Stony Brook University celebrates Earth Day this week with its annual SUNY award-winning event, Earthstock, featuring student and faculty research, prominent guest lecturers, environmental organizations, displays, exhibitors and more. This year’s Earthstock focuses on “Sustainabilty: The Future is Now,” with events taking place on campus April 20 through April 24.
The main festival will be held on Friday, April 24, from 10 am to 3 pm on the Academic Mall (Rain Location: Student Activities Center). Earthstock is free and open to the public, so come shop at the farmers market; enjoy live music and dance performances, including a drum line and color guard showcase; talk with environmental exhibitors; watch the sustain-a-thon, push-up challenge, rubber duck races, and more.

Author, activist and Endowed Professor Carl Safina, founding president of the Safina Center at Stony Brook University, is the Earthstock Festival keynote speaker. His talk, “Caught in the Same Net: The Ocean and Us,” will be held on April 24 at 7:30 pm in the Charles B. Wang Center Theater.
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 — 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. He 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. Books will be available for signing by the author following the presentation.
Other highlights during the week include:
Wednesday, April 22, Wang Center Lecture Hall 2, 1 pm
Sustainability Studies Alumni Career Panel
Stony Brook University alumni and field professionals in the area of sustainability and green industries will be discussing what they have found valuable from their education at Stony Brook University, what they are working on currently, and what they hope to do in the future.
Panelists:
Tom Bruno, Coastal Environmental Studies, 2014
Gabriella Carvajal, Ecosystems and Human Impact, 2014
Aaron Cuison, Environmental and Sustainability Studies, 2013
Alexandra Santiago, Environmental Studies, 2013
Kellie Woznick, Environmental Design, Policy and Planning, 2014
Thursday, April 23, Humanities 1006, 4 pm to 5 pm
The Great Debate: Should the US Invest $3.6 Trillion in Critical Infrastructure by 2020?
Subject: “Be it resolved that the United States needs to spend $3.6 trillion before 2020 to rebuild critical public infrastructure, or the US will steadily spiral down into a second rate country”
Moderator: James Klurfeld, School of Journalism
Parliamentary Whip: Malcolm Bowman, School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences
Panelists:
Nicole Gelinas, Searle Freedom Trust Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal
Peter Salins, Professor of Political Science at Stony Brook University, Director of SBU’s Graduate Program in Public Policy and former Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs of the State University of New York
Lee E. Koppelman, Professor in Stony Brook University’s Graduate Program in Public Policy; former Suffolk County Director of Planning, Head of the Long Island Regional Planning Board, and Director of SBU’s Center for Regional Policy Studies
Gilbert Anderson, Commissioner of Suffolk County Department of Public Works
The debate is hosted by the Humanities Institute and sponsored by the School of Journalism and School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences.
For more information and a detailed schedule of events, visit stonybrook.edu/earthstock.
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