November 14, 2016
I have been a Club member for over 30 years, and gave my first Sierra Club talk on the disastrous effects of nuclear war 35 years ago in Omaha, Nebraska, the Strategic Bomber Command Center, at the time, for nuclear war. In September of 2011, I joined Occupy Wall Street, in Zuccotti Park. That Fall and Winter, in Rochester, I supported Occupy Rochester tent camp in its’ downtown Washington Square Park. This crazy election year, I have supported Bernie Sanders, who was a spokesperson for the 99 % movement. Now in July 2016, I support Hillary Clinton, and men and women everywhere, who want diversity, inclusion, equity and justice.
For most of my scientific career, I have focused upon the evolutionary development and origins of social and language processes in common chimpanzees and human infants by doing field and laboratory studies in Canada, East Africa, Germany and the United States. As our Chapter Wilderness and Wildlife Committee Chairperson, I have advocated the conservation of our wildlife predators, wildernesses and am particularly concerned about the role of climate change in our sixth mass extinction on our planet. Invasives are a reminder of the new Anthropocene biology. wilds@newyork.sierraclub.org