Dear colleagues and friends,

We are pleased to welcome Seth Shonkoff to campus as the next speaker in the Fall 2015 Sustainable Futures Speaker Series. Seth will speak on Thursday, September 24 from 5:30 to 7:00 PM in Gist Hall room 218 (GH 218) on the HSU campus. The title of his talk is “The Environmental, Public Health, and Climate Dimensions of Oil and Gas Development in California.”

Dr. Shonkoff is the executive director of the energy science and policy institute, PSE Healthy Energy. He is also a visiting scholar in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at University of California, Berkeley, and an affiliate in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California. An environmental and public health scientist by training, Shonkoff has more than 15 years of experience in water, air, climate, and population health research. Shonkoff completed his PhD in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management and his MPH in epidemiology in the School of Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley. He is a contributing author to the human health chapter of The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). He was also the lead author of the two human health chapters in the California Senate Bill 4 Independent Scientific Study on hydraulic fracturing and well stimulation, published in July 2015. He has worked and published on topics related to the intersection of energy, air pollution, water quality, climate, and human health from scientific and policy perspectives. Shonkoff's current work focuses on the human health, environmental, and climate dimensions of oil and gas development in the United States and abroad.

The emergence of hydraulic fracturing (also known as 'fracking') and other similar techniques have brought renewed attention to the environment and public health dimensions of oil and gas extraction. Here in California, there has been a rigorous debate in recent years about the air and water quality dimensions of oil and gas extraction, as well as the contributions that fugitive methane emissions make to global climate change. Seth is well positioned to provide key insights into these issues. His talk should be a very interesting one, and we hope that you will join us there. 

Best regards,

Arne Jacobson
Schatz Energy Research Center and Environmental Resources Engineering Department