NY Times Journalist—

Award-Winning Environment Writer To Discuss Sustainable Development

DANBURY — Award-winning New York Times environmental reporter Andrew Revkin will bring his decades-long journalistic search for sustainable-development strategies in a fragile ecosystem to Western Connecticut State University in a lecture on Wednesday, May 3.

Mr Revkin, one of the nation’s leading writers about the human impact on the global environment, will discuss “The Daily Planet: A Journalist’s Search for Sustainability, from the Amazon to the Arctic” in an illustrated presentation at 6 pm. His lecture will be in Room 125 of the WCSU Science Building, on the university’s midtown campus at the corner of Osborne Street and Dr James Roach Avenue

The talk is will be free and open to the public. A book signing reception will follow the talk.

An environmental reporter for The New York Times since 1995, Mr Revkin will offer his unique insights as a globetrotting correspondent who has reported and photographed stories ranging from the destruction of the Amazon rainforest to the impact of global warming on the polar environment.

Mr Revkin has visited the Arctic three times since 2003, becoming the first Times reporter to file stories, photographs and video from the floating sea ice near the North Pole. He recounted his journalistic odyssey in his book The North Pole Was Here: Puzzles and Perils at the Top of the World.

Professor of Biological and Environmental Sciences Dr Thomas Philbrick, coordinator of the Science-at-Night series, said it is especially important to raise public awareness about the theme of sustainable development and the influence of human activity on the environment.

“Humans are having a greater impact on global ecosystems than any other species that has ever lived,” observed Prof Philbrick. “Andy Revkin’s lecture will address what influences humans are having on the environment by focusing on areas as diverse as tropical, temperate and polar regions. His ability to translate complex scientific themes to a general public audience is masterful.”

Mr Revkin has earned a reputation in his wide-ranging journalistic work over the past 25 years for placing the most significant environmental issues of the era in their broader social and political context, explaining difficult scientific topics in straightforward language while avoiding oversimplification of complex questions. His coverage of the science and politics of climate change earned the National Academies Communication Award for print journalism in 2003.

Other professional honors include the American Association for the Advancement of Science Journalism Award and the Investigative Reporters and Editors Award. His avocation is music, as a songwriter and an instrumentalist who plays in the acoustic roots band Uncle Wade, and occasionally accompanies folk singer Pete Seeger at regional shows.

In his WestConn talk, Mr Revkin will discuss the need to maintain a sustainable balance between human economic and social progress and the natural environment that supports human activity on the planet. His talk will offer positive examples of efforts to mitigate environmental damage by redefining strategies of development, while recognizing that contentious issues such as global warming defy simplistic policy solutions.

“Global warming is never going to be the kind of story that will give you the level of certainty that everyone seems to crave,” Mr Revkin said during a recent talk in Washington, D.C. “We are assaulted with complexity and uncertainty. Somehow, we need to convey that in all that information, with those question marks, there is a trajectory to knowledge.”

For more information, contact Prof Philbrick at 837-8773.