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Topics | Speeches
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William A. Shutkin
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Catching the powerful impulses that drive William Shutkin’s career and activities, David Brower once described this attorney, educator and social entrepreneur as “an environmental visionary looking for and creating solutions to today’s problems with a passion that would make John Muir and Martin Luther King equally proud.”
Shutkin served from 2004 to 2006 as president and chief executive officer of the Orton Family Foundation, the Vermont and Colorado-based operating foundation that seeks to promote sustainable development in local communities, and on a regional basis, by engaging citizens in land use planning to make informed decisions affecting their environment and quality of life.
Prior to that, from 1999-2004, Shutkin taught environmental law and policy in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning (where he remains a Research Affiliate). He was also an adjunct professor of law at Boston College Law School, and taught courses in urban affairs and environmental policy at Tufts University and Northeastern University School of Law.
Shutkin’s writing have appeared in the Boston Globe, the Guardian (U.K.), the Boston Business Journal, Orion, Grist, and Conservation Matters, among other publications. His book, The Land That Could Be: Environmentalism and Democracy in the Twenty-First Century (MIT Press, 2000), won the 2001 Best Book Award for Ecological and Transformational Politics from the American Political Science Association. He is a frequent commentator for the web magazine TomPaine.com, a contributing writer for Northern Woodlands magazine, and a published poet.
Through his career, Shutkin has advised national, state and local environmental groups and governments on environmental and sustainable development issues. He has appeared as a guest on several national radio programs, including NPR’s Living on Earth.
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Speech Topics
Civic Innovation and Sustainable Communities -- Sustainability is a buzzword with few rivals, a term, it's been said, that's launched a thousand conferences. Yet almost nobody knows what it looks like on the ground. How do people and institutions live out the principles and values of sustainability in their day-to-day activities? What do these practices entail and how can they be applied? Sustainable communities start with civic innovators: people who can see across and beyond traditional constituencies, categories, institutions, and practices, define new realities, and navigate the difficult pathways to get there. It's all about who the people are.
Place-making and Pollution Control -- Environmental regulation is not, nor was it ever conceived to be, an instrument of place-making -- whether for cities, suburbs or rural communities. Wilderness and parks perhaps, but not human settlements. Despite the primacy of ecology to place, of natural systems to the livability and overall quality of life of cities and towns, the U.S. environmental protection system has traditionally not been in the business of place-making, except in the case of endangered wildlife or vegetation, where habitat is deemed as significant as the animal or plant itself. Less clear is the importance of place when human communities are at issue, the principle domain of pollution control. What makes for the ideal human habitat, both built and unbuilt? How does our complex environmental protection system -- designed mainly to control pollution from large, easily identifiable sources, one medium, one pollutant at a time -- actually improve living conditions in cities and towns?
The Greening of Community Development -- Modern environmentalism was hatched at precisely the same time as the community development movement, in the late 1960s, and even shared a common funder, the Ford Foundation. Yet, until recently, never the twain had met. Thanks to new approaches in the fields of planning and design, environmentalists and community developers are beginning to talk the same language smart growth, brownfields, green buildings, eco-industrial parks -- with all sorts of interesting effects. What does "green community development" mean and who are its pioneers? Is this a true convergence or simply a marriage of convenience? Can environmentalists really come to embrace development as a legitimate environmental strategy?
The Frontiers of Environmental Law and Policy-- Top down or bottom up? Command and control or localism? Environmental law and policy finds itself at crossroads in the early 21st century. Traditional approaches to environmental protection, designed around a strong centralized system of governance and targeted to individual pollutants in individual media -- air, water, land -- have proved successful when measured against the toxic catastrophes chronicled by prophets like Rachel Carson, but less so when looked at through the lens of more current analysis, where the untoward realities of habitat destruction, unfishable rivers and streams, climate change, and childhood asthma loom large. Have we made significant environmental progress in the last three decades or are we on slow downward path? Can new strategies that call for more civic engagement and a broader examination of the diverse causes of environmental problems get us on the right track toward a sustainable future?
Thinking Like a Citizen -- Today's land use challenges often pit one public good against another: wetlands versus affordable housing; ridge tops versus wind turbines; farm fields versus big-box retail. Undergirding these challenges are many of the seminal issues of our time -- national security, energy policy, housing supply, and access to jobs. Nevertheless, most of us aren't equipped to know how to approach these difficult trade-offs, let alone decide them in an informed, equitable and collaborative way. What are some of the tools and processes available to citizens to help them think and act like citizens? What are some examples of this kind of social decision making?
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Recent
Speeches
Advancing Sustainable Community Development, "Creating Sustainable Communities for the 21st Century: Asset-Based Community Development," National League of Cities, Savannah, Ga. (Jan. 2005)
Land Trusts and Leadership, Land Trust Alliance Rally 2004, Providence, R.I. (Oct. 2004)
Builders and Savers, Vermont Housing and Conservation Coalition, Grand Isle, Vermont (Oct. 2004)
Sharing Knowledge, Sharing Power, Sustainable Communities Conference 2004, Burlington, Vermont (July 2004)
Renewable Energy and Land Use: Toward a Sustainable Future, Creating a Sustainable Energy Future: A Duke University Leadership Forum, Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences (March 2004)
Environmentalism for the 21st Century, Hamilton Hall Lecture Series, Salem, Massachusetts (March 2004)
The Skye Boat Song: Reflections on Art and Youth, New Canaan Country School Alumni Council Award Ceremony (Feb. 2004)
Designing for Civic Environmentalism, Symposium on Civic Environmentalism and Urban Design, Center for Sustainable Development, University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture (Nov. 2003)
Education, Community, Sustainability: The Role of the University in Promoting Sustainable Development, Education for Sustainable Development Conference, University of Massachusetts-Lowell (Oct. 2004)
Environmental Law and Sustainable Communities in India: Lessons from the U.S. in Regulation and Governance, National Speaking Tour, Republic of India, U.S. and India State Departments (Sept.-Oct. 2003)
Greater Northwest Regional Smart Growth Advocacy Retreat, 1000 Friends of Oregon/University of Puget Sound (July 2003)
It Will Take All Your Breath: An Earth Day Message, Earth Day Week Lecture, Connecticut College (April 2003)
Lessons Learned in Sustainable Community Development, State of Mississippi, Mississippi Development Authority (April 2003)
From Pollution Control to Place-Making: The Role of Environmental Regulation in Creating Communities of Place (Presenter), Regulating Place: Standards and the Shaping of Urban America Fall Forum, MIT (Nov. 2002)
Last updated
November 12, 2006
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