Carolina Science Cafe | Environmental Justice

How Environmental Justice Improves Environmental Science

Join us for our next installment of the Carolina Science Cafe, Morehead Planetarium and Science Center’s free, current science awareness program. For the June Cafe, we will welcome Dr. Ryan Emmanuel, a tenured faculty member at Duke University’s Nicolas School for the Environment.

Designed for adults, this program explores science topics making national and international headlines and offers the chance to meet the experts behind the headlines. The Carolina Science Café is hosted at Haw River Tab & Table in Carrboro on Tuesday, June 4th, starting at 6:00 p.m. with light appetizers available for all attendees.

Environmental justice is the idea that everyone deserves to be protected from environmental harm (e.g., pollution, natural disasters), allowed access to environmental benefits (e.g., green space), and included equitably in environmental decision-making processes. While many who are familiar with these ideas typically think about science and technology as tools to promote justice, we do not often consider how environmental justice can improve the work of environmental scientists and professionals.

This science café will tackle this issue head on as Ryan Emanuel shares his perspective as a water scientist whose work has been deeply influenced (and improved) by the principles of environmental justice. Using examples from his new book on Indigenous environmental justice in North Carolina, On the Swamp, and from his other work, Emanuel highlights the importance of understanding and acknowledging the two-way relationship between environmental justice and environmental science.

About the Speaker

Ryan Emanuel is a hydrologist and community-engaged scholar from North Carolina. He is currently an associate professor of hydrology at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and formerly worked as a professor in the College of Natural Resources at NC State University. At Duke, Emanuel’s research group studies the impacts of climate change and unsustainable development on water and watery places. His group also partners with Native American Tribes in North Carolina to understand environmental change from their perspectives as First Peoples. Emanuel is the author of On the Swamp: Fighting for Indigenous Environmental Justice. He belongs to the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina.

Learn more about his work: Ryan E. Emanuel, Ph.D. (ryanemanuel.com)

Carolina Science Cafe is produced by Morehead Planetarium and Science Center and sponsored by the UNC Chapter of Sigma Xi.

You do not need to register…just show up!