Search MnSTA

The recipients of the Goldman Environmental Prize were announced on April 23. Six were awarded, one for each of the inhabited continents. The awards are targeted for grassroots environmental activists.

 

You may read about their work here as well as view short and informative videos.  The North American winner is from the United States. LeeAnne Walters exposed the Flint, Michigan water crisis.

 

You will hear some pleasant words, music to our ears: science, evidence, the use of data, etc. And see science in action as science and society mix it up. I was struck by the vision, persistence, patience, bravery, and intelligence of these extraordinary people.

 

As I read about the recipients the words of Aldo Leopold from A Sand Country Almanac  seem especially appropriate. One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.