elements of public water supply planning and the need to balance these requirements against in-stream ecological needs when developing streamflow policies.



Conflict and Cooperation Along International Rivers: Scarcity, Bargaining Strategies, and Strategic Interaction
Shlomi Dinar

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Often cited in the popular press are predictions of impending ‘water wars’. Increasing water scarcity is often the main rationale for these prophesies. While instances of military skirmishes, or so-called ‘close {militarized} calls’, over water have been investigated and recorded, violent inter-state conflicts in the realm of hydro-politics have been rare. Instead, the academic literature has largely focused on understanding how political disputes and conflicts of interest over water have culminated. While the study of cooperation over shared water has likewise received significant scrutiny, the link to water scarcity has not. In other words, just as scarcity may be an impetus for dispute between states, it may likewise be the engine for cooperation and international treaty-making. Naturally, scarcity alone can't fully explain instances of conflict or cooperation, and additional factors (such as geographical and other types of asymmetries) need to be taken into account. Considering the intricacies of international water agreements also demonstrates how negotiation and cooperation may be facilitated through bargaining strategies such as side-payments and issue-linkage.

Droughts as Triggers for Civil War: Empirical Evidence and Policy Implications
Mark Levy

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An investigation into the spatial and temporal patterns of civil war onset reveals that severe shortfalls in rainfall significantly increase the risk of civil war in the affected region during the subsequent year. This finding has implications for peacebuilding activities such as early warning, livelihood support, and conflict management.


Think Outside the Bottle
Deborah Lapidus

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Clean drinking water is the basis for life, but soon two in three people will not have enough of it to survive. It is now our choice – will we manage water democratically so everyone has clean, safe water, or will we let corporate interests control this precious common resource at an overwhelming human cost? Learn how bottled water threatens our health and our ecosystems, costs thousands of times the price of tap water, and undermines local democratic control over a common essential resource. Come find out how you can Think Outside the Bottle and support public water systems!

Reed D. Benson joined the University of New Mexico law faculty in 2008. At UNM he serves as faculty editor in chief of the Natural Resources Journal. He spent the previous six years at the University of Wyoming College of Law. Prof. Benson teaches courses relating to water resources law and administrative law, and has also taught legislation and environmental law. He has written several articles on water law and policy in the West, most recently "Dams, Duties, and Discretion: Bureau of Reclamation Water Project Operations and the Endangered Species Act", 33 Columbia Journal of Environmental Law 1 (2008). Prof. Benson is a co-author for the 6th edition of Water Resource Management, a leading Water Law text. He has also spoken at numerous conferences, focusing primarily on environmental aspects of water management by state and federal agencies. Before he began his teaching career, Prof. Benson worked in Oregon for the nonprofit conservation group WaterWatch, serving four years as a staff attorney and five as executive director. He also worked as an attorney for a Boulder, Colorado law firm, for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, DC, and for the Land and Water Fund of the Rockies. He earned a B.S. with honors in economics and environmental studies from Iowa State, and a J.D. magna cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School in 1988.

Shlomi Dinar is Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Florida International University in Miami. His research spans the fields of international environmental politics, security studies, and negotiation with particular interest in conflict and cooperation over transboundary freshwater. Dinar is likewise interested in the formal arrangements states negotiate and how such agreements encourage participation and compliance. His current work investigates the role of water scarcity in promoting international cooperation and the relationship between climate change and treaty compliance. He is the author of International Water Treaties: Negotiation and Cooperation along Transboundary Rivers (Routledge 2008) and co-author of Bridges over Water: Understanding Transboundary Water Conflict, Negotiation and Cooperation (World Scientific 2007).

