Event - Clean Water – Essential for Life: A UN Earth Day Conversation
Clean Water – Essential for Life: A UN Earth Day Conversation
03.18.18, 2:00 pm
Join the United Nations Association-Southern NYS Division in celebrating Earth Day at Queens Museum. On February 26, 1971, U.N. Secretary-General U Thant signed a proclamation saying that the United Nations would celebrate Earth Day annually on the vernal equinox, thereby officially establishing the March date as the International Earth Day.
In his Earth Day statement on March 21, 1971, U Thant said, “May there only be peaceful and cheerful Earth Days to come for our beautiful Spaceship Earth as it continues to spin and circle in frigid space with its warm and fragile cargo of animate life.” The United Nations continues to celebrate Earth Day each year by ringing the Peace Bell at U.N. headquarters in New York at the precise moment of the vernal equinox.
Join us for a panel discussion on Sustainable Development Goal #6: Clean Water and Sanitation . Worldwide, 663 million people are without access to clean drinking water. In the United States. 21 million people are exposed to unsafe drinking water. Hear how and United Nations agencies such as UNICEF and federal, state and city agencies in the United States promote clean water for all.
We will conclude with a short documentary screening of Water Warriors and Q&A with Director Michael Premo. Water Warriors is the story of a community’s successful fight to protect their water from the oil and natural gas industry. In 2013, Texas-based SWN Resources arrived in New Brunswick, Canada to explore for natural gas. The region is known for its forestry, farming and fishing industries, which are both commercial and small-scale subsistence operations that rural communities depend on. In response, a multicultural group of unlikely warriors–including members of the Mi’kmaq Elsipogtog First Nation, French-speaking Acadians and white, English-speaking families–set up a series of road blockades, preventing exploration. After months of resistance, their efforts not only halted drilling; they elected a new government and won an indefinite moratorium on fracking in the province.
Followed by light refreshments.
Free and Open to All, no RSVP necessary
ABOUT THE PRESENTERS
Jonathan Turer is the Director of Programs and Operations for H2O, a nonprofit that inspires and educates New Yorkers of all ages to learn about, enjoy and protect their city’s local water ecology. Through providing public and school programs at historic reservoirs, parklands, watersheds, bays, rivers and wetlands, H20 encourages diverse citizens to advocate for responsible public policy. Their activities promote science-based knowledge of New York’s local ecosystems and of what is needed for urban water resilience in a time when climate change impact continues to escalate. Turer is a Brooklyn based tour guide who received his MFA from Goldsmiths College, London. He has been fascinated with the city’s water supply ever since he went to summer camp in the Catskill Mountains. He began talking to kids about nature while at Connecticut College, leading tours of the school’s arboretum. He studied photography at School of Visual Arts (NYC). He is excited to combine his interest in NYC’s infrastructure and history with inspiring children about the natural world.
Carissa Herb, President of Earth Club at St. John’s University which heightens the environmental awareness of the campus community and improves environmental health on campus, local, and community levels. They accomplish these goals through education, political action, and the promotion of environmentally conscious activities
ABOUT UNA – Southern NYS Division
A membership program of the UN Foundation, the United Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA-USA) is dedicated to building understanding of and support for the ideals and work of the UN among the American people. The United Nations Association Southern New York State Division comprises all chapters and members-at-large in the five boroughs of New York City and in the counties of Columbia, Dutchess, Greene, Nassau, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Suffolk, Sullivan, Ulster and Westchester.
Feature Image: Film Still from Water Warriors