This public lecture series, launched in the fall of 2005, honors the legacy of Gaylord Nelson. Support is provided by the Holstrom-Kineke Environmental Studies Fund. Additional support for the series in 2007-08 is provided by the Ho-Chunk Nation.
Transcripts and/or audio recordings of lectures in this series, if available, are available on the archived lectures webpage.
Environmental Justice and Climate Change
Michel Gelobter is the founder of Cooler, Inc., a for-profit, social venture that provides easy ways for consumers and retailers to address the global warming impact of goods and services. Gelobter worked on climate change issues for more than 25 years. Most recently he led Redefining Progress in designing the world’s most aggressive climate legislation, signed into California law in August 2006 by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Gelobter has been a Congressional Black Caucus Fellow with the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee; director of environmental quality for the City of New York, and an assistant commissioner for the city's Department of Environmental Protection (with more than 6,000 employees and an overall budget of more than $2 billion annually); and founder and director of the Environmental Policy Program at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. Gelobter serves on the advisory board of Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection and the on the board of the Natural Resources Defense Council, among others.
LaFollette School of Public Affairs, University Lectures Committee, L&S Undergraduate Honors Program, Net Impact, and Environmental Studies Club
Nuclear Power's Dirty Little Secret:
Uranium Mining
Doug Brugge has a Ph.D. in cellular and developmental biology from Harvard University and an M.S. in industrial hygiene from the Harvard School of Public Health. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Public Health and Family Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. He is director of the Navajo Uranium Miner Project and of the Tufts Community Research Center. He has worked in community collaborations with many neighborhoods of Boston and with Navajo communities. His research has largely employed the model of community-based participatory research and methodologically has involved focus groups, oral histories, surveys, environmental sampling and clinical assessment. His research includes studies of asthma; of the impact of culture and language on health communication; the impact of environmental tobacco smoke; motor vehicle related injuries; and the impact of uranium mining and processing on Native Americans. In 2007 he testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on uranium contamination in the Navajo areas. He has published over 100 academic articles that include original research, reviews, policy and historical analysis. He is co-editor (with Pat Hynes) of Community Research in Environmental Health (Ashgate Publishing Group, UK, 2005) and co-editor (with Esther Yazzie-Lewis and Timothy Benally) of The Navajo People and Uranium Mining (University of New Mexico Press, 2006).
For more information on radon in Wisconsin, please visit www.lowradon.org.