Past Events

This is the third in the Science for the Public's Science-Civic-Media Literacy series at Belmont Public Library, Belmont MA. Wendy Jacobs, Emmett Clinical Professor of Environmental Law, and Director of the Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law School discusses how citizens can utilize the law to restore protective regulations for our environment. This video includes a link to the Clinic’s excellent online manual that contains all the information concerned citizens need to guide environmental action. Image: [Pixaby](https://pixabay.com/en/power-plant-industry-chimney-2411932/ "Pixaby")

Political cartoonist Ted Rall discusses his latest in a collection of graphic biographies, this time focused on Francis, the People’s Pope. Rall presents the life, ideas, and political impact of the most progressive spiritual leader in the Roman Catholic church’s history. Raised Roman Catholic himself, Ted Rall is able to bring depth to his latest graphic biography as perhaps no other writer or comics artist could. Rall's art is always attuned to the human comedy, his protagonists funny at the same time as they provide a serious account of some of the most pressing issues and struggles of our times.

In 1662 the newly restored king of England, Charles II, demanded that the Massachusetts Bay colony alter their laws to align with imperial priorities. Two years later, four royal commissioners arrived to enforce these demands. What followed was a season of extraordinary political activism, as colonial men and women mobilized to protect their liberties and local institutions. These Puritan activists believed that liberties were gifts from God, and relinquishing these freedoms amounted to shunning His gifts. Drawing from petitions, sermons, and letters of the day, historian Adrian Chastain Weimer will share the largely untold story of 17th-century New Englanders who fasted, prayed, and spoke out against the threat of arbitrary rule.

The 2017 hurricane season was the most expensive on record for the United States, inflicting a staggering $268 billion in damage. Areas of Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico are still rebuilding after Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria made landfall last summer. The occurance of three devastating hurricanes in a single season highlights the importance of research on the relationship between climate change and the strength of hurricanes. Now that that 2018 hurricane season has begun, scientists are working to predict what's in store for this year and for years to come as sea surface temperature continues to rise. In this talk, Sydney Sroka, Tom Beucler, and Jonathan Lin, three graduate students studying various aspects of hurricane predictability and atmospheric physics at MIT, describe how hurricanes intensify, the state-of-the-art technology of hurricane prediction, and the way climate change is expected to influence hurricanes.

Learn about the right whale, a large baleen whale found in the waters of New England. Though whale hunting is outlawed throughout most of the world, right whales are still threatened by fishing gear. They can easily become entangled in ropes and suffer serious injuries. Lobstermen Kristan Porter and John Haviland will explain the struggles fishermen face when it comes to earning a living while trying to follow regulations meant to protect marine creatures. Scientist Amy Knowlton shares her experiences tracking and studying entangled right whales. Lastly, Bycatch Program director Laurens Howle will demonstrate his team's simulation software that models how right whales interact with fishing ropes.

Sip a cold one as you hear a short talk on mindfulness, stories from a cop turned criminal, and more. The theme is escape. BostonTalks is WGBH’s smarter happy hour featuring short talks, networking and, of course, beer and wine. Image: Pexel.com

Roxane Gay is a cultural critic and the author of the essay collection _Bad Feminist_, which was a New York Times bestseller; the novel _An Untamed State_, a finalist for the Dayton Peace Prize; the short story collections _Difficult Women_ and _Ayiti_. A contributing opinion writer to the New York Times, Gay has written for Time, McSweeney’s, the Virginia Quarterly Review, the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The Rumpus, Bookforum, and Salon. Her fiction has also been selected for _The Best American Short Stories 2012_, _The Best American Mystery Stories 2014_, and other anthologies. Hear a conversation about her recent works, the new anthology _Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture_ and the bestselling _Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body_. Read about Roxane Gay and the reach of the #MeToo movement [here](https://medium.com/@ForumNetwork/roxane-gay-and-the-reach-of-metoo-9f98ff0abf29 "Roxane Gay and the Reach of #MeToo").

ESPN writer and NPR sports correspondent Howard Bryant presents his latest book, _The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America, and the Politics of Patriotism_. It used to be that politics and sports were as separate from one another as church and state. Today, sports arenas have been transformed into staging grounds for American patriotism and the hero worship of law enforcement. But as journalist Howard Bryant reveals, this has always been more complicated for black athletes, who from the start, were committing a political act simply by being on the field. The Heritage is the story of the rise, fall, and fervent return of the athlete-activist. Bryant details the collision of post-9/11 sports in America and the politically engaged post-Ferguson black athlete.

We, Ceremony is a digital platform founded by Iliana Panameño and Mu-Chieh Yun that uses narrative storytelling to empower, celebrate, and create representation and opportunities for women of color. Featured authors Chardline Chanel-Faiteau, Zubeda Khan, and Lydia López - three women of color leaders in Boston - discuss the launch of We, Ceremony's first e-book: _Liberación/Liberasyon/Libertação/解放: Unapologetic Women of Color_.

Looking at Great Britain's decision to leave the European Union in 2016, what can we learn? In his new book, _Making Sense of Brexit: Democracy, Europe, and Uncertain Futures_, Vic Siedler addresses the causes and implications of Brexit. He argues that we need new political imaginations across class, race, religion, gender, and sexuality to engage in issues about the scale and acceleration of urban change and the time people need to adjust to new realities. Photo: [Pixbay](https://pixabay.com/en/brexit-output-emergency-exit-eu-1477302/ "")