Lee E. Dunbar received a BS in Biology from Upsala College in 1974 and an MS in Marine Ecology from the University of Connecticut in 1979. Lee has been employed with the Department of Environmental Protection since 1978. He is currently serving as the assistant director of the Planning and Standards Division of the DEP Water Protection and Land Reuse Bureau. His responsibilities include oversight of scientific and technical staff responsible for implementing a number of water management activities including water quality-based permitting support, total maximum daily load development, lakes management, non-point source grant program, watershed coordination, aquifer protection, inland and marine water quality and biological monitoring and assessment, technical support for the nitrogen trading program, and development and implementation of Connecticut State Water Quality Standards and Criteria. Recently, he has been assigned lead responsibility to oversee the development of stream flow regulations for Connecticut.

Peter Galant is a Vice President with Tighe and Bond and leader of their Water Technical Practice Group. He has over 20 years of experience in water supply planning, design and construction. Peter is a past president of the Connecticut Water Works Association and is a member of the Water Resources Committees of the CT Section of the American Water Works Association and the New England Water Works Association. Peter has also participated in the workgroups assisting the CT DEP develop new streamflow regulations.

Dr. Peter H. Gleick is co-founder and President of the Pacific Institute in Oakland, California. The Institute is one of the world’s leading non-partisan policy research groups addressing global environment and development problems, especially in the area of freshwater resources. Dr. Gleick is an internationally recognized water expert. His research and writing address the hydrologic impacts of climate change, sustainable water use, water privatization, and international conflicts over water resources. His work on sustainable management and use of water led to him being named by the BBC as a "visionary on the environment" in its Essential Guide to the 21st Century. In 2008, Wired Magazine called him “one of 15 People the Next President Should Listen To.”

Dr. Gleick is one of the nation’s leading scientists working on the implications of climate change for water resources. He has also played a leading role in highlighting the risks to national and international security from conflicts over shared water resources. He produced some of the earliest assessments of the connections between water and political disputes and has briefed major international policymakers ranging from the Vice President and Secretary of State of the United States to the Prime Minister of Jordan on these issues. He also has testified regularly for the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives, and state legislatures, and briefed international governments and policymakers.

Dr. Gleick received a B.S. from Yale University and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. In 2003 he received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship for his work on global freshwater issues. He was elected an Academician of the International Water Academy, in Oslo, Norway, in 1999. In 2006 he was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. and his public service includes work with a wide range of science advisory boards, editorial boards, and other organizations. Gleick is the author of more than 80 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters, and six books, including the biennial water report "The World’s Water" published by Island Press (Washington, D.C.).

John Herlihy is Director of Water Quality and Environmental Management for Aquarion Water Company, a public water supply company serving a population of 580,000 in 36 towns in Connecticut. John has over 30 years of experience in drinking water related water quality and environmental management matters. John is also the Vice Chairman of the Connecticut Section of the American Water Works Association.

Deborah Lapidus is the National Organizer with Corporate Accountability International, a membership organization that protects people by waging and winning campaigns that challenge irresponsible and dangerous corporate actions around the world. Deborah organizes public officials, students, members, and activists around the country to get involved with the Think Outside the Bottle Campaign. As a graduate of Green Corps, the field school for environmental organizing, Deborah has traveled around the country coordinating grassroots environmental and electoral campaigns. Deborah graduated from Brown University in 2005 with a concentration in international relations and the global environment.

Marc Levy is Deputy Director of the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), part of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He also serves as an adjunct professor in Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. He is a political scientist specializing in the human dimensions of global change. He has published over 50 peer-reviewed works on environment-security connections, environmental sustainability, emerging infectious diseases, the geography of poverty, and the effectiveness of international environmental institutions. He serves as Lead Project Scientist of the Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center and directs the Earth Institute’s Cross-Cutting Initiative on Environment-Security Linkages. He has served on a number of global environmental assessments and frequently advises national governments and international organizations on global change issues. Before coming to CIESIN in 1998 Levy had teaching appointments at Princeton University and Williams College.

