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This September marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring; this influential book not only led to the ban of the insidious pesticide DDT, but it also paved the way for the passage of the Clean Water Act. October 2012 makes the 40th anniversary of the Clean Water Act.

Forty years later, Iowa has severe soil erosion due to farm policies that encourage poor land management, Iowa's rivers and streams are polluted, and Rachel Carson would be dismayed to know that millions of pounds of weed killers known to be highly toxic are applied annually to Iowa's land. And rural communities have not benefited from the current economic structure of agriculture. Can we "feed the world" and ethanol plants like this?

To inspire public engagement with these food and agricultural issues of our time and to celebrate the Clean Water Act and the 10th Anniversary of Campus Sustainability Day, UNI's Center for Energy & Environmental Education invites you to a presentation by Ken Cook, President of Environmental Working Group, a national public interest research and consumer advocacy organization that uses the power of information to protect public health and the environment. Environmental Working Group is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and is renowned for its national headline-making investigations and research (e.g. Losing Ground, Plowed Under) of environmental problems caused by modern agriculture.

Happy Campus Sustainability Day 2012!