The Brown Bag Green Book lunch and learn series sponsored by the Knox County Public Library and the City of Knoxville continues on Wednesday, June 10, at 12 p.m. at the Market House Room of the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce at #17 Market Square. Dana Christensen, Ph.D., P.E., Associate Laboratory Director of the Energy and Engineering Sciences Directorate of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), will discuss the book Coming Clean: Breaking America's Addiction to Oil and Coal by Michael Brune.
In this timely book, Brune, executive director of Rainforest Action Network, shows how Americans can kick the fossil-fuel habit and pressure policymakers and corporations to change their energy priorities. His describes the economic, environmental, moral, and public-health costs of fossil-fuel dependence, and how governments and international banks are complicit. Brune also describes the most promising developments in renewables, biofuels, and efficient design, and offers an inspiring vision of the clean energy future within our reach. Overflowing with pragmatic and well-tested advice, Coming Clean is rooted in the author's faith that Americans acting together can create profound change.
"Brune is a political activist who has been successful in bringing attention to social/environmental causes. His success in gaining agreements from companies such as Home Depot and Lowe's toward not selling old growth rain forest products is an example of how a small number of citizens can change corporate behaviors when the cause is defensible. This book represents an attempt to simplify the message about the impact that fossil fuels are having on our environment so that the general public will stand up and listen. Of course, the issues are much more complex and the problems extend around the globe, not just America. Although not stated, it is implied that American leadership could result in breaking the world's addiction to fossil fuels," says Christensen.
The public is invited to join the conversation, but reading the book is optional. Participants may bring their own lunch or order in advance and pick up lunch from a downtown restaurant.
The series will continue on Wednesday, July 15, 12 p.m., with Ben Epperson, Coordinator of Beardsley Community Farm, leading a discussion of the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver in the East Tennessee History Center's auditorium, 601 South Gay Street (across from the Tennessee Theatre). Please note that this is a new location for the series.
For more information, please call Emily Ellis at 215-8723 or Erin Burns at 215-2065.