Lynne Lewis is an Associate Professor of Economics at Bates College in Maine. Prior to joining to Bates College, she served on the faculty at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. She received her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Colorado in 1994 after finishing a two-year dissertation fellowship at the Environmental and Societal Impacts Group at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Much of her research has addressed transboundary water resource management including efficiency analysis of allocation agreements, compliance with allocation rules, tradable permits for pollution control and the valuation of environmental amenities and disamenities with watersheds and coastal zones. Most recently, she is working on a research grant focused on valuing the potential benefits from dam removal and river restoration. She is also working on a project looking at climate change and interstate water sharing agreements. She served on the Board of Directors of the Universities Council on Water Resources (UCOWR) from 1998-2005, and currently serves on the Board of the Natural Resources Council of Maine, the Penobscot River Science Steering Committee and the Advisory Board of Mitchell Center for Environment and Watershed Research.

Prof. Kaggere Shivananjaiah Lokesh obtained his Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering from Bangalore University, securing First Class with Distinction. He obtained his Master’s Degree (M.Tech.) in Environmental Engineering from the premier organization Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur during 1987. He successfully completed his Ph.D. degree from the University of Roorkee (presently IIT, Roorkee) in the area of Environmental Engineering during 1996.

Prof. Lokesh is the founder associate of the Dept. of Environmental Engineering (1987) and the Dept. of Biotechnology (2000) in the college. He has over 70 research publications in national and international journals (including peer journals) and conferences. He has been a special invitee by SIDA, Sweden from India to participate and present his research findings in a Special International Conference on Ecological Sanitation held at Inner Mongolia, China during 2007.

Aaron Salzberg serves as the Special Coordinator for Water Resources in the Bureau of Oceans, Environment and Science in the Department of State. He is responsible for managing the development and implementation of U.S. policies on drinking water and sanitation, water resources, and transboundary water and leads the U.S. Government’s response to the Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act of 2005. Aaron has been the lead water advisor for the United States at several major international events on water including the Second, Third and Fourth World Water Forums, the International Conference on Freshwater in Bonn, the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the UN Commission on Sustainable Development and several G8 Summits.

Aaron has a Ph.D. in Genetic Toxicology and a Masters degree in Technology and Policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also holds a Masters degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland and has mediated more than forty civil disputes as a mediator with the Harvard Law School.

Mark P. Smith is the Director of the Eastern U.S. Freshwater Program for The Nature Conservancy (TNC). Prior to joining TNC, Mark spent six years as the Director of Water Policy at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs (EOEA) and six years with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Boston as the project manager for the Casco Bay Estuary Project, part of EPA’s National Estuary Program. He has a master’s degree in Urban and Environmental Policy from Tufts University and a bachelor’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis.

Amy Vickers is a nationally recognized water conservation and efficiency expert and author of the award-winning Handbook of Water Use and Conservation: Homes, Landscapes, Businesses, Industries, Farms (http://www.waterplowpress.com/). She also wrote the national water efficiency standards for plumbing fixtures that were adopted under the U.S. Energy Policy Act of 1992, a measure that will save an estimated 6 to 9 billion gallons of water daily in the U.S. by 2020. Most recently, Ms. Vickers's Boston Globe op-ed, "Putting a cap on the bottled water industry,"* resulted in a public hearing at the Massachusetts State House on the growing problem of excessive groundwater extractions by bottled water companies. She is now working to pass legislation that calls for a moratorium on new and expanded extractions for bottled water. As president of Amy Vickers & Associates, Inc., an independent research and consulting practice based in Amherst, MA, Ms. Vickers has assisted over 100 public and private sector clients across the US, Canada, England, and the Middle East. A frequent public speaker and author of over 50 articles and professional papers, Ms. Vickers has been interviewed and quoted by The New York Times, USA Today, The Boston Globe, Atlanta Journal & Constitution, CNN, NPR and other media. She serves on the Board of Directors of the national nonprofit Alliance for Water Efficiency. Education: M.S., Engineering, Dartmouth College; B.A., Philosophy, New York University.

Glenn Warner, Ph.D., P.E. is a professor in the Natural Resources and the Environment Department at the University of Connecticut. His principal areas of interest are in water resources with a specialty in soil and water management in landscapes. His research includes ground water-surface water interactions, water and chemical movement in soils and modeling dynamic processes and interactions in ecosystems.

