Symposium Offers New Takes on Climate Change Stakes

WHAT:

Experts on climate change will speak at an all-day on-campus symposium on Friday, March 15. The symposium, CLIMATE CHANGE: What's at Stake and What Can be Done? is sponsored by the Joint Global change Research Institute. The Institute was formed in 2001 as a cooperative endeavor of the University of Maryland and the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. To register or for more information go to: http://globalchange.umd.edu/symposium/

WHO:

Gerald Stokes, director of the institute, will open the program with an overview of global change; how populations and the resources needed to sustain them are changing; and the implications of global change for human , health and security.

Professor Richard Somerville of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography will survey evidence for climate change, its causes, how much change would be dangerous and how certain can we be about any of this.

Norman Rosenberg of the institute will describe what is known of the potential impacts of climatic change on agriculture, water resources and unmanaged ecosystems.

Richard Moss, head of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, will describe the vulnerabilities of different societies to climate change and possible adaptations by those societies.

Former Ambassador Richard Benedick, also of the institute, will describe strategies for mitigating or avoiding climatic change that are different from those of the Kyoto Protocol from which the U.S. has recently withdrawn.

Economist Jae Edmonds will discuss a technology-based strategy for stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.

Panelists drawn from government, University of Maryland faculty and the environmental and business communities will comment on these presentations followed by audience participation and reaction.

WHEN:

The symposium is from 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m., Friday, March 15 and includes lunch. The symposium will be followed at 5:15 p.m. by a reception.

WHERE:

The symposium, lunch and reception will be held in room 2203 of the Art-Sociology Building. The Art Sociology Building (building 146) is located on Campus Drive in the southwest quadrant of campus.