Registration

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To kick off the first day of CWRU's Climate Action Month, please join us for a screening of "What We Do To Nature, We Do To Ourselves," on Tuesday, October 1st at 6:30 PM at the Strosacker Auditorium on the Case Western Reserve University Campus.

There will be a talk back after the film with opportunities to ask questions and engage with local farmers and advocates featuring: Ryan Bennett, Food Programming Coordinator, CWRU Farm; Kelly Clark, Working Well Farm; Marc White, Co-Founder, Rid-All; Tish O'Dell, Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) Consulting Director & OHCRN Board Member.

Tickets are free, but you must register to attend. Refreshments will be provided courtesy of the CWRU Office of Local Government and Community Relations. The event is also in partnership and supported by CWRU Climate Action Network, CWRU Office of Energy & Sustainability, Working Well Farm and the Cuyahoga County Board of Health.

Artist Andrea Bowers created a dual-location art show in Cleveland, on the Rights of Nature & the Great Lakes entitled “Exist, Flourish, Evolve” which ran through May 26, 2024, at the Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) & Great Lakes Science Center (GLCS). This exhibit included her documentary, "What We Do To Nature, We Do To Ourselves."

The inspiration for the documentary came from the passage of the Lake Erie Bill of Rights in 2019 by voters in Toledo, Ohio and the shutdown of the community’s water for 3 days after a toxic algae bloom caused by industrial agriculture in NW Ohio.

Andrea’s art inspired CELDF to host a “Truth, Reckoning, and Right Relationship with the Great Lakes," at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the fall of 2023 and then followed up in April of 2024, with "Right Relationship with Lake Erie, Nature, and Each Other." Participants included doctors, lawyers, indigenous activists, educators, students, religious practitioners, artists, environmental regulators, and community activists – young and old -- to deconstruct the ill-health of the Great Lakes, and the world at large.

As a result this full-length documentary was created as a means to inform and generate honesty, and move away from systems and legal structures that do not protect nature or ourselves. The film explores how to move towards a new system, grounded in "right relationship" with water, food, nature, and each other.

CELDF has released each testimony from the event in their Truth & Reckoning Playlist https://youtube.com/@theceldf?si=pbORU6WNDHpRHqFe so they can be shared and used to help others reflect as well.

For more information, contact CELDF at https://celdf.org/contact/
Visit CELDF at https://celdf.org/ to learn more about Rights of Nature. Support CELDF at https://celdf.org/donate/
Food Provided (Pizza, popcorn & soda)

Where

Strosacker Auditorium

2125 Adelbert Rd., Cleveland, OH 44106, United States

Speakers

Peter Whitehouse's profile photo

Peter Whitehouse

Professor, Department of Neurology, School of Medicine; Professor, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine; Professor, Department of Neurosciences, School of Medicine; Professor, Department of Cognitive Science, College of Arts and Sciences; Professo

Case Western Reserve University

Peter J. Whitehouse MD-PhD has a primary appointment as Professor of Neurology, with secondary positions as Professor of Psychiatry, Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and Organizational Behavior, and former appointments (but current interests) in Psychology, Bioethics, History, and Nursing at Case Western Reserve University. He is also currently Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto, an incoming fellow at Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford, and President of Intergenerational Schools International. He received his undergraduate degree from Brown University and MD-PhD (Psychology) from The Johns Hopkins University (with PhD work at Harvard and Boston Universities), followed by a Fellowship in Neuroscience and Psychiatry, Neurology Residency, and faculty appointments at Hopkins. He has served in national and international leadership positions in neurology, geriatrics, and public health. 



In 1999 Peter founded with his wife, Catherine, The Intergenerational Schools, unique public, multiage community schools in Cleveland. He is a serial social innovator with a focus on learning environments. He is the author and editor of hundreds of academic papers, book chapters, books, and multimedia projects ranging from genetics and cognitive neuroscience, to clinical issues, to community and public health, and ethics and the humanities. He often takes a critical stance towards exiting models of thought.



Peter is a prevention oriented, intergenerational neurologist. His current main academic and practice focus is on ecopsychosocial models of brain health and aging and the role of the arts and humanities in health. He is currently focusing on new conceptions of wisdom and quality of life.



He explores the evolving meaning of old and new words and the importance of narrative in all domains of life. He is an aspiring geek and artist focusing on digital photography. He is also actively engaged in understanding and contributing to cultural responses to climate change, social injustice, economic inequality and other complex wicked problems. Peter considers himself an intergenerative, transdisciplinary, action-oriented scholar.