Ellen Wohl received her BS in geology from Arizona State University in 1984 and her PhD in geosciences from the University of Arizona in 1988. She has been a faculty member at Colorado State University since 1989. Her research focuses on physical processes and forms of rivers, particularly mountain streams and bedrock canyon rivers. She has authored or co-authored more than 90 scientific articles and 22 book chapters, edited 2 technical books, and written 6 books. To date, she has conducted field research on every continent but Antarctica.

The conservation movement in North America emerged out of the shock of the extinction of the passenger pigeon and the near extinction of the American bison, species that had once been considered too numerous to be depleted. By the 1960s a broad consensus emerged in the United States that species should not be driven to extinction by human activities. Since then, however, the Endangered Species Act and major programs to restore endangered and threatened species have become controversial. Property rights advocates claim that endangered species protection hampers economic activity and land development to an unreasonable extent. At the same time, some conservationists are concerned that too much money and effort are devoted to endangered species, diverting attention from protection of entire ecosystems that support numerous species.

Conference goals included providing a broad overview of current thinking about how to prevent extinction and sustain biological diversity by examining:

• the effectiveness and economics of endangered species protection
• efforts to sustain biological diversity in entire ecosystems or across regional landscapes
• the best methods for protecting biological diversity on a global scale.

Goodwin-Niering Center faculty and staff decided early in the planning process to create a video record of the presentations in order to share them with a larger audience. Links to the movies are on each presenter's web page which also includes biographical information, and a summary of the presentation.

Conference Proceedings Published

Saving Biological Diversity: Balancing Protection of Endangered Species and Ecosystems, is now available from Springer Science + Business Media, LLC. A compilation of presentations from the Center's 2007 conference, the book was edited by Robert Askins, Glenn Dreyer, Gerald Visgilio, and Diana Whitelaw. In addition to the traditional printed format, Springer also offers individual chapters for purchase in electronic form on their web site. All six previous Center conferences were also published as either books or dedicated issues of professional journals.

From the publisher:
“The distinctive contribution of this book is that it presents a pragmatic approach for preserving biological diversity. Experts in a wide variety of fields, including philosophy, environmental policy, law, economics and biology, present different perspectives on how to prevent widespread extinction around the world. Several chapters deal with basic questions such as how we should define biodiversity and how we should determine what is most important to save. Two chapters focus on how we can place an economic value on biological diversity, a step that is often critical for gaining acceptance for conservation efforts. One of the major conclusions is that people are often willing to pay to preserve natural systems that have no immediate value in terms of generating income or commodities.

Efforts to protect a particular endangered species typically lead to efforts to protect its ecosystem. Similarly, efforts to protect an ecosystem lead naturally to concerns about the atmosphere, climate and water supplies. The interdependence may also work in the other direction: loss of species potentially can undermine the stability and resilience of ecosystems, which can have a large negative impact on the biosphere. The main conclusion is that a wide range of approaches to conservation is needed to maintain diverse and ecologically functioning natural systems."

The 2005 Elizabeth Babbott Conant interdisciplinary conference was co-sponsored by the Connecticut Institute of Water Resources, the Sea Grant Program of Connecticut, and the Connecticut Chapter of The Nature Conservancy.

During the past twenty-five years acid rain, formally referred to as acid deposition, has been the focus of much political debate and scholarly research. Acid deposition is an environmental problem that crosses state and national boundaries, and is closely linked to energy policy since much of it originates as emissions from fossil-fuel power stations. This conference focused on important ecological impacts of acid deposition, the transboundary nature of the pollutants, and domestic and international policies designed to reduce their emission.

Conference Proceedings Published!

"Acid in the Environment: Lessons Learned and Future Prospects presents a broad approach to the study of acid deposition, exposing readers with a scientific background to significant policy issues and those with a policy orientation to important ecological impacts. The book raises important questions that will serve as a springboard for discussion between diverse groups of teachers and students, concerned citizens and legislators, and scientists and policy makers." The book is available from the publisher.

