Grand Challenges on Earth Day Plus 40

It has been 40 years since the first Earth Day. And 40 years since the Environmental Protection Agency was initiated, 40 years since the National Environmental Policy Act was passed, and 40 years since major amendments were made to the Clean Air Act.

In this lecture, we will discuss progress since the beginning of the modern environmental movement on April 22, 1970, and we will reflect on the grand challenges looming ahead. We are already living in a changing climate; energy choices are difficult and polarizing; water quality and quantity are increasingly in doubt; and global poverty is unabated, despite the wonderful blueprint of U.N. Millennium Development Goals. Still, Earth Day gives us perspective that much progress has been made and perhaps we can use those lessons to solve the grave challenges which lie ahead.

Professor Jerry Schnoor is the Allen S. Henry Chair in Engineering and the Co-Director of the Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research at the University of Iowa. Jerry is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (elected in 1999) for his research using mathematical models in science policy decisions. He chaired the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ORD Board of Scientific Counselors, 2000-2004, and is a member of EPA’s Science Advisory Board and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Advisory Environmental Health Sciences (NAEHS) Council. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of the leading international environmental journal, Environmental Science and Technology; and his other research interests include water quality modeling, environmental observatories, sustainability and global change.

Sponsored by Turner Construction, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Lafayette College Engineering Studies Program, & the Interdisciplinary Seminar Series in the Life Sciences

Lecture: 8 pm, Thursday April 22, 2010 in Oechsle Hall, Room 224