Kim Smith keynote and ‘Friend of the Earth’ award from Salem State University Earth Day 2018

The 2018 week-long Earth Day events at Salem State University culminated with an evening awards ceremony on April 12th. Kim Smith was the invited 2018 Keynote Speaker, and Friend of the Earth Award recipient! It’s an extraordinary fit as Kim Smith’s life’s work across media –whether its her acclaimed and award-winning films, photography, landscape design, art, or writing– calls us to marvel and commune with nature. She’s a champion Friend of the Earth.

Kim Smith is henceforth included in this distinguished Salem State University Friend of the Earth list, an ambassador for the natural world, our region and Massachusetts!

Earth Days at Salem State University – Past Friend of the Earth Award Recipients:

*2001-2017 list- Compiled by Prof. John Hayes, Geography, and co-chair, Salem State University (SSU) Earth Day Planning Committee

• 2018 – KIM SMITH award winning photographer, filmmaker, landscape designer, artist, and writer. Author of Oh Garden of Fresh Possibilities! Notes from a Gloucester Garden
• 2017- 
• 2016: Naomi Oreskes, Ph.D.—(Professor, Harvard Univ.), co-author, Merchants of Doubt, …….
  Bob Prescott—(Exec. Director, Wellfleet Ocean Sanctuary)…..
• 2015: Larry Chretien—(Executive Director, Energy Consumers Alliance of New England and of Mass Energy – for his advocacy and leadership for over 20 years to champion the benefits of renewable energy alternatives in the New England region for our states, cities and towns, and our utility companies that provide us electricity and energy; as Executive Director of Mass Energy and the Energy Consumers Alliance of New England – he demonstrated how consumer-oriented non-profit organizations can lead the way in promoting affordable and environmentally
  sustainable energy resources.)
• 2014: Gerard (Jerry) Bertrand (Environmental Adviser, Permian Global – for his enduring commitment to preservation of land and habitat; for his past service as head of international affairs for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife
  Service, his chairmanship of BirdLife International, his service as president of Massachusetts Audubon Society and cofounder of World Land Trust, and his service at Permian Global and its efforts to protect natural forests globally to
  sequester carbon, mitigate climate change, and preserve habitat through investment.)
• 2013 Frances Moore Lappe – (co-founder of Small Planet Institute and author of 18 books including the landmark Diet for a Small Planet, World Hunger – Twelve Myths, Food First – Beyond the Myth of Scarcity, Hope’s Edge, and EcoMind – Changing the Way We Think, to Create the World We Want.) Marc Rodgers – (Communications Director, Cape Wind Associates – for his continuing efforts for more than ten years to communicate and educate about the proposed Cape Wind wind farm project on Nantucket Sound and for his efforts to help shepherd the project through the long-lived environmental review process.)

