Waste:  One Woman’s ...

About this Recording

SPH Reads is a school-wide reading program hosted by the Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice. The 2021 book selection is Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret, by Catherine Coleman Flowers.

What you'll learn

At the end of the recording, participants will be able to:

• Discuss waste water infrastructure as an example of environmental injustice
• Identify examples of systemic racism and classism that have negatively affected health in the United States
• Identify possible specific activities individuals can participate in to address large issues of climate change and structural racism

Subject Matter Experts

• 
  

  Catherine Coleman Flowers
  @CATHFLOWERS

  Environmental and Climate Justice Activist, Author

More

Catherine Coleman Flowers is an internationally recognized environmental activist, MacArthur “genius” grant recipient, and author. She has dedicated her life’s work to advocating for environmental justice, primarily equal access to clean water and functional sanitation for communities across the United States. Founder of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice (CREEJ), Flowers has spent her career promoting equal access to clean water, air, sanitation, and soil to reduce health and economic disparities in marginalized, rural communities. In addition, Flowers serves as Rural Development Manager for Bryan Stevenson’s Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), is a Board Member for the Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary, and sits on the Board of Directors for the Climate Reality Project and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Flowers is also Co-Chair of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Commission on Accelerating Climate Action and Practitioner in Residence at Duke University. In 2021, her leadership and fervor in fighting for solutions to these issues led her to one of her most notable appointments yet — Vice Chair of the Biden Administration’s inaugural White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council. Flowers was also named Levenick Resident Scholar in Sustainable Leadership at the University of Illinois for the spring 2021 and was awarded an honorary PhD in science from Wesleyan University. As the author of Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret, Flowers shares her inspiring story of advocacy, from childhood to environmental justice champion. She discusses sanitation and its correlation with systemic class, racial, and geographic prejudice that affects people across the United States. She has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, The Guardian, and on PBS.

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  Barbara Moran
  @MORANWRITER
  

  Moderator
  Senior Producing Editor
  WBUR

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Barbara Moran, environmental editor, WBUR For more than 20 years, Moran has worked as a science journalist committed to covering issues of public health, environmental justice and the intersection of science and society. She has written for many publications, including The New York Times, New Scientist, Technology Review and the Boston Globe Magazine, and produced television documentaries for PBS and others. A few years ago she added radio reporting to her repertoire, and now runs WBUR’s three-person environmental team, which covers stories about energy, ecology and environmental justice for Boston and beyond. She was a Knight Fellow at MIT, and was twice awarded the National Association of Science Writers’ highest honor, the Science in Society Award.

Registration

Select the Enroll Me button below to register for this recording. If you have any trouble accessing the recording, contact support@nephtc.org.

_{Acknowledgement: This project is/was supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under grant number UB6HP31685 “Regional Public Health Training Center Program.” This information or content and conclusions are those of the author and should not be construed as the official position or policy of, nor should any endorsements be inferred by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government.}