“Clear and Present Danger”

The past four years have marked a dark period of divisive anti-science rhetoric and an abject lack of leadership which has set back efforts to grapple with the key environmental challenges of the present day and future. This talk will focus on two of these major challenges – the looming climate change crisis and an obscure but ubiquitous concern involving the presence of active pharmaceutical ingredients in the environment. One of the issues is extremely topical and has been highly politicized and the other is stealthy, almost completely under the radar and largely out of the public eye. Dr. Elliott will provide a brief overview of the scientific context underpinning both of these existential environmental threats and offer perspectives on how they can be addressed.

Over the course of a 30-year career as an environmental engineer in industry, a major research university, and consulting, Daniel Elliott, Ph.D. has had the good fortune to be part of some of the marquee environmental challenges and transitions of our times. These included the aftermath of Love Canal and our response to uncontrolled hazardous waste sites in the 1980s to the dawning of the corporate & social responsibility movement in the 1990s and 2000s.