Past Speakers
Spring 2008 Speakers
THE ROLE OF IMAGINATION IN THE APPRECIATION OF NATURAL BEAUTY AND IN CONNECTING AESTHETIC AND MORAL JUDGMENTS
Ronald Moore, Professor of Philosophy, University of Washington
Modern-day philosophic reflection on natural beauty is dominated by three dogmas. First, that our appreciation of natural objects must be guided by categories supplied by natural science. Second, that aesthetic regard for nature is altogether independent of aesthetic regard for art. And third, that imagination should play no role in judgments of natural beauty because it is inherently unbounded and unreliable. I believe all three dogmas are mistaken. I will argue that proper appreciation of natural objects often requires departure from scientific categories, that natural and artistic aesthetics can be mutually reinforcing, and that imagination supplies important components in appropriate appreciation of natural beauty. Moreover, I will argue that imagination's role in natural beauty judgments provides a key element in the process whereby we become both aesthetic and moral adults.
- Sponsored by the Philosophy Department
- Co-Sponsored by the Environmental Studies Minor and the Masters in Environmental Studies Programs
EFFECTING CHANGE: TOOLS FOR MOTIVATING ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS
David Lansbury, Conservation Planner, SC Department of Natural Resources
This seminar will provide students with a fundamental understanding of how to begin effecting positive change in their communities and the world as a whole. The seminar will begin with a lecture and short presentation designed to facilitate an open forum for discussion among the audience and speaker. This seminar is intended to foster advocacy and activism among the student body. Content will focus primarily on environmental issues, but pertains to social and humanitarian work as well.
- Sponsored by the Environmental Studies Minor
Fall 2006 Speaker
OVERSEAS OPPORTUNITIES IN ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES
Steve Arnold, The School for Field Studies
Unique study abroad experiences exist in Australia, Costa Rica, Kenya, Mexico and the Turksa and Caicos Islands. Students would work on environmental research projects while they do coursework. Transferable field and research skills will be learned while participating in ongoing research projects relevant to the local area and site. Total costs and financial assistance will be discussed. Further information can be found at the website www.fieldstudies.org.
Spring 2006 Speakers
MEASURING CLIMATE AND MANAGING ENERGY
Professor Jeffrey Steinfeld, Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Characterizing the Earth's changing environment poses many challenges to measurement science. This is particularly true of the atmosphere, which is undergoing unprecedented changes as a result of human activity. State-of-the-art laser and optical techniques are used to measure the amounts, sources, and sinks of trace gases in the atmosphere, particularly for greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane. Since emissions of these gases to the atmosphere are inextricably linked to energy production, controlling their emissions will require profound changes in the ways in which we generate and use energy. Finding routes to a sustainable energy future is the focus of M.I.T.'s recently announced Energy Research and Education Initiative.
- Sponsored by the College of Charleston Physics and Astronomy
- Department and co-sponsored by the Environmental Studies Minor
ONWARD THROUGH THE HAZE: DRAWING A BEAD ON GLOBAL WARMING
Professor Kirk Fuller, Earth System Science Center, University of Alabama in Huntsville
Haze particles typically assume the form of micrometer-sized beads of hygroscopic material, such as ammonium sulfate. The interaction of sunlight and haze is currently the greatest source of uncertainty in the forcing of climate change. An overview of radiative forcing will be presented, with a focus on scattering and absorption of light by airborne particulate matter, at the heart of which lies the theory of electromagnetic scattering by a sphere. (Here, analogies will be drawn between solutions of Maxwell's wave equation and of Schrödinger's equation for spherically symmetric potentials.) The Atmospheric Science Department at the University of Alabama in Huntsville is about to begin a major expansion of its graduate program. As part of this expansion, the department is stepping up its recruitment efforts, with these efforts being focused on students of physics, chemistry and math. One objective of Dr. Fuller's visit is to promote an advanced degree in atmospheric science as a possible career path for students of these disciplines.
- Sponsored by the College of Charleston Physics and Astronomy
- Department and co-sponsored by the Environmental Studies Minor
OBJECTIVITY IN ENVIRONMENTAL AESTHETICS AND PROTECTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT
Ned Hettinger, Philosophy Department, College of Charleston
This talk explores the debate about objectivity and relativity in environmental aesthetics. It examines arguments for aesthetic relativism in environmental appreciation, assesses their merits, and explores their implications for the attempt to protect the environment on aesthetic grounds ("aesthetic protectionism"). The paper also considers positions in environmental aesthetics that provide for significant dimensions of objectivity. My purpose in assessing the debate between relativity and objectivity in environmental aesthetics is to determine to what extent this debate matters for aesthetic protectionism. Does environmental aesthetic relativism really undermine the use of environmental beauty for environmental protection? Is the objectivity provided by the objectivists such that it will allow aesthetics to play a useful role in environmental protection? I consider the suggestion that a cognitive view of environmental aesthetics is necessary if environmental aesthetics is to "contribute to preserving sustainable landscapes" and criticize the claim that the protection of nature will be better served by aesthetic responses based on knowledge of nature, rather than ignorance about it.