Conference Speakers:

Anthony C. Janetos, Vice President, The Heinz Center for Science. Economics and the Environment Lessons Learned from the Acid Deposition Research Experience

Charles Driscoll, Professor of Environmental Systems Engineering, Syracuse University. Acid Rain Revisited

Peter Dillon, Professor of Biogeochemistry, Environmental and Resources Studies and Chemistry Departments, Trent University, Canada. Acid Deposition - Effects, Responses to Decreases in Sulphur Emissions, and Prospects for Long-term Recovery

Knute J. Nadelhoffer, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan. Director, University of Michigan Biological Station. Atmospheric Nitrogen Deposition: Implications for Nutrient Cycling, Acidification and Terrestrial Ecosystem Functioning

Robert Howarth, Professor of Ecology and Environmental Biology, Cornell University. Nitrogen Pollution From Acid Rain is a Major Driver of Eutrophication in Coastal Marine Ecosystems

Paul Portney, President and Senior Fellow, Resources for the Future. Economics and Air Pollution Control

Daniel Sosland, Executive Director, Environment Northeast. U.S. Energy Policy and the Transmission of Acid-producing Emissions Across State Boundaries

Don Munton, Professor of International Studies, University of Northern British Columbia. U.S.- Canadian Conflict and Cooperation on Transboundary Acid Rain

Miranda Schreurs, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Maryland. Addressing the Transboundary Acid Rain Issue in Western Europe: Lessons and Comparison with the U.S. Experience

Barbara Connolly, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Notre Dame. The Challenge of Eastern European Integration & Compliance with LRTAP

Liliana Andonova, Assistant Professor of Government and Environmental Studies, Colby College. EU Integration and Acid Rain Policies in Central and Eastern Europe

Richard D. Morgenstern, Senior Fellow at Resources for the Future. Choosing Environmental Policy: Comparing Instruments and Outcomes in the United States and Europe

Ronald Shadbegian, UMASS-Dartmouth and Visiting Economist at the Environmental Protection Agency's National Center for Environmental Economics. The 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments: Who Got Cleaner Air - And Who Paid For It?

Joseph Kruger, Visiting Scholar at Resources for the Future. From SO2 to Greenhouse Gases: Trends and Events Shaping Future Emissions Trading Programs

Timothy H. Tear, Director of Conservation Science, Eastern New York Chapter, The Nature Conservancy. Atmospheric Deposition and Conservation

(Photo: Peg Van Patten)

The 2003 interdisciplinary environmental conference was co-sponsored by The Nature Conservancy and the Sea Grant Programs of Connecticut, Rhode Island and MIT.

Population and economic growth in the years ahead are likely to intensify the pressure for additional coastal development. Associated with coastal development are numerous threats to the quality and ecological functions of coastal environments. For example, these systems are important as spawning sites, nurseries and/or feeding grounds for estuarine-dependent fishes, including many commercially and recreationally important species. They also provide critical habitat for migratory shorebirds. Among the factors that threaten the health and continuity of such productive coastal habitats are increased nutrient loading and relative sea rise. The conflict between coastal development and conservation calls for a balancing of private development goals with public rights to preservation.

Conference Proceedings:

From the publisher:

Following a comprehensive overview by the editors, this volume's expert contributors provide detailed discussion of important legal, ecological and social issues associated with coastal resource management, as well as the most significant challenges confronting land use planners and resource managers in coastal communities. Using an interdisciplinary approach to perplexing questions surrounding the issue of development versus protection, the volume presents a broad approach to coastal issues involving private rights and public trust."
The book is available from thepublisher

Conference Speakers

James G. Titus, Global Programs Division, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: Does Shoreline Armoring Violate the Clean Water Act? Rolling Easements, Shoreline Planning, and Other Responses to Sea Level Rise

Michael Rubin, Rhode Island Attorney General's Environmental Advocate: The Palazzolo Litigation: A Case Study of the Supreme Court, "Property Rights and the Coast"

Michael E. Malamut, Senior Attorney, New England Legal Foundation, Boston and Adjunct Professor of Law at Suffolk University Law School: Regulatory Takings Post-Palazzolo: Applying Supreme Court Jurisprudence from the Practical Perspective

John Echeverria, Professor of Law, Georgetown Environmental Law and Policy Institute, Washington, D.C.: Regulating vs. Buying the Coast

Jane K. Stahl, Deputy Commissioner CT Department of Environmental Protection: Public Trust: Does the Law Serve Public Policy?

