Environmental Justice

In an ongoing effort to foster dialogue and educate our community on racial justice issues,
Falmouth Community Television (FCTV) presents the 21st episode in a series of programs entitled
THE Conversation. Co-hosted and co-produced by Onjalé Scott Price and The Rev. Will Mebane, the series offers a timely dialogue on race. The topic of this month’s episode of THE Conversation is “Environmental Justice.”

Ms. Scott Price is the COO of Mizar Imaging in Woods Hole and Vice Chair of the Falmouth Select Board.
The Rev. Mebane is the rector of Falmouth’s St. Barnabas’s Episcopal Church.

This month’s panelists are Robert Thieler and David Welch. Bette Hecox-Lea and Kirstin Meyer-Kaiser also appear on the program.

The discussion focuses on the questions: “What role does racism play in efforts to address the climate crisis?” and “What steps are necessary to ensure environmental justice?”

Dr. David Mark Welch, Senior Scientist and Director of the Josephine Bay Paul Center at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), is an evolutionary biologist with a background in biochemistry and molecular biology. His research spans processes of metazoan genome evolution to how rare and unknown microbes shape ecosystems and is united by an overarching interest in the molecular mechanisms by which natural selection and evolutionary history create biological diversity. He led the development of the bioinformatics tools necessary to analyze the first massively-parallel tag sequence datasets that demonstrated the existence of a “rare biosphere” of microbial taxa and leads the teams developing the Visualization and Analysis of Microbial Population Structures project. He co-chairs (with Cathy Pfister at UChicago) The Microbiome Center, an intellectual home for researchers across the University of Chicago, the Marine Biological Laboratory, and Argonne National Laboratory to advance understanding of the identity and function of microbes. As Director of the Bay Paul Center, he also oversees the development of bioinformatic resources for the Encyclopedia of Life. Dr. Welch earned his B.A. in Biology from Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Harvard University.

Dr. Rob Thieler is the Center Director of the U.S. Geological Survey's Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center in Woods Hole. Rob received his B.A. in political science from Dickinson College and his M.S. degree in environmental science and Ph.D. in geology from Duke University. Rob conducts marine geologic research on the geologic framework and evolution of the coastal zone. This includes understanding the relationships between geology, sediment transport, climate and sea-level change, and coastal erosion. Rob has conducted assessments of sea-level rise vulnerability for the U.S. and locations worldwide. He served as a Lead Author of a U.S. Global Change Research Program report on the potential impacts of sea-level rise and works with many federal and state agencies to develop science and policy plans for addressing coastal change hazards. Rob also studies habitat use and availability for beach-nesting and migratory shorebirds. Rob developed the widely-used DSAS software package for measuring coastal erosion and accretion and has recently developed smartphone applications for coastal science.

Episode 22 of THE Conversation can be viewed Friday at 6:00 PM, Sunday at 8:00 PM, Monday at 8:00 AM, and Wednesday at 11:00 AM on FCTV Public Channel 13. Channel 13 is also streamed live via FCTV’s website at www.fctv.org, and the program will also be available for viewing on-demand on the website, FCTV’s Facebook page, YouTube channel, and the Falmouth Community Television Apple TV and Roku channels.