Yale professor, author highlights Thiel College Earth Week celebration

GREENVILLE, Pa.-- Grade schoolers to Ivy Leaguers will help Thiel College celebrate its 17th annual Earth Week with events on April 7 and 8. All events are free and the public is invited to explore this year's theme, "Warm Temperature Experiences of the Earth."

Elementary students will take part in a workshop Tuesday at the Rissell-Schreyer Dome where they will learn about science and the environment. The Carnegie Museum is supplying several activities and Beta Beta Beta, the Thiel College biology honorary society, will be conducting informative sessions. Yale University Professor John Roemer, Ph.D., will cap the two-day celebration with his presentation, “Sustaining Human Welfare in a Warming Planet: It Is Possible!” at 7 p.m. Wednesday.

Event Schedule

• Feng He, Ph.D., assistant scientist at the Center for Climatic Research, the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and NOAA Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellow at Oregon State University, will present his talk "Did Early Agriculture Kick-Off Anthropogenic Global Warming Thousands of Years Ago?" His research focuses on climate sensitivity and the global carbon cycle.
  4 p.m. Tuesday, Lutheran Heritage Room, Howard Miller Student Center
   
• Patrick Applegate, Ph.D., a research associate at the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute at Pennsylvania State University, will present his talk, “Cold to Warm to Warmer: Big Ice and Sea Level Rise.” Applegate is an Earth scientist with interests in ice sheets and their contributions to sea level rise, methods for estimating the ages of glacial deposits, and the application of statistical methods to problems in the geosciences.
  7 p.m. Tuesday, Lutheran Heritage Room, Howard Miller Student Center
   
• A Redbud tree will be planted during a ceremony to mark the week. Participants will gather at the front entrance of the library.
  Noon Wednesday, Langenheim Memorial Library
   
• The documentary "Comfort Zone," which features a unique approach to creating dialogue about climate change, will be shown.
  4 p.m. Wednesday, Lutheran Heritage Room, Howard Miller Student Center
   
• John Roemer, Ph.D., the Elizabeth S. and A. Varick Stout Professor of Political Science and Economics at Yale University, will present his lecture, “Sustaining Human Welfare in a Warming Planet: It Is Possible!” Roemer’s work concerns distributive justice, political economy, and the relationship between them. He is the author of many books including the upcoming “Sustainability for a Warming Planet” (Harvard University Press, 2015).
  7 p.m. Wednesday, Lutheran Heritage Room, Howard Miller Student Center

For more information, contact co-directors of the Global Institute at Thiel College, Anna Reinsel, Ph.D., at (724) 589-2821 or Christopher Stanisky, Ph.D., at (724) 589-2132.