Election Year kicks off on March 15 with Charlotte Brody, Michael Lerner, and Carolyn Raffensperger. New science confirms that what hurts frogs, hurts the human fetus, what pollutes rivers, pollutes women, what interferes with the reproductive system of a crop-eating insect interferes with the reproductive systems of the people picking that crop. Aware of the complex relationship between ecosystem health, public health, and individual health, these innovators will present radical yet practical ways of insuring environmental and personal health based on the premise that all life is inter-connected.

Michael Lerner is president of Commonweal, the recipient of a MacArthur Prize Fellowship and co-founder of Commonweal Cancer Help Program, which was featured in Bill Moyer's award-winning PBS series Healing and the Mind. He is the author of Choices in Healing: Integrating the Best of Conventional and Complementary Approaches to Cancer. Lerner has been exploring the interface of mind-body health and environmental health—of personal healing and healing the earth—for thirty years. Widely considered a dynamic speaker with a human touch, Lerner addresses a broad range of issues about health, healing, the environment and spirituality.

Carolyn Raffensperger is executive director of the Science and Environmental Health Network, www.sehn.org, which is known for its work on the Precautionary Principle. As an environmental lawyer she specializes in the fundamental changes in law and policy necessary for the protection and restoration of public health and the environment. Carolyn is co-editor of Precautionary Tools for Reshaping Environmental Policy and Protecting Public Health and the Environment: Implementing the Precautionary Principle. She coined the term “ecological medicine” to encompass the broad notions that both health and healing are entwined with the natural world. Carolyn has been featured in Gourmet Magazine, the Utne Reader, Yes! Magazine, the Sun, Whole Earth, and Scientific American. Along with leading workshops and giving frequent lectures on the Precautionary Principle, Carolyn is at the forefront of developing new models for government that depend on these larger ideas of precaution and ecological integrity. The new models include guardianship for future generations, a vision for the courts of the 21st century and the public trust doctrine.

Charlotte Brody, R.N., is the executive director of Commonweal, a nonprofit health and environmental research institute in Bolinas, California. Founded in 1976, Commonweal conducts programs that contribute to human and ecosystem health—to a safer world for people and for all life. Before serving as Commonweal's Executive Director, Brody was the Executive Director of Health Care Without Harm: The Campaign for Environmentally Responsible Health Care. She is an inspiring and deeply moving speaker.