Stephen R. Kellert, Tweedy Ordway Professor of Social Ecology, Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies: Human Values and the Coastal Environment

Eric T. Schultz and Michael Ludwig, Associate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs: Essential Fish Habitat (EFH) in the Coastal Zone: the Essentials on how Fish Habitat Needs are Evaluated and Protected

James N. Kremer, Professor of Marine Sciences, University of Connecticut at Avery Point: Too Many Neighbors: Planning for Nitrogen in Coastal Watersheds

Johan C. Varekamp, George I. Seney Professor of Geology, Earth and Environmental Studies, Wesleyan University, CT: Once Spilled - Still Found: Metal Pollution In Sediments From Long Island Sound And Its Coastal Wetlands

Brian Harrington, Biologist, Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences, Mass., Staff Technical Advisor to the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network: Strategic Coastal Bird Migration Staging Sites: An International Conservation Challenge

Donald Henne, Project Leader Southern New England - New York Bight Coastal Ecosystems Program of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service: Ionian Enchantment By the Sea: A Stewardship System for the Long Island Sound Ecosystem

Virginia Lee, Assistant Director, RI Sea Grant College Program and Megan Higgins, Coastal Policy Analyst, R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council: Public Access to the Public Trust

Robert J. Johnston, Associate Director Connecticut Sea Grant College Program and Assistant Professor Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Connecticut: Changing Preferences for Environmental Amenities in the Coastal Zone: The Implications of Population Growth for Natural Resource Values and Policy

James J. Opaluch, Professor of Environmental and Natural Resource Economics, University of Rhode Island: Use of a Policy Simulation Laboratory for Consensus Building on Growth Management in the Coastal Zone

Article on the Conference:

Our Changing Coast , Gerald Visgilio and Diana Whitelaw, Associate Directors, the Goodwin-Niering Center for Conservation Biology and Environmental Studies (Article previously published in CC:Magazine, Fall 2003)

A QUEST FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: Healthy, High Quality Environments for All Communities

The 2001 interdisciplinary conference was co-sponsored by Connecticut Coalition for Environmental Justice and Southeastern Connecticut Indoor Air Quality Coalition. Environmental justice deals with the distributional impact of pollution damages. Do communities that host toxic facilities, for example, have a higher percentage of minorities and the poor relative to other communities? The empirical evidence on this issue is mixed. Some studies show that toxic facilities are likely to locate in minority or less affluent communities, while other studies find no statistical difference between the racial composition of communities that house hazardous waste treatment facilities and those that do not.

Conference Proceedings:

Our Backyard: A Quest for Environmental Justice. A collection of essays by local activists and nationally recognized scholars, Our Backyard deals with the history, status, and dilemmas of environmental justice. These essays provide a comprehensive overview of social and political aspects associated with environmental injustices in minority and poor communities. In addition to focusing on the actions taken by communities and politicians in response to an actual or perceived environmental risk, the contributors also deal with the methodological challenges confronting environmental justice research. Published in 2003.Published by:

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200
Lanham, Maryland 20706
1-800-462-6420

About the Editors

Gerald Visgilio, professor of economics at Connecticut College, has spent nearly three decades teaching and working in environmental and natural resource economics. Diana Whitelaw had twenty years of experience with education programs for low income and minority children, their families and communities prior to joining the Goodwin-Niering Center for the Environment.

Speakers and Panelists

Timothy Black, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Sociology, Director of the Center for Social Research, University of Hartford and John A. Stewart, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Sociology, Research Associate of the Center for Social Research, University of Hartford: Burning and Burying in Connecticut: Are Regional Solutions to Solid Waste Disposal Equitable?

