Sustaining Our Oceans: Key to Earth's Future
The theme of this year’s Earth Day celebration at Salem State University is “Sustaining Our Oceans: Key to Earth's Future,” which focuses on the health of the oceans, as one of the central challenges to maintaining a healthy planet. We invite you to participate in this year’s Earth Day events to learn, contemplate, and discuss the problems of Earth's oceans and prospects of a healthier planet.
Representatives from state and federal government, environmental organizations, activist groups and more will attend. Students should come to network with environmental professionals, to investigate summer and academic year internships, and learn about potential jobs.
Faculty coordinator for this event: Prof. Jennifer Jackman, Political Science
Over 80 research posters, submitted by SSU students in many disciplines, will be judged in the morning. Visitors are encouraged to view the posters and speak with the students who created them during the competition phase and until 12:30pm. We will also be featuring an Earth Day art exhibit and competition in Vets Hall.
Faculty coordinator for poster competition: Prof. Marcos Luna, Geography
Faculty coordinator for art exhibit & competition: Prof. Ken Reker, Art
Speakers: Alan Young (Department of Biology), Joseph Buttner (Department of Biology and Cat Cove), Brad Hubeny (Department of Geology), and Barbara Warren, Executive Director of Salem Sound Coastwatch.
Faculty coordinator: Prof. Jennifer Jackman, Political Science
Co-Sponsored by the Civic Engagement Spring 2012 series
Four Salem State faculty will bring their different perspectives to help illuminate this contentious environmental and political debate now occurring in our country. The politics, economics, science, and technology of energy - its extraction and transport, and the combined effects of all of this on the environment and climate system.
Refreshments will be provided.
Sponsored by the Political Science Academy, student club of the Department of Political Science.
An award-winning documentary on the effects of ocean acidification, sometimes called the "other CO? problem". The world's oceans have a finite capacity to uptake carbon dioxide pollution of the atmosphere - and as this limit is reached, the alkalinity of the oceans are steadily decreasing, which means they are acidifying - which is already having serious negative ecological effects. The movie ends on a hopeful note as to how enlightened technologies can greatly reduce our carbon footprints.
Pizza and sodas will be provided.
Sponsored by Greens Committee, SGA and the Salem Geographical Society
Go inside the shocking world of a man deemed too controversial even for Greenpeace; a man who has been accused of eco-terrorism; a man who some call the most daring marine environmental activist ever. It seems Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Greenpeace-expellee and star of the reality television series Whale Wars, will stop at nothing to save endangered creatures of the sea. 100 Minutes. Studio: Topics Entertainment. Director: Ron Colby.
Refreshments provided.
Sponsored by Department of Political Science and Political Science Academy
Social hour with refreshments.
Introductions & Opening Remarks
Announcement of student Poster Competition & juried Art Exhibit winners
Featured Speaker: Capt. Charles Moore, discoverer of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre of the Pacific Ocean and founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation in Long Beach, California. He is the lead author of the new book Plastic Ocean: How a Sea Captain's Chance Discovery Launched a Determined Quest to Save the Oceans.Capt. Moore was recently showcased on CBS Sunday Morning. See the clip online.
Also featured: Capt. Rob Yeomans, co-founder of Boat Camp Nature School in Newburyport, Massachusetts.
Presentation of "Friend of the Earth" Awards:
Closing Remarks and thanks to all
See a list of past Friend of the Earth Award recipients (pdf)
Press coverage of the 2011 Friend of the Earth Awards. Also see past press coverage: Earth Days 2008, 2006
For film-maker Rob Stewart, exploring sharks began as an underwater adventure. What it turned into was a beautiful and dangerous life journey into the balance of life on earth. Driven by passion fed from a lifelong fascination with sharks, Stewart debunks historical stereotypes and media depictions of sharks as bloodthirsty, man-eating monsters and reveals the reality of sharks as pillars in the evolution of the seas. Filmed in visually stunning, high definition video, SharkWater takes you into the most shark rich waters of the world, exposing the exploitation and corruption surrounding the world's shark populations in the marine reserves of Cocos Island, Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. In an effort to protect sharks, Stewart teams up with renegade conservationist Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Their unbelievable adventure together starts with a battle between the Sea Shepherd and shark poachers in Guatemala, resulting in pirate boat rammings, gunboat chases, mafia espionage, corrupt court systems and attempted murder charges, forcing them to flee for their lives. Through it all, Stewart discovers these magnificent creatures have gone from predator to prey, and how despite surviving the earth's history of mass extinctions, they could easily be wiped out within a few years due to human greed. Stewart's remarkable journey of courage and determination changes from a mission to save the world's sharks, into a fight for his life, and that of humankind.
Drinks and cookies provided.
Sponsored by BioSociety
In the early hours of March 24th 1989 the Exxon Valdez oil supertanker runs aground in Alaska. It discharges millions of gallons of crude oil. The incident becomes the biggest environmental catastrophe in North American history. For twenty years, Riki Ott and the fishermen of the little town of Cordova, Alaska have waged the longest legal battle in U.S. history against the world's most powerful oil company, ExxonMobil. They tell us all about the environmental, social and economic consequences of the black wave that changed their lives forever. This is the legacy of the Exxon Valdez.
Light refreshments will be provided.
Sponsored by SSU Philosophy Club
Financial Support for Earth Days 2012 Generously Provided By the following:
