Greenpeace USA Exec. Director to Speak at Meredith
Greenpeace USA Executive Director John Passacantando will speak at Meredith College on Sept. 9, 2008, at 7 p.m. in Jones Auditorium. Passacantando will present a lecture titled “Your Environment, My Environment: A Fight for Survival.”
As executive director of Greenpeace USA, the world’s largest environmental action organization, Passacantando is at the forefront of the fight for clean air, clean water and the survival of the planet. He has been instrumental in guiding a tremendous shift in public awareness and concern about the conditions of the planet.
A one-time political conservative and supply side economics disciple, he was converted to the environmental cause in 1987 when Mike Roselle, founder of Earth First! and the Ruckus Society, scaled Mt. Rushmore and hung a giant gas mask on George Washington—landing Roselle in prison and Passacantando in the ranks of the environmentalists.
Passacantando, who holds degrees in economics from Wake Forest and New York University, previously served as Executive Director of the Florence and John Schumann Foundation, awarding grants for campaign finance reform and environmental issues. He went on to found Ozone Action, an anti-Global Warming group before moving to Greenpeace in 2000.
Passacantando’s lecture is part of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Presidential Lecture Series at Meredith College, which stimulates and enhances the intellectual and academic climate at Meredith College and the broader community.
The lecture series features nationally and internationally-recognized speakers who are invited on the basis of their expertise, accomplishments and relevance to the College's theme, which for the 2008-09 academic year is “Sustaining Our Environment: Developing Our Greenprint.” Meredith will also welcome Animal Planet host Jeff Corwin, a leading conservationist, on February 25, 2009.
Events in Meredith’s Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Presidential Lecture Series are free and open to the public. Visit www.meredith.edu/campus-theme for more information.
