In Our Lifetime: Environmental Change and Stewardship

Members of the Holy Cross faculty offer multidisciplinary analyses of Pope Francis' encyclical letter "Laudato Si': On Care for Our Common Home," released in May 2015. Panelists are: Kelly Wolfe-Bellin, director of biology laboratories and lecturer in biology; Rev. Thomas Worcester, S.J., professor of history; Matthew Eggemeier, associate professor of religious studies; Katherine Kiel, professor and chair of economics and accounting; and Daina Harvey, assistant professor of sociology and anthropology. Loren Cass, professor of political science and director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, moderated the discussion. Co-sponsored by the McFarland Center and Environmental Studies.

Environmental ethicist Julia Finomo, a native of the Niger Delta and lecturer at the University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria, describes the environmental degradation due to oil drilling and gas flaring in the Niger Delta region since 1956. Slack practices of multinational oil companies have led to losses of health and livelihood for Niger Delta natives. Finomo advocates for an ecological solidarity among the oil companies, the Nigerian government and the local people to find a path to sustainability.

Professor of sociology at Boston College and former associate professor of economics at Harvard University, Juliet Schor is working on issues of sustainable consumption and production, with particular emphasis on political consumption, new patterns of time-use, and alternative economic structures. As a member of a MacArthur Research Network she is studying the emergence of collaborative consumption, the re-use and sharing of local resources. This lecture was co-sponsored by Sociology and Anthropology, the McFarland Center, and Montserrat.

Kieran Suckling ‘88, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, will talk about the extent of biodiversity loss in the U.S. and globally, and why the extinction crisis, though most often spoken of in ecological terms, is undermining our own humanity.

Two members of the Presidential Task Force on the Environment at Holy Cross, John Cannon, associate director of physical plant, and Katherine Kiel, associate professor of economics, talk about the efforts of the College and the actions of students that have the greatest positive and negative impacts on sustainability on campus.

Steven Solomon, journalist and author of Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization, asserts that freshwater scarcity is one of the 21st century's decisive, looming challenges and is driving new political, economic and environmental realities across the globe.

Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J., Distinguished Professor of Theology at Fordham University, explores the traditional role of Jesus Christ as Savior of the human race and considers if his teachings can be applied to a more bio-centric or cosmos-centric theology. Johnson is a theologian on the Vatican-sponsored dialogue on science and religion. Supported by the Deitchman Family Lectures on Religion and Modernity.

Bill McKibben, one of the nation's leading environmentalists and author of "The End of Nature" and most recently "Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet," speaks about climate change and the work of his global campaign 350.org.