Tish O’Dell's profile photo

Tish O'Dell

Consulting Director

Community Environment Legal Defense Fund (CELDF)

Tish O’Dell is a Senior Staff member at the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. She has assisted communities throughout the United States organize and pass laws for community rights and rights of nature for over 12 years. Tish began organizing in her hometown of Broadview Heights, Ohio, which successfully campaigned to adopt the first Home Rule Charter amendment in Ohio, creating a Community Bill of Rights banning new gas drilling, fracking and injection wells in 2012. Tish has also been featured in the documentary We the People 2.0, appeared on the Thom Hartmann Show and The Daily Show and is one of the editors of the 2021 book Death by Democracy: Protecting Water and Life — Frontline stories from Ohioans fighting corporate and state power. She has written articles published in the Ecologist, TruthOut, Common Dreams, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Columbus Free Press and appeared on many podcasts and webinars, including Damages, The Julie Rose Show (NPR), Living on Earth, and a four-part European Parliament webinar ​“Towards a European Recognition of the Rights of Nature.”

Marc White's profile photo

Marc White

Farm Operations Manager

Rid-All Green Partnership

Fashion Designer, Humanitarian, Regenerative Specialist and Farmer. and one of the Original Green Partners of Rid-All Green Partnership.  



As a student of life, and the first African American male graduate of Kent State’s School of Fashion in the Mid 1980’s, Marc has spent his career drawing inspiration from nature and the creation to form his unique design aesthetic. He has a philosophical vision of “traditional” clothing and culture that translates into completely modern sartorially pleasing and covetable wear. He brings vitality and art to a segment of this industry that was considered out of touch with the urban community for years.  His products are classified green, focusing on providing sustainable and affordable articles made with longevity in mind.  His manufacturing employs socially conscious production methods, or low impact processes as well as the use of vintage, re-purposed and or up-cycled products.



As with clothing, Marc saw early on that the human body is the original canvas of God’s creative expression and that contemporary standards of beauty were not favoring the innate resident beauty that every human naturally possessed; creating low self-esteem and identity crises in many people. To echo Marc “We are an outer reflection of an inner condition.” Optimum health through nutrition and righteous thinking plays a major role when it comes to our aesthetic beauty and overall wellness.



Living abroad between 1990 and 2010, Marc had the opportunity to reside in West Africa, Israel and Europe. Steeped in the deep rich culture of his journeys, he has gleaned much creative inspiration from this exposure.  



In 2003 Marc Co-Founded the Dimona Greening Company, an urban greening company in Southern Israel whose objective was to raise the green standards and practices of the people there. This initiative fostered personal and environmental consciousness towards a more sustainable and regenerative life.



In the Fall of 2011 Marc was propositioned by longtime friends, fraternity brothers and Rid-all Co-founders Keymah, Damien and Randy to come back to Cleveland, manage the project and bring his spirit to the farm.  Marc  has produced a line of clothing and products that demonstrated a combination of utility and elegance called “Reconstructed”, as well as a regenerative juice and food product line called “The Urban Farm Doctor’s” super food line.



Marc specializes in growing relationships, healing herbs and succulent plants seen and experienced every time you come by their farm.


Kelly Clark's profile photo

Kelly Clark

Co-Founder

Kelly's Working Well Farm

As a teacher, Kelly spent her career seeking ways to cultivate authentic and lasting learning in her students, focusing not on external validation or evaluation, but rather on meaningful engagement with the material at hand. Kelly’s Working Well Farm was created to provide an environment in which individuals could learn, grow, and explore through freely chosen, authentic and meaningful activities. In such an environment, the boundary between work and play dissolves and community bonds are formed via mutual interest and endeavors. The farm becomes a mini-society in which self-actualized members enjoy personal agency and develop a sense of responsibility for each other and place. 



In 2012, Kelly and her  husband Bill began to turn some deserted land down the street from their home into an educational farm with a veggie garden, orchard, farm animals, community gatherings & summer camps attracting hundreds of children. Earth skills and other environmental workshops & events drew folks from all over northeast Ohio. Even then, visitors to the farm were quick to call it a magical place!



Kelly soon retired from twenty plus years of teaching to start the self-directed education program that is now Chagrin Valley Learning Collective. Inspired by Peter Gray’s book “Free to Learn”, the Learning Collective promotes the development of children’s autonomy & connection through personal freedom and community self-government. It is unique in that it also provides farm & nature immersion as foundational experiences for its participants.


Ryan Bennett's profile photo

Ryan Bennett

Coordinator, Farm Food Program

Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), University Farm

Ryan works at the University Farm, a 400 acre property in Hunting Valley, managed by the University. He is the farm food production program coordinator, he is also Chief of Composting processing the vast majority of Bon Appetit's campus cafeteria food waste, and he oversees 3 food growers and his program usually has 4-6 interns every year. Ryan's food program sells their produce to Bon Appetit, at farm stands, and to several other local restaurants. Ryan used to be on the other side of the food industry in the kitchen as a chef with restaurants that specialized in farm to table.

Hosted By

Climate Action Network | Website | View More Events
Co-hosted with: Explore

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