Surviving Climate Change: Producing Less and Enjoying it More

Panel 3: Earth, air, forests and water
Saturday, June 28, 2:00 — 3:30 pm

Mark Donham is the Program Director of Heartwood, a regional environmental organization, and a long time environmental and community activist in Southern Illinois and Western Kentucky.

Forests are important for climate stability. We have yet to realize the full importance that they play in the stability of our ecosystem. The first thing we as a society should do is to start protecting our public forests and quit selling them off to loggers at a loss to taxpayers. Secondly, we need to recycle every scrap of building material and paper that is recyclable, and not be throwing such materials in landfills. Third, we need to have the system recognize the value of the ecosystem services provided by mature forests and have that included in academic training about forest management and in institutional planning.

Jim Scheff is the co-founder and coordinator of the Missouri Forest Alliance, and a member of the Heartwood Council. Jim holds an M.A. in Environmental Science and B.S. in Biology and has worked since 2000 to protect native eastern hardwood forests.

I will discuss the shift from the erroneous view of forests as “renewable resource” toward an awareness of forests as complex living systems, providing food, medicine, shelter, and wisdom. Under an industrial paradigm, forests cannot survive, and without forests, neither can humans.”

Kathleen Logan Smith is the Executive Director of the Missouri Coalition for the Environment. She has a degree in journalism from Oklahoma State University and is a founding board member of Health & Environmental Justice-St. Louis, working to end childhood lead poisoning.

Kat Logan Smith will address the problems and prospects for our inland fresh waters. Imagining a journey down the Mississippi, from Minnesota to the Gulf, she will demonstrate how genuinely protecting our inland waters can combat climate change, encourage sustainable farming, limit sprawl, maintain biodiversity, save our oceans, and safeguard our health.