Bunyan Bryant, Ph.D. Chair of Resource Policy and Behavior Concentration, School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan: Environmental Justice: History, Issues, and Dilemmas

Pam Davidson, Ph.D. candidate, University of Massachusetts Amherst: Risky Business? Relying on Empirical Studies to Assess Environmental Justice

Christopher H. Foreman, Jr. Ph.D. Professor of Public Policy, School of Public Affairs, University of Maryland at College Park: The Promise and Peril of Environmental Justice

Manuel Lizarralde, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Anthropology/Botany, Connecticut College: Green Imperialism: Indigenous People and Conservation of Natural Environments

Diane-Michele Prindeville, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Government, New Mexico State University: For the People: American Indian and Hispanic Women in New Mexico's Environmental Justice Movement

Virginia Ashby Sharpe, Ph.D. Deputy Director and Associate for Biomedical & Environmental Ethics, The Hastings Center, Garrison, New York: Environmental Justice: Ethics and the Allocation of Environmental Benefits and Burdens

Jace Weaver, Ph.D. Associate Professor of American Studies, Religious Studies and Law, Yale University: Environmental Justice and Native Americans

Harvey L. White, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh, PA: Syndrome Behavior and the Politics of Environmental Justice

Panelists

Estelle Bogdonoff, M.P.H.Co-chair, Southeastern Connecticut Indoor Air Quality Coalition: Coalition Building at the Local Level

Kathy Cooper-McDermott, RN, BSN. Environmental Health Nurse, New London Department of Health and Human Services:
People, Places and Asthma: Its Ecological Imprint in our Midst

Cynthia Jennings,J.D. Board Chairperson, Connecticut Coalition for Environmental Justice: Multi-racial, Cross-cultural Environmental Mobilization: One Person Can Make A Difference

Mark Mitchell, M.D., M.P.H. Director of Connecticut Coalition for Environmental Justice: Protecting Urban Environments in Connecticut through Community Education and Advocacy

Jacquelyn Pernell, Case Investigator, Department of Environmental Protection: Policy in the State of Connecticut

Kenny Foscue, M.P.H. Division of Environmental Epidemiology and Occupational Health, Connecticut State Department of Public Health: Public Health in Brownfields

James Younger, Director of Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, EPA: Federal Government Laws and Policy

The 1999 environmental conference was co-sponsored by the Connecticut Sea Grant College Program.

The proceedings of this conference were published in December 2000 as a special issue of the journal Northeast Naturalist Vol 7, No.4. It is available for purchase from The Goodwin-Niering Center for $10.

Marine fisheries around the globe are in dramatic decline as fish are extracted at a rate faster than they can regenerate. According to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, nearly 70 percent of commercial fish species are either fully exploited or in serious trouble. Fishing vessels with increasingly sophisticated navigation, sonar, and fishing gear are able to efficiently harvest ever greater proportions of fish populations.

Stretching from Long Island Sound to Nova Scotia, fish populations in New England's offshore waters are also experiencing this crash, though they currently provide only about ten percent of the annual US catch. While government regulators seek to further restrict fishing in Georges Bank, the Gulf of Maine and Southern New England waters, scientists hurry to collect critical life-history and habit data upon which management must be based. Meanwhile fishermen and their families struggle with severe economic hardship and wonder if the end of their traditional means of livelihood is now in sight.

Managing fish stocks for sustainable yields is in the interest of everyone, yet there is little agreement on how best to accomplish this difficult balancing act. The only consensus is that imperiled marine resources must be safeguarded from over exploitation and the human impacts to ecosystem functions needed to sustain harvested populations must be reduced.

