2016 Beaverbrook Annual Lecture: Media and the Environment

Sheila Watt-Cloutier and Elena Bennett are the 2016 Beaverbrook Annual Lecturers

For its flagship event, the 2016 Beaverbrook Annual Lecture, Media@McGill is excited to announce two speakers: Sheila Watt-Cloutier, environmental, cultural and human rights advocate and author of The Right to be Cold, and Elena Bennett, professor at McGill's School of Environment, who will each give a talk, and then engage in a Q&A with the public on the overall issues of media and the environment.

We regret to announce that Steven Guilbeault, co-founder and senior director of Equiterre, will be unable to attend.

Nobel Peace Prize nominee Sheila Watt-Cloutier is in the business of transforming public opinion into public policy. Experienced in working with global decision makers for over a decade, Watt-Cloutier offers a new model for 21st century leadership. She speaks with passion and urgency on the issues of today—the environment, the economy, foreign policy, global health, and sustainability—not as separate concerns, but as a deeply interconnected whole.  At a time when people are seeking solutions, direction, and a sense of hope, this global leader provides a big picture of where we are and where we’re headed.

In 2007, Watt-Cloutier was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for her advocacy work in showing the impact of global climate change on human rights—especially in the Arctic, where it is felt more immediately, and more dramatically, than anywhere else in the world. Watt-Cloutier an Officer of the Order of Canada; the recipient of the Aboriginal Achievement Award; the UN Champion of the Earth Award; the Norwegian Sophie Prize; and the Right Livelihood Award, which she won in November, 2015 and is widely considered the “Nobel Alternative”.

Dr. Elena Bennett will speak about "Bright Spots: Seeds of a Good Anthropocene."

Media@McGill is a hub of research, scholarship and public outreach on issues and controversies in media, technology and culture, based in the Department of Art History and Communication Studies, McGill University, Montréal, Canada. It was created and has been sustained by generous funding from the Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation.

For further information on Media@McGill and the Beaverbrook Annual Lecture, visit www.media.mcgill.ca