50th Anniversary of UCSB ES: Marc McGinnes, “In Love with Earth”

Please join us for an evening with Environmental Studies Program’s Marc McGinnes as he shares his favorite stories from his latest book, entitled “In Love with Earth: Testimonies and heartsongs from an environmental elder.” The Environmental Studies Program can’t think of a better way to kick off the start of our 50th Anniversary year as an academic department at UCSB than to host environmentalist, activist, author, lawyer, environmental legal pioneer and longtime ES faculty member Marc McGinnes, as he shares and signs his recently published book.

Marc’s memoir chronicles his ongoing work in the environmental movement at its birthplace in Santa Barbara, after the devastating 1969 oil blowout. Recounting his involvement in the January 28 Conference that presented the Santa Barbara Declaration of Environmental Rights, the first Earth Day celebrations, and the creation of enduring institutions such as the Environmental Defense Center, the Community Environmental Council, and the Environmental Studies Program at University of California, Santa Barbara, this book is a valuable resource for anyone seeking an eyewitness account of the formative days of the environmental movement. It also tells the personal story of the author’s deeply spiritual transformation from a hotshot corporate lawyer who routinely represented the rapacious power elite to an environmental lawyer, mediator, and teacher. Changed forever by a photograph of Earth from space and a call from his powerful mentor in Congress, the trajectory of his life was redirected towards the pursuit of environmental justice.

Marc McGinnes completed a 33-year teaching career at UCSB during which he won numerous teaching awards. As an emeritus member of faculty, he has continued to advise and mentor students, to conduct research, and to accept invitations to speak on campus and in the community. In 2017 he developed and taught a now-popular seminar on the topic of “Hope That Works”. McGinnes is a graduate of Stanford University, and of the University of California at Berkeley School of Law. Following post-doctoral study in France as a Rotary International Foundation Fellow, he joined the San Francisco law firm of Thelen, Marrin, Johnson & Bridges. In 1969, he moved to Santa Barbara in order to begin work as an environmental lawyer in the aftermath of the offshore oil platform blowout and spill early that year.

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