Just water: Theology, ethics, and the global water crisis | Press Releases

Image: C Peppard Water covers more than 70 percent of the Earth's surface and has become a hot topic for people around the world.

On Wednesday, September 17 at 8 p.m., Fairfield University's Center for Catholic Studies will embark on its 2014 fall season of events with a stirring talk on the subject by author Christiana Z. Peppard, Ph.D., who will elaborate on the dire importance of water - the 2014-16 Fairfield Focus.

Free and open to the public, the lecture by Dr. Peppard, assistant professor of theology, science, and ethics at Fordham University, is entitled "Just Water: Theology, Ethics, and the Global Water Crisis." The event will take place in the Dolan School of Business Dining Room, on the Fairfield campus.

An expert on fresh water ethics, Dr. Peppard brings a rigorous and interdisciplinary lens to issues of global water supply, resource extraction, environmental ethics, economic globalization, and religion and natural science. Her book, "Just Water: Theology, Ethics, and the Global Water Crisis," (Orbis Books, 2014), explores the problem of fresh water scarcity in an era of climate change and economic globalization, and it charts a fresh water ethic from resources in environmental thought, moral anthropology, and Catholic social teaching.

Dr. Peppard's media portfolio strives to advance the quality of global public discourse about water, environment, science and ethics, and has been featured on TED-Ed, the History Channel, CNN.com, MSNBC, the Huffington Post, MindBodyGreen, and more. She received her B.A. in Human Biology from Stanford University, M.A. in Ethics from Yale Divinity School, and Ph.D. in Religious Ethics from Yale University.

The significance of water as a Fairfield University focus is encapsulated in the following quote by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in which she comments: "In the United States, water represents one of the great diplomatic and development opportunities of our time. It's not every day you find an issue where effective diplomacy and development will allow you to save millions of lives, feed the hungry, empower women, advance our national security interests, protect the environment, and demonstrate to billions of people that the United States cares, cares about you and your welfare. Water is that issue."

The director of the Center for Catholic Studies' director is Paul Lakeland, Ph.D., the Aloysius P. Kelley, S.J. Chair in Catholic Studies. An award winning author, he is an internationally recognized Catholic theologian. For more information, call (203) 254-4000, ext. 3415, or visit http://www.fairfield.edu/catholicstudies .

"Just Water: Theology, Ethics, and the Global Water Crisis"
Christiana Z. Peppard, Ph.D., assistant professor of theology, science, and ethics, Fordham University
Wednesday, September 17, 2014, 8 p.m.
Dolan School of Business Dining Room