John Warner

Considered the father of green chemistry, John Warner is challenging the conventional way science evolves in this country. Warner was leading his field as a groundbreaking chemist, creating new molecules and winning awards when his two year old son died of a birth-defect with an unknown cause. He questioned the role his scientific tinkering had played in this personal tragedy and realized that chemistry in the U.S. was too quick to challenge nature instead of working with it. He has since become the President and CTO of the Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry and the Beyond Benign Foundation. He also actively advocates to reform scientific education in a way that considers toxicity and promotes research for safe, healthy products. Below is a video of Warner's humorous and inspirational presentation at the 2010 Bioneers conference.



John Warner: Intellectual Ecology from Bioneers on Vimeo. See more »

Tammy Herrington

In our second installation of "Letters from the Field," we share with you a letter from Tammy Herrington, the outreach and education director for Mobile Baykeeper in Mobile, Alabama.  In it she shares her heartache over the loss of their beloved coastline and the continued determination of Mobile Baykeeper.

"In the beginning, watching news of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf was like a slow unfolding hurricane.  In the wake of our Katrina experience, we along the Gulf Coast are experts at waiting for a hurricane.  However, unlike a hurricane , this gulf disaster has been a slow excruciating onslaught which feels more like an invasion than a storm.  There is no end so far to this invasion, nor do we yet comprehend the extent of the damage it will cause to this area we love." See more »

Michael Roberts

We recently traveled to the Gulf Coast to see the devastation firsthand. While there, we met Michael Roberts - a fisherman with 35 years of shrimping and crabbing under his belt. His heart-wrenching letter below brings to light the interconnectedness of the world he would wish to share with his grandson. We share it with you to bring more ears to Michael's story as it highlights the human cost, in addition to the environmental cost of our historic blindness to the effects of the fossil fuel industry.

SUMMER OF TEARS
The boat ride, out, from Lafitte, Louisiana, Sunday, May 23, 2010, to our fishing grounds was not unlike any other I have taken in my life, as a commercial fisherman from this area. I have made the trip thousands of times in my 35 plus years shrimping and crabbing. A warm breeze in my face, it is a typical Louisiana summer day. 3 people were with me, my wife Tracy, Ian Wren, and our grandson, Scottie. I was soon to find out, how untypical this day would become for me, not unlike a death in the family. This was going to be a very bad day for me. See more »

Tom and Sean Casten

Featured in the new documentary, Dirty Business: "Clean Coal" and the Battle for our Energy Future, Tom and Sean Casten are a father/son team that run Recycled Energy Development. They are retrofitting a silicon plant in West Virginia to recycle its waste heat to provide 40% of the factory's power, thus cutting back the plant's greenhouse emissions, saving the company money and potentially drawing manufacturing jobs back from China. The Castens argue that through energy efficiency, we could eliminate 20% of U.S. CO2 emissions and save about a hundred billion dollars a year. See more »

Sandra Steingraber

The words of ecologist, author and cancer survivor Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D never fail to have an impact. Whether speaking of the links between environmental degradation and health (through the exploration of her own battle with cancer) or writing on the beneficial relationship between organic food and raising children, her voice and words have touched thousands. Steingraber’s highly acclaimed book, Living Downstream: An Ecologist’s Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment presents cancer as a human rights issue. Released as a second edition in 2010, Living Downstream has been adapted for film by The People’s Picture Company of Toronto. This eloquent and cinematic documentary follows Steingraber during one pivotal year as she travels across North America, working to break the silence about cancer and its environmental links.

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