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| Dr. Lovejoy with SPS faculty members |
Today's featured speaker at the St. Albans School of Public Service was Dr. Thomas Lovejoy, one of the foremost conservation biologists in the world. Dr. Lovejoy is known, among other things, for coining the term "biodiversity" and has worked in the Amazon for almost 50 years. Dr. Lovejoy's career demonstrates how science and public service can go hand in hand, as he has served on science and environmental councils during the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administration. Dr. Lovejoy provided an easy-to-understand explanation of the science behind the problems we are facing with climate change and the resulting loss of biodiversity. Believing that we must remain ever optimistic about our ability to turn things around, though, Dr. Lovejoy also offered examples of how science and international planning can help reverse some of these critical problems.
Big questions about the environment were the order of the day. Later in the day, after Dr. Lovejoy's visit, the students took part in a faculty-led discussion of an article about the concept of "geoengineering": whether a major and deliberate effort to alter the climate of the earth (such as by using technological means to lower the temperature of oceans) can combat global warming.
Click HERE for a link to the article on geoengineering that the SPS students discussed.
