PULLMAN, Wash. Washington State Universitys School of the Environment will host a free, public presentation, Environmental Justice in Rural America, by leading environmental justice activist Catherine Coleman Flowers at noon on Wednesday, Feb. 16.
Flowers will talk online about wastewater inequality and how it can be a social injustice issue. She will also discuss the ways in which water and sanitation infrastructure can indicate larger cycles of racism or poverty in the country.
It is the final presentation in SoEs Lane Family Lecture in Environmental Science 202122 series.
Flowers has gathered valuable insights from people living with water sanitation problems throughout the United States, including the Pacific Northwest and Inland Northwest, in her 20-years of experience working on this issue. She will discuss how research and ingenuity can make the U.S. make significant progress toward sanitation equity and how activists can help create equitable and sustainable wastewater infrastructure. Following her talk, there will be a question-and-answer session.
Kent Keller, SoE Director, stated, “This presentation will push our students and faculty to think more deeply about the interlocking technological and human dimensions of our environmental problems.” WSU’s mission as a land-grant institution, with its goal of improving quality of life and economic development, is especially relevant to the rural focus.
A panel of interdisciplinarian faculty members will discuss related research and education
SoE will also host an intimate viewing of Flowers at noon. This will be followed by a panel discussion at 12:30 p.m. with WSU faculty members who will discuss the topics raised.
Register for one or both of the events and learn more on the School of the Environment.
Flowers, the founder of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice was named vice chair of the inaugural White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council by the Biden Administration in 2021. In 2020, she was a MacArthur Foundation Fellow.
Flowers is Bryan Stevensons Equal Justice Initiative’s rural development manager. She is also a board member for Bryan Stevensons Natural Resources Defense Council, the Climate Reality Project and the Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary. She is also cochair of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Commission on Accelerating Climate Action and a Duke University practitioner in residence.
Flowers’ book Waste, One Womans Fight Against Americas Dirty Secret reveals a form of inequality that is often overlooked. Inequality in access to water and sanitation. Flowers also demonstrates the relationship between sanitation and systemic racial, racial, and geographic prejudices that affect people all across the U.S.
In October 2021 the acclaimed author/anthropologist David Treuer (Ojibwe) presented a Lane Family Lecture on Modern Native America and Environmental Justice. Jane Goodall and Sandra Postel were also presenters before the lecture series was started in 1993. Cecil Andrus and David T. Suzuki were also presenters.
Lecture cosponsors of 2022 include WSUs College of Arts and Sciences; College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences; Global Connections; Martin Luther King Program; Department of Sociology; SoE Graduate Student Association; Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service; Collective for Social & Environmental Justice; Common Reading Program. Students can get CR credit.
About SOE and the Lane Lecture
The scope of SoE education, research and engagement spans the physical, life, and social sciences to examine important environmental challenges, advance understanding of the Earth system, and develop citizens for a sustainable future. L.W. Lane gave the Lane Family Lecture in Environmental Science as a gift. Jean Lane and Bill Lane, former Sunset magazine publisher, along with numerous books and films, were the gift that established The Lane Family Lecture in Environmental Science.
Bill Lane stated, “We are strong supporters of public service. We hope that the annual lecture/fellowship encourages efforts to find solutions for some of the global issues that confront society.” Robert Lane, a 1983 WSU alumnus who was also their spouse, created the Robert Lane Fellowship In Environmental Science to support WSU graduate students in environmental sciences.
Gifts to Support the Cause Lane Family Lecture or Robert Lane Fellowship can be made securely onlineOr by contacting the CAS Development Office.
