Carl Safina to Deliver the 2015 Barry Commoner Lecture on the Environment

Carl Safina, acclaimed scientist/author and President of the Safina Center at Stony Brook University, will deliver the 2015 Barry Commoner Lecture on the Environment, titled Caught in the Same Net: The Ocean and Us.
DATE & TIME: 2:30pm - 3:30pm EST March 19
LOCATION: Theresa Lang Theatre

Fisheries, coral reefs, forests, climate change, poverty, literacy for girls, and peace—these are all facets of the same issue. Drawing on two acclaimed recent books—The View From Lazy Point and A Sea In Flames—scientist/author Dr. Carl Safina weaves a story that is both deeply personal and broadly global. 

Sharing travels that take us from his Long Island beach house to the high Arctic, Antarctica, and across the coastal tropics, he shows how the changes he’s witnessed challenge not just nature, but all of humankind. 

Safina will also discuss how science has ethical implications, how religion and science are converging toward common cause on environmental matters, and how moral responses can add momentum toward increasingly crucial solutions.

Despite serious trends, there is a path forward.

About Carl Safina

Born in Brooklyn, Carl Safina grew up in an apartment filled with singing canaries—his father’s hobby. Frequent trips to New York’s zoos, aquarium, American Museum of Natural History, and on his uncles’ boat sparked an early passion for animals that might have seemed unusual for a city kid. He earned a PhD studying seabirds and spent close to a decade helping overhaul fishing policies to restore ocean wildlife. Carl Safina’s work has been recognized with MacArthur, Pew, and Guggenheim Fellowships, and his writing has won the Lannan Literary Award and the John Burroughs, James Beard, and George Raab medals. He has a PhD in ecology from Rutgers University. Safina is the inaugural endowed professor for nature and humanity at Stony Brook University, where he co-chairs the steering committee of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and is founding president of the not-for-profit Safina Center. He hosted the 10-part PBS series Saving the Ocean with Carl Safina. His writing appears in The New York Times, National Geographic, Audubon and other periodicals, andon the Web at National Geographic News and Views, Huffington Post, and CNN.com. Carl Safina’s writing shows how humanity is changing the natural world and what those changes mean for wildlife and for people.

Published: January 29, 2015