Speakers:

Lauren Allen, National Marine Fisheries Service, Gloucester, MA: Protected Species and Fishing Methods: An Overview of the Problem, Regulation, and Conservation Strategies

Peter Auster, National Undersea Research Center, Avery Point, CT: Sustaining Harvested Fish Populations and Conserving Biodiversity: The Role of Marine Protected Areas

Scott Burns, World Wildlife Federation, Washington, DC: Certified Catch: Incentives for Sustainability

Dave Crestin, National Marine Fisheries Service (retired Deputy Director): Federal Regulation of Fisheries

Joe DeAlteris, Rhode Island Sea Grant: Effects of Fishing on Biodiversity and Habitat in the NW Atlantic

Ellie Dorsey, Marine Conservation Consultant, Washington, DC: Perspectives from a Non-governmental Organization

Chris Glass, Manomet Center for Conservation Science, Manomet, MA: Conservation of Fish Stocks through Bycatch Reduction

Trevor Kenchinton, Gadus Associates, Nova Scotia: North Atlantic Fisheries Management: The Canadian Approach

Helen Merderer, University of Rhode Island: In Their Blood: Commercial Fishing and Family Life in New England

Frank Mirarchi, a fisherman from Scituate, MA: Thirty-five Years on the Waterfront: a Fisherman's Perspectives

Steve Murawski, National Marine Fisheries Service, Woods Hole, MA: Ten Years of Groundfish History in the Northeast

Jim O'Malley, East Coast Fisheries Federation, Narragansett, RI: Finding a Balance between Economy and Environment

Michael Pol, Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, Pocasset, MA: The New England Commercial Fishing Industry: Developments and Trends

Jon Sutinen, University of Rhode Island: Economic Perspectives on Fisheries Management in New England

Rich Wahle, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Science, West Boothbay Harbor, ME: Fisheries in a Sea of Change: Ecology and Oceanography of New England's Fishery

The 1997 environmental conference was co-sponsored by the Connecticut Forest and Park Association.

The proceedings of this conference were published as a special issue of the journal Northeastern Naturalist Vol. 5, No. 2. It is available for purchase from The Goodwin-Niering Center for $10.

The recovery of the forests of the northeastern United States during the past 150 years is remarkable. Regions that were 80 to 90% farmland in the mid-nineteenth century are 60 to 80% forested. Forest now covers the stone walls, cellars and roads of an earlier agricultural society. Species that had disappeared, or almost disappeared, from the Northeast - moose, wild turkeys, white-tailed deer, beaver, and pileated woodpeckers - are common again, and the maturing forests are regaining a rich diversity of native plants. The resurgence of the eastern hardwood forest provides optimists with compelling evidence of the resiliency and endurance of natural systems.

At the same time, the new forests face severe and unprecedented threats. Introduced pathogens and insect pests remove one species of tree after another from entire regions. Acid rain changes the quality of the forest soil, potentially stunting the growth of plants. Housing developments and roads break the continuity of the forest, and timber harvesting intensifies in some of the largest expanses of forest. Only a careful assessment of the overall impact of these disturbances and of the extent of forest recovery will permit us to effectively manage the northeastern forest in order to create sustainable management strategies and determine if the biological diversity and ecological functioning of the northeastern forest can be restored and sustained.

Speakers

John Banta, Planner and Land Use Attorney, Adirondack Park Agency: Land Protection and Local Control

David Foster, Forest Ecologist, Harvard Forest: Looking Back and Seeing Forward: An Historical Perspective of the Northeastern Forest

John Hagan, Ecologist, Manomet Observatory: The Future of Industrial Forestry and the Implications to Biodiversity in the Northeast

James Kahn, Economist, University of Tennessee: Policies for Promoting Economic Efficiency and Sustainability in the Northeastern Forest

John Kricher, Ornithologist, Wheaton College: The Adirondack Park - Nothing Endures But Change: A Brief History of Birds and Mammals in Eastern Forests

Gene Likens, Limnologist, Institute of Ecosystem Studies: Effects of Acid Rain on Forest Productivity

Orie Loucks, Ecologist, Miami University: Mixed Mesophytic Forest and Forest Decline

Marsha McKeague, Forest Manager, Great Northern Paper: Forest Sustainability and Maine's Working Forest

William Niering, Ecologist, Connecticut College: Forces that Shaped the Forest