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Where on Earth are We Going?
Taken from the title of Maurice Strong's monumental work, this annual symposium is ongoing since 2004. The symposium occurs during the Saturday of Wesleyan's Homecoming and Family Weekend. Each year focuses upon a critical environmental topic and has brought to Wesleyan the people who are at the forefronts of these issues. Our speakers have featured such luminaries as: Bill Blakemore, Lester Brown, Majora Carter, Robert Corell, Judith Curry, Kris Ebi, Joseph Fargione, Suki Hoagland, James Hansen, John Holdren, Thomas Malone, Frank McCormick, Richard Morgenstern, Patrick Osborne, A. Townsend Peterson, Steven Rockefeller, Gus Speth, Maurice Strong, Alaka Wali, Diana Wall, and Timothy Weiskel.
This event is free and open to the public.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
9 A.M.
WESEMINAR Where On Earth Are We Going?
Environmental Justice and Health Activism: Redefining Environment(s) and Crossing Borders
Dr. Julie Sze is an associate professor of American Studies at UC Davis. She also is the founding director of the Environmental Justice Project for UC Davis' John Muir Institute of the Environment. Sze's book. Noxious New York: The Racial Politics of Urban Health and Environmental Justice, won the 2008 John Hope Franklin Publication Prize, awarded annually to the best published book in American Studies. Her current research focuses on environmental inequality in the Central Valley Region of California and on eco-city development in China.
[click here for video]
10:30 A.M.
WESEMINAR Where on Earth Are We Going?
Climate Collapse vs. Climate Justice: What's What, Who's Who, and What You Can Do
Dr. Michael Dorsey is visiting professor of Environmental Studies in the College of Environment. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment (BS and PhD), Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies (MFS) and Johns Hopkins University (MA). His research examines the interplay of climate change policy, finance, and social justice concerns. He is a co-founding board member of Islands First-a multilateral negotiating capacity building organization for small island developing states facing disproportinate threats from unfolding climate change.
[click here for video]
Saturday, November 5, 2011
9 A.M.
WESEMINAR Where On Earth Are We Going?
The Energy Revolution Will Not Be Tweetable: The Energy Puzzle in More Than 140 Characters
Gas at $3.50 a gallon is expensive, but its environmental,
economic, political, and moral price is much higher. Journalist Lisa
Margonelli gives a provocative tour of the true cost of gasoline--as bad
for the citizens of the Middle East as it is for Americans-- and then
explains we can change by looking at energy as a system and finding
opportunities for mini revolutions in technology, policy, and behavior.
Presenter: Lisa Margonelli directs the Energy Policy Initiative at the New America Foundation, a non-partisan think tank in Washington DC. She is the publisher of The Energy Trap and blogs frequently at The Atlantic. Her book Oil On the Brain: Petroleum's Long, Strange Trip to Your Tank, follows the oil supply chain from the gas station to oil fields around the world.
10:30 A.M.
WESEMINAR Where on Earth Are We Going?
The Future of Nuclear Power Following the Fukushima Disaster
The nuclear catastrophe is still widening around Japan’s
Fukushima Dai-Ichi atomic power plant. The ongoing nuclear accident has
created significant radioactive and political fallout in the midst of
what industry had been touting as a “nuclear renaissance” of new reactor
development. What are the consequences of the Fukushima nuclear
accident? How is it affecting energy policy here in the United States
and globally?
Presenter: Paul Gunter is a lead spokespeople in nuclear
reactor hazards and security concerns. He acts as the regulatory
watchdog over the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the nuclear
power industry. He is a 2008 recipient of the Jane Bagley Lehman Award
from the Tides Foundation for environmental activism for his work on the
nuclear power and climate change issue. He was a cofounder of the
antinuclear Clamshell Alliance in 1976 to oppose the construction of the
Seabrook (NH) nuclear power plant through non-violent direct action
that launched the U.S. antinuclear movement. An environmental activist
and energy policy analyst, he has been an ardent critic of atomic power
development for more than 30 years.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
7th Annual - College of the Environment: Robert Schumann Environmental Studies Symposium
8:30am - "Hunger in America: History, Politics, Context, and Consequences"
Dr. Katherine Alaimo
Associate Professor, Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Michigan State University
Dr. Alaimo studies the connections
between social and economic environments and policies, and food security,
community development and health. The organizing principles behind her work
are that people are more likely to be healthy and practice healthy behaviors
within supportive family and community environments, and that policies,
particularly food and economic policies, can play a large role in
cultivating those healthy environments.
