CLIMATE CHANGE SYMPOSIUM TO BE HELD AT OBERLIN COLLEGE FEBRUARY 24

Paige Wiegman '00, 2020 Project Coordinator for the College's environmental studies program, and Megan Forney, a sophomore from Bruswick, Maine, coordinated the student-organized event, which is free and open to the public. The goal of the 2020 Project is to produce a plan able to bring Oberlin to "climate neutrality" by the year 2020.

"I think that there is a lot of hype today about climate change, but there doesn't seem to be a dialogue among disciplines about the problem," says Forney. "It seems that the best way to deal with the various issues is to listen to people from different disciplines examine the multiple issues surrounding climate change."

Cleveland Green Coalition Director Sadhu Johnston '98 will moderate the discussion. The panelists, who all address global warming issues in their courses, will define and explore the problems associated with the topic during the two-hour program. They include:

• David Orr, professor of environmental studies, who will speak about the college's 2020 project and the role of schools in environmental change and conservation;
• Dick Morgenstern, visiting professor of economics, who will speak about global warming and the problems surrounding ratification of the Kyoto Protocol from an economic perspective;
• Devra Davis, visiting professor of environmental studies, who will speak about environmental health concerns;
• Dennis Hubbard, research associate in the Geology Department, who will speak about the effects of warming oceans on the world's coral reefs;
• Steven Wojtal, professor of geology, who will speak about glacial melting and climate change models; and
• Ben Wisner, research associate in the Environmental Studies Program and research coordinator for the United Nation University's project on urban disasters, who will speak about the link between current disasters and climate change.