Environmental justice 101

Read the interview with Kristin Shrader-Frechette in U.S. Catholic.

Quicktime 7 is recommended for best viewing.
Even if Kristin Shrader-Frechette’s mother hadn’t died of an environmentally-induced cancer at the age of 43, leaving seven children motherless in Kentucky, chances are the Notre Dame professor would still have grown up to be a dynamo researcher and scholar working for environmental justice.

Not only does she know her science—with degrees in mathematics and philosophy as well as post-doctoral work in biology, hydroecology, and economics—she is also well versed in Catholic social teaching.

She eschews the “fluff” image of environmentalists who care only about backpacking and spotted owls, instead arguing that the environment is a social justice issue as well as a prolife one. “What sense does it make to say we have a right to life if we don’t have a right to breathe clean air?”

Shrader-Frechette holds dual professorships in the philosophy and biology departments. She is the author of more than a dozen books and hundreds of articles. She serves on the EPA’s Science Advisory Board and has advised NASA, the United Nations, and governments of many countries on environmental issues. She is married with two grown children.

Read the interview with Shrader-Frechette in U.S. Catholic.

View excerpts from her interview with U.S. Catholic editors.