April 22, 2014
Bruce Stutz: Three Centuries of Earth Day on the Delaware River
Environmental historian and journalist Bruce Stutz was the featured lecturer on Earth Day, April 22, 2014 at the David Library of the American Revolution. Mr. Stutz’s books include Natural Lives, Modern Times, People and Places of the Delaware River, an environmental history that connected the natural history of this longest undammed river on the East Coast to the civilization that grew up along its banks, a civilization that eventually threatened the very river that gave it life. His lecture, “Three Centuries of Earth Day on the Delaware River” addressed human impacts on the river. Within twenty years of William Penn's arrival in the late 1600s, Dutch, Swedish, and English colonists had irreversibly altered the nature of the Delaware River. According to Mr. Stutz, understanding the river's survival over the ensuing three centuries provides reason to be optimistic for its future.
Bruce Stutz is a contributing editor to OnEarth, the magazine of the Natural Resources Defense Council, and to e360, the online environmental journal of the Yale School of Forestry. For more than thirty years he has traveled the world to report on nature, the scientists who study it, and the challenges of environmental change. His articles have appeared in national and international publications, among them Discover, Natural History, Scientific American, The New York Times Magazine, Audubon, and Conde Nast Traveler. As a magazine editor—as features editor at Audubon and then as Editor-In-Chief of Natural History—he worked closely with international scientists from diverse disciplines and engaged some of the world’s best photojournalists. His museum projects include editorial concept design and content for “Science Storms,” a permanent exhibit at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry and exhibits at the California Science Center’s new Air and Space Center.