John Cronin, executive director of the Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries, a not-for-profit environmental research organization, will give a talk, “Change the World – Start in Your Own Backyard,” on Wednesday, Feb. 20, at 7 p.m. in the Nott Memorial.
Cronin’s talk opens the 11th annual Environmental Science and Policy Winter Seminar Series, this year devoted to “Water and Society.” The series is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.
Cronin has a long and distinguished career in environmental policy, advocacy, and education. Through the Beacon Institute, he is directing the planning for a $100 million global science, technology and policy research institute created by Governor George E. Pataki. He is a former commercial fisherman, lobbyist, and legislative aide. He also is director of the Pace Academy for the Environment at Pace University.
For 17 years he served New York’s Hudson Riverkeeper where he was responsible for the investigation of more than 100 pollution cases and established far-reaching management and enforcement practices for one of the nation's premier estuaries. His work with Riverkeeper gained international attention, and resulted in the establishment of 160 similar programs worldwide. From this experience he co-authored Riverkeepers, with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. In 1991, he wrote and co-produced The Last Rivermen named one of the outstanding documentary films of that year.
Cronin has dedicated much of his career to the restoration of New York’s Hudson River, once considered America’s most polluted waterway. His work there prompted the Knight-Ridder newspapers to praise him as a “hero in one of the great success stories of the modern environmental movement.” The Wall Street Journal has called him “a unique presence on America's major waterways.” People magazine described him as “equal parts detective, scientist and public advocate.” Time named him a “Hero for the Planet.”