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Featured Speakers

Carol J. Adams is the author of the groundbreaking The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory and several other books. She has been an activist on antiviolence issues since the 1970s, publishing close to 100 articles in journals, books, and magazines on the issues of vegetarianism, animal advocacy, domestic violence and sexual abuse. In addition, she has contributed entries on "vegetarianism" for numerous academic encyclopedias and dictionaries. She is particularly interested in the interconnections among forms of violence against human and nonhuman animals, writing, for instance, about why woman-batterers harm animals and the implications of this. Her article, "Bringing Peace Home: A Feminist Philosophical Perspective on the Abuse of Women, Children, and Pet Animals," represents her approach to these interconnections. Moreover, she has contributed prefaces to important vegetarian/vegan books such as Joanne Stepaniak's The Vegan Sourcebook and Richard Alan Young's Is God a Vegetarian?

Julie Belaga completed her term as the Chief Operating Officer and Board member of the Export-Import Bank of the United States in January 1999. Ex-Im Bank is the official Export Credit Agency of the U.S. government. She led the Bank's efforts to increase financing for U.S. firms that export products and services that benefit the global environment.Energy, water delivery systems, hazardous waste clean-up, solid waste treatment and pollution control are among the industry sectors included in the initiatives she spearheaded for the Bank. From 1989 to 1992 she was Regional Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency for New England (Region One).She was a Fellow at the Institute of Politics and an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. She served for 10 years in the House of Representatives where she was elected Assistant Minority Leader (1978, 1980 and 1982) and Deputy Majority Leader in 1984 just prior to running for Governor. Ms. Belaga recently co-chaired the Coalition for the Permanent Protection of Kelda Land in a 2-year effort that succeeded in protecting 18,700 acres of land and water owned by the multinational company, Kelda. She is a founding director and co-chair of the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters and also serves on the board of directors of Connecticut Fund for the Environment, Save the Sound and Audubon Connecticut.

Alexandra (Sandy) Breslin specializes in community and government relations for Connecticut Fund for the Environment, a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization based in New Haven. In 2000, along with her co-panelists Julie Belaga and Karen Burnaska, and others, she began work to protect 18,700 acres of irreplaceable open space owned by the multinational corporation, Kelda. That effort resulted in the State's largest-ever open space purchase completed this year. Her recent projects have included successful efforts to enact a moratorium and planning process for energy transmission projects in Long Island Sound, and the strengthening and improvement of one of ConnecticutÕs key environmental protection laws. Currently, she is working on a campaign to protect the remaining 120,000 acres of land owned by water and electric companies throughout the State.

Karen Burnaska elected Selectman of the Town of Monroe in 1995 and reelected in 1997 and 1999, has been involved in community leadership for 23 years in a variety of town committees and councils. On a State level, Mrs. Burnaska participated as Vice President of Citizen Information for the League of Women Voters of CT, as Project Director for the League's Connecticut Citizen Service Bureau, and as a Member of the Secretary of State's Citizenship Task Force. In addition, she represented Monroe on numerous regional coalitions, boards and committees, most recently the Coalition for the Preservation of the Kelda Land. She currently represents the Greater Bridgeport Regional Planning Agency on the Coastal Corridor Transportation Investment Area, serving as co-chair of the group.

Dr. Helen Caldicott is widely regarded as one of the the most articulate and passionate advocates of citizen action to remedy the nuclear and environmental crises, devoting the last 30 years to an international campaign to educate the public about the medical hazards of the nuclear age, and the necessary changes in human behavior to stop environmental destruction. While living in the United States, from 1977 to 1986 , she founded the Physicians for Social Responsibility, an organization of 23,000 doctors committed to educating their colleagues about the dangers of nuclear power, nuclear weapons and nuclear war. On trips abroad she helped start similar medical organizations in many other countries. The international umbrella group (International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War) won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. She also founded the Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament (WAND) in the U.S. in 1980. She has received many prizes and awards for her work and was personally nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Linus Pauling--himself a Nobel Laureate. She has written for numerous publications and has authored five books, her latest entitled The New Nuclear Danger: George Bush's Military Industrial Complex (2002). She also has been the subject of several documentary films, including "Eight Minutes to Midnight," nominated for an Academy Award in 1982, and "If You Love This Planet," which won the Academy Award for best documentary in 1983. Dr. Caldicott divides her time between Australia and the United States where she is the president of The Nuclear Policy Research Institute based in California.

Wendy Gordon Rockefeller is the current president of the board of the Trickle Up Program, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to alleviating poverty through micro-enterprise development. An environmental and social activist, Wendy has focused much of her energy on consumer health and environmental issues. She is keenly aware of the connection between poverty and environmental destruction as well as poverty and environmental health injustice. As senior project scientist for the Natural Resources Defense Council in the '80s, Wendy was involved in policy research and advocacy in the areas of drinking water protection, hazardous waste management, and children's environmental health. She founded and served as executive director of Mothers & Others, an organization devoted to consumer education and action around health and environmental issues. Wendy is currently the executive director of The Green Guide Institute, publisher of The Green Guide, a premier consumer source for practical everyday actions that benefit personal health and the environment. Wendy has written for publication numerous articles and reports bringing the harmful effects of hazardous chemicals used in household products to the nation's attention. She has received numerous awards, including the Utne Reader's "General Excellence in Newsletters" Award in 1998 and 1999 for The Green Guide, the 1994 Center for Environmental Education Annual Award, and the 1993 Parent's Magazine "As They Grow" Award. Wendy is currently also a trustee of the Rockefeller Family Fund and on the advisory board of The Princeton Environmental Institute of Princeton University. Wendy holds a B.A. from Princeton University, an MS from the Harvard School of Public Health and is currently on leave from the doctoral program at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.