• 2012: Capt. Charles Moore – (sailor, scientist, author, and discoverer of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and Founder and Director, Algalita Marine Research Foundation, Long Beach, CA; for his continuing efforts to educate, monitor, and influence policy regarding the plastic pollution of the world’s oceans; and for documenting his work in the acclaimed book, “Plastic Ocean”.) Rob Yeomans – (educator and director, Boat Camp, Inc. and Boat Camp Nature School, Newburyport, MA – for his continuing efforts to educate children of all ages about the sea and its life; Rob is also a biology teacher at Newburyport High School, and he is an alum of Salem State.)
• 2011: Janet Domenitz, Exec. Director of MassPIRG since 1989 (responsible for leading MassPIRG’s policy development, research, and legislative advocacy efforts; example statewide campaigns include to update the Mass. Bottle Bill, to offer input to the Mass. Solid Waste Master Plan, to reduce urban sprawl and its negative environmental impacts, and their efforts to encourage citizens to “reduce, reuse, and recycle”.) Weston Wilson, former geo-scientist and environmental compliance analyst in the Denver, CO office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Weston was an EPA whistleblower during the Bush-Cheney administration
  regarding hydrofracking for oil and natural gas and its possible contamination of both groundwaters and surface waters.)
• 2010: Dr. Frank Ackerman, Global Development and Environment Institute, Tufts University – (for his rich body of published research on the economics of climate change, including the economics of inaction by government and society; for his work in Europe and the USA to influence energy and climate change policy by governments) Toxics Use Reduction Institute (TURI) at the Univ. of Mass. at Lowell (for their continuing efforts to educate the public and to influence state and municipal policies regarding the generation of hazardous and toxic wastes, and
  how to reduce its pollution burden on communities and households.)
• 2009: Wenham Lake Watershed Association (Lori Ehrlich, Pam Kampersal, Renee Mary, Mary Rodrick, and Jan Schlichtmann) – (for their efforts to educate and inform the public about the pollution of Wenham Lake, the drinking water supply for Salem and Beverly, from the land-based disposal of coal ash from the Salem Harbor Power Station.) Kerry Mackin – Executive Director and co-founder, the Ipswich River Watershed Association (for her inspired leadership of the eNGO, the IRWA, and their continuing efforts to monitor the river, and educate and influence state policy about the Ipswich River watershed and its environmental problems.)
  Barbara Warren – Executive Director, Salem Sound Coastwatch – (for her inspired leadership of the eNGO, SSC, and their continuing efforts to monitor and educate the public about the water quality and water pollution of the waters of Salem Sound, and to work with state government and municipalities and residents to derive solutions.)
• 2008: Union of Concerned Scientists, Cambridge, MA (an eNGO – for their exceptional work to educate and offer policy ideas regarding climate change, clean energy choices, clean vehicles, sustainable agriculture, misuse of antibiotics in industrial agriculture, and scientific integrity) Kim Driscoll – Mayor, city of Salem (for her efforts to create a Renewable Energy Task Force to offer guidance to
  the Mayor and the City Council to improve energy efficiency and renewable energy efforts by the municipal government, to work with Salem State student interns to inventory municipal energy use, to promote recycling, and other pro-environment efforts)
• 2007 – no award given–no evening program this year–Forten Hall and library closed down.
• 2006 – Jose Julio Perez (Afro-Colombian coal mining activist–for a huge mine in Colombia that ships coal to the Salem Harbor power plant and has displaced peoples violently every time that the mine is expanded) Dr. Danny Faber (Northeastern University – for his exceptional research on environmental justice issues in Mass.; co-author of the report “Unequal Exposure to Ecological Hazards 2005: Environmental Injustices in the Commonwealth of Mass.”; as well as earlier reports in 2001; and editor of Guilford Press book in 1998, “The
  Struggle for Ecological Democracy: Environmental Justice Movements in the United States“.)
• 2005 – Congressman John Tierney – (for his continual commitment in the House of Representatives to support legislation that benefits the environment; for his inspired efforts to educate the public and his fellow legislators that
  capitalism and job creation do not have to pollute and damage the environment.) Veronica Eady – (former Director of the Environmental Justice and Brownfields Programs for the Mass. Executive Office of Environmental Affairs; former Executive Director of Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE) of West Roxbury, Mass.)
• 2004- Dr. Jill Stein (co-author of “In Harm’s Way: Toxic Threats to Child Development” (2000), and co-founder in 2003 of the non-profit organization, the Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities; she was also the Green-
  Rainbow party candidate for governor of Mass. in 2002.)
  Dr. Paul Epstein (Associate Director, Center for Health and the Global Environment of Harvard Medical School; also coordinated the report “Climate Change Futures: Health, Ecological and Economic Dimensions“, an international
  project with Swiss Re and the United Nations Development Programme.)
• 2003 – Ross Gelbspan – (Pulitzer prize-winning journalist for the Boston Globe and author, “The Heat is On: The Climate Crisis, The Cover-up, The Prescription” (1998); for his compelling book about climate change and the efforts
  by industry and others to obfuscate and distort the science about greenhouse gases and global warming climate change.) Cindy Luppi (executive director, Clean Water Action, an activist non-profit organization working to protect drinking water and water resources in Massachusetts and New England.)
• 2002- Jan Schlichtmann (litigator for the famous TCE groundwater contamination case of Woburn, MA, which was the basis for the 1996 non-fiction novel “A Civil Action” by Jonathan Harr, which in 1998 was produced as a movie (of the same name) and starring John Travolta as Jan Schlichtmann.
  Acting Governor Jane Swift – (for her efforts to work with HealthLink and the owners of the Salem Harbor Power Station to reach and sign an agreement in 2001 to bring the Salem power plant into compliance with tougher air
  pollution regulations.)
• 2001- Diane Dumanoski (co-author, “Our Stolen Future: Are We Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence, and Survival?–A Scientific Detective Story“, published in 1997; for her efforts to educate the public about the dangers of
  persistent, organic chemicals in the environment and their capacity to be hormone disruptors of wildlife and potentially humans.)

Complete list: http://dgl.salemstate.edu/earthday/History_FriendoftheEarthAwards-smallfont%20(2).pdf