What:Guardianship for Future Generations: Becoming Great Ancestors, a talk by Carolyn Raffensperger, a lawyer and the Executive Director of Science, Environmental and Health Network (SEHN).

When: April 8th at 5pm

Where: Alumni Auditorium, Champlain College

Description:

Carolyn Raffensperger is the Executive Director of Science, Environmental and Health Network (SEHN) that was founded in 1994 by a consortium of North American environmental organizations (including the Environmental Defense Fund, The Environmental Research Foundation and OMB Watch) concerned about the misuse of science in ways that failed to protect the environment and human health. 

SEHN has developed a strategy and theory of change, based on the two-prong approach of (1) increasing public awareness and (2) changing decision-making institutions.

Carolyn proposes the creation of new institutions as part of a vision for the future that brings us back to life and health, and extends beyond our own generation.

 She suggests these new institutions will have the mission to protect our commonwealth and public health.  Carolyn promotes a method to solve these problems by working together: empowering policy makers and turning the community into a classroom.

 She advocates our government has two functions to defend and protect rights.  It is the government’s responsibility to be the steward and trustee of the commonwealth and public health and acknowledge that future generations have rights and responsibilities too.

 From the smallest unit of society to the largest unit of government, we can protect, enhance, and restore the inheritance of the Seventh Generation to come.  The public trust doctrine, with government serving as trustee on behalf of the citizenry, has been the most enduring and is part of the common law in most of the fifty U.S. states.  As noted above, the doctrine stands for the principle that government holds the resources of the earth in trust for the benefit of everyone within its jurisdiction.  This is conceived as an affirmative responsibility of government to manage these resources for the long-term benefit of the public.

 You can hear her TED Talk here: https://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/TEDxMaui-Carolyn-Raffensperger.

Courtesy of Valerie