October 18 at Connecticut College in New London, CT: "Five Decades after Silent Spring." The series of events is free and open to the public, and features a panel discussion, a reception and exhibit entitled "Rachel Carson's Silent Spring: Rumblings of an Avalanche," and an evening talk by Sandra Steingraber. 

Please join us on October 18, 2012 for a series of events commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Rachel Carson's landmark work, Silent Spring and a half century of environmental awareness. All events will take place on the campus of Connectictut College and will be free and open to the public. Events will include a panel discussion reflecting on Rachel Carson and her legacy, held in Ernst Common Room of Blaustein Hall from 3:30 to 5:00 PM. The panel will be chaired by Linda Lear, author of the award-winning biography Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature and will include:

Naomi Oreskes, Professor of History and Social Science at the University of California, San Diego and author of Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco to Global Warming
Peter Siver, Professor of Botany and Director of the Environmental Studies Program at Connecticut College
Helen Rozwadowski, Associate Professor of History, University of Connecticut
Wendy Blake-Coleman, Office of Environmental Information, Environmental Protection Agency

Following the panel until 6:00 PM, there will be a reception in the Charles E. Shain Library and viewing of the exhibit Rachel Carson's Silent Spring: Rumblings of an Avalanche. The exhibit draws on material from the Rachel Carson Collection in the Lear Center for Special Collections & Archives illustrating the growing concern around DDT in the 1950s, Carson's plans for a book on the overuse of pesticides, the publication of Silent Spring, and the response to the book by the federal government, the pesticide industry, and the general public.

The day's events will conclude with a lecture at 7:30 PM in the Ernst Common Room, by ecologist, author, and environmental advocate Sandra Steingraber. A cancer survivor, Dr. Steingraber has written extensively on the intersection of the environment and public health first in 1997 with Living Downstream: An Ecologist's Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment and later with Having Faith: An Ecologist's Journey to Motherhood. Steingraber's most recent book, Raising Elijah is a call to action for what she calls the greatest moral crisis of our time: the environmental crisis. 

Sandra Steingraber has been heralded as "the new Rachel Carson" for her ability to translate current scientific research for the general public. She has participated in briefings of the United States Congress, the United Nations, and the President's Cancer Panel and has been a guest on The Today Show and Good Morning America.

Five Decades after Silent Spring is being made possible by the Sound Lab Foundation, the Friends of the Connecticut College Library, Connecticut College Information Services, the Lear Center for Special Collections & Archives, the Goodwin-Niering Center for the Environment, and Dr. Linda Lear.

For more information about the day's events or the Rachel Carson Collection at Connecticut College, please contact Benjamin Panciera at benjamin.panciera@conncoll.edu or by telephone at 860-439-2654.