From the National Press Club in Washington, DC, a panel discussion on the effect of urbanization on the human species. Participants include Molly Sheehan, project director of the Worldwatch Institute's State of the World 2007, Janet Swain, director of the Worldwatch Institute's Energy and Climate Change Program, Peter Newman, co-author of Greening Urban Transportation, and Princess Dana Firas of Jordan, one of the contributors to State of the World 2007.
Worldwatch Institute is a Washington, DC based non-profit research and publishing organization dedicated to promoting an environmentally sustainable society.
Bio
HRH Princess Dana Firas
HRH Princess Dana Firas is the former Executive Director of ResCare's international programs, where she worked to provide education, training and employment services to at-risk youth, disadvantaged populations and people with disabilities in the United States and internationally.
Prior to that, Princess Dana worked with Her Majesty Queen Noor on projects that promote sustainable development and the environment, women's participation in development, youth health and education and programs that promote peace and international understanding. Among her other activities, Princess Dana participated in the establishment of the King Hussein Foundation, served as a member of the steering committee of the IUCN World Conservation Congress 2000, organized the second meeting of the International Steering Committee on the Economic Advancement of Rural Women and worked as a consultant for the Global Equity Project.
Princess Dana was educated in Amman before receiving her BA in International Relations and Economics from Boston University, an MSc in International Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science and an MPA in Public Policy and Development from the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
Christopher Flavin
President and CEO, Worldwatch Institute
As President of Worldwatch, Christopher Flavin is the Institute's chief executive officer, serves on its Board of Directors, and represents the organization before a wide range of international audiences. In his long career at Worldwatch, he has helped guide the Institute's development, serving as vice president for research and later as senior vice president. He was appointed president in September 2000.
Peter Newman
Environmental scientist, activist and educator, Peter Newman is perhaps best known internationally for coining the term "automobile dependence" in the second half of the eighties to explain how the kind of cities we are building based on sprawling suburbs was inevitably leading to the growth in automobile use. Led to an international research survey with colleague Jeff Kenworthy of transport practices and structures (original data collected on 33 global cities).
This global research effort took the form of a book, Cities and Automobile Dependence: An International Sourcebook, which introduced the concept of car dependence - now a feature of planning literature and policy. The two researchers later collaborated on a book Cities and Automobile Dependence which was launched in the White House in 1999, as the President's Council on Sustainable Development was moving toward a more urban focus.
Newman has also served as a local government councilor, and continues to be personally engaged as a sustainability and transport activist.
Molly O'Meara Sheehan
Molly O’Meara Sheehan telecommutes to the Institute's Washington, DC office from New York. Before joining Worldwatch in 1996, she researched news stories for the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, assisted a study group on U.S.-Asia relations at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, and edited documents at Urban Connections, a firm in Tokyo.
Molly has a Master's degree in Environmental Sciences from Johns Hopkins University, and a Bachelor's degree in Biology and Asian Studies from Williams College.