The 2016 Beaverbrook Annual Lecture will exceptionally present two speakers, Sheila Watt-Cloutier, environmental, cultural and human rights advocate and author of The Right to be Cold, and Professor Elena Bennett, McGill University, who will each give a talk then engage in a Q&A with the public on the overall issues of media and the environment.
The Lecture will be held on Monday, October 24, 2016, 5:30 p.m. in the Moot Court, Faculty of Law, McGill University, 3644 Peel Street, Montreal, QC.
The Lecture is free and open to the public. Seating first come, first served.
The event will not be livestreamed.
Sheila Watt-Cloutier
Environmental, Cultural and Human Rights Advocate
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”.
From 1995-2002, Watt-Cloutier was elected the Canadian President of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC). She was later elected in 2002 to become the International Chair of the ICC, representing the 155,000 Inuit from Canada, Greenland, Alaska and Russia–she held this post until 2006.
Watt-Cloutier is the author of the memoir, The Right to Be Cold: One Woman’s Story of Protecting Her Culture, the Arctic and the Whole Planet, published in 2015. The book was nominated for the 2016 BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction and the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing. Watt-Cloutier was also shortlisted for the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize.
Elena Bennett
School of the Environment & Department of Natural Resource Sciences, McGill University
Professor Elena Bennet is Associate Professor at the School of the Environment & Department of Natural Resource Sciences at McGill University, as well as Fellow - Aldo Leopold Leadership Program. She received her BA in Biology and Environmental Studies from Oberlin College in Ohio in 1994, earned her MSc in Land Resources in 1999 (U. Wisconsin) and her PhD in Limnology and Marine Sciences in 2002 (U. Wisconsin). She is co-chair of the international project ecoSERVICES, which aims to set the research agenda for ecosystem services for the coming decade, and lead author on the IPBES Global Assessment. Dr. Bennett was a Leopold Leadership Fellow (2012), and a Trottier Public Policy Professor (2013-2014). At McGill, she has won awards for undergraduate teaching, graduate supervision, and contributions to campus sustainability. In 2012, she was selected to be one of two representatives of the Royal Society of Canada at the Summer Davos meeting of the World Economic Forum held in Tianjin, China. In 2016, she was named one of six NSERC Steacie Fellows.
Dr. Bennett will speak about "Bright Spots: Seeds of a Good Anthropocene."