9:45am - "The Effects of Climate Change on Hunger"
Jonathan Dumont
Head of Television Communications, The United Nations World Food Programme
The number of storms, floods and drought that devastate crops, homes and lives has quadrupled in the last 30 years. In just the past few months floods have left 10 million people in need of food in Pakistan, bad harvests have left millions starving in the Sahel and drought threatens to raise the price of bread- possibly leading to food riots. Few organizations struggle with climate change as much as The World Food Programme. As the UN’s frontline emergency relief agency, WFP is the defacto canary in the coal mine as it responds to the effects that extreme weather has on nearly a billion people who live on the edge…one sixth of the world’s population who go to sleep hungry every night. As head of television communications for WFP, Jonathan Dumont frequently travels to that edge..trying to give a voice to those who have none.
11am - "Official Opening of the College of the Environment"
Saturday, November 7, 2009
6th Annual Robert Schumann Environmental Studies Symposium
"Global Environmental Change and Freshwater Resources: Hope for the Best or Change to Prepare for the Worst?"
Patrick L. Osborne, PhD
Executive Director, Harris World Ecology Center, University of Missouri-St. Louise Brown
"Water in a Changing Climate – The Role of the National Forests in the Water Infrastructure"
Frank H. McCormick, PhD
Program Manager, Air, Water and Aquatic Environments, Rocky Mountain Research Station
"The 17th Annual Dwight Greene Symposium – Green the Ghetto and How Much It Won’t Cost Us"
Majora Carter ‘88
President and CEO, The Majora Carter Group & Founder, Sustainable South Bronx and River Heroes
Saturday, April 26, 2008
"Measuring and Modeling Climate Change"
Johan Varekamp
Harold T. Stearns Professor of Earth Science and Chairmen of the Earth and Environmental Sciences, Wesleyan University
"Implications of Changing Climates for Biodiversity: Considering Sea-Level Rise, Climate Change and Secondary Interactions"
A. Townsend Peterson
University
Distinguished Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Curator,
Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center, University of
Kansas
"Biofuels: Threats and Opportunities"
Joe Fargione
Regional Science Director, Nature Conservancy Central US Region
Saturday, October 18, 2008
5th Annual Robert Schumann Environmental Studies Symposium
"Climate Policy: A Progress Report"
Gary Yohe
Woodhouse/Sysco Professor of Economics, Wesleyan University
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"The Many Psychologies of Global Warming Given The Hard Realities We Face"
William Blakemore ’65
former Wesleyan Trustee and Television Correspondent for ABC News
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"The Role Of The Carbon Cycle In Global Warming"
Dr. Richard A. Houghton
Deputy Director and Senior Scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, Massachusetts
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Saturday, November 11, 2006
3rd Annual Robert Schumann Environmental Studies Symposium
Welcome
Douglas Bennet
President of Wesleyan University
Perspective
Sally Smyth '07
Wesleyan University
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"Failed and Failing States: A Growing Threat to Social Stability and Economic Progress"
Lester Brown
Earth Policy Institute
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"Healthy People 2100: Climate Change and Human Health"
Kristie Ebi
ESS, LLC
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"Global Climate Change and Hurricanes"
Judith Curry
Georgia Institute of Technology
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"Apocalypse Now or Brave New World? Two Scenarios for Social and Cultural Responses to Global Warming?"
Alaka Wali
The Field Museum of Natural History
Concluding Remarks
John Hall
The Jonah Center for Earth and Art
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