- Sponsored by the College of Charleston Philosophy Department
- Co-sponsored by the College of Charleston Environmental Studies Minor
THE HIDDEN DESTRUCTION OF THE APPALACHAIN MOUNTAINS
Dave Cooper, Kentucky Sierra Club
It's called "mountaintop removal" mining. In West Virginia and eastern Kentucky, coal companies blast as much as 600 feet off the top of the mountains, then dump the rock and debris into mountain streams. Over 300,000 acres of the most beautiful and productive hardwood forests in America have already been turned into barren grasslands. Wildlife habitat is permanently eliminated. Mountaintop removal mining increases flooding, contaminates drinking water supplies, cracks foundations, and showers nearby towns with dust and noise from blasting.
The Mountaintop Removal Road Show features a beautiful and thought-provoking 22-minute slide show with traditional Appalachian music and culture. Following the slide show, Kentucky native Dave Cooper will explain in the impacts of mountaintop removal mine on the people and communities of Appalachia.
Fall 2005 Speaker
APPALACHAIN TREASURES
Danny Dolinger, Appalachian Voices Project
Mountain Top Removal (MTR) coal mining involves blasting mountain top into rubble and dumping debris into nearby valleys and streams. MTR destroys the rich culture and heritage of the Appalachain Mountain region, leaving families and communities near these sites with the destruction of water supplies, choking dust, and catastrophic floods with every rainfall.
Spring 2005 Speakers
THE ANSWER IS BLOWING IN THE WIND: A WIRLWIND TOUR OF WIND ENERGY
Luke McCormack, Env. Studies Minor, College of Charleston
Concerns over our future energy security and supply lead us to wonder what dependable energy resource options we have for the coming years? Wind energy is the fastest growing energy resource in the world. Boasting relatively low environmental impacts and increasingly competitive costs, wind energy appears ready to help us meet our needs. Still, some individuals question whether sufficient wind resources and technologies exist to make wind energy a significant factor in the energy field.
Now, as policy works to keep pace with shifting technologies and increasing demand, the market appears ready for change. The role of wind energy is certain to expand in the future as the need for clean and affordable energy increases. However, the extent to which we utilize wind in the coming decades depends partly on the efforts and actions taken over the next few years.
SEEING THE TREES: HOW THE CITIES BUILT THE FORESTS IN THE NORTHEAST U.S
Ellen Stroud, Environmental History, Oberlin College
The forests of the northeastern United States have seen a dramatic resurgence over the past century, during the same period that the region's population has moved to cities from farms. The shape those forests have taken, and the possibilities for their future, have been profoundly shaped by the interactions and negotiations between city and hinterland, creating a new wooded landscape that is both urban and wild. As city dwellers bought abandoned land for country retreats, and they fought to have other parcels set aside for nature study, for recreation, for resource conservation and, perhaps most crucially, for watershed protection, the result was dramatic reforestation in step with an urban boom.
- Funded by Alliance for Planet Earth
Spring 2004 Speaker
HUMAN POPULATION: GAINING PEOPLE, LOSING GROUND
Werner Fornos, 2003 United Nations Population Laureate
Werner Fornos is president of the Population Institute, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit organization with members in every U.S. county and 172 countries that promotes international and US support for voluntary family planning programs. The Institute seeks a more equitable balance between the world's population, environment and resources. Fornos will discuss the impact of global population pressures on both industrialized and still-developing countries as well as their effect on the environment.
- Sponsored by the College of Charleston Environmental Studies Minor
Spring 2003 Speaker
SCIENCE, POLITICS, & BIODIVERSITY
Ron Pulliam, Regency Professor, University of Georgia, Institute of Ecology
How much do we know about biodiversity and species extinction rates? Is there an extinction crisis? This talk considers the controversy that has surrounded the Biodiversity Bill, the National Biological Survey, and the Endangered Species Act. It attempts to offer a realistic assessment of the current situation and provide practical advice for how we might move towards a national consensus on biodiversity.
Pulliam was Director of the National Biological Survey during the Clinton Administration and Science Advisor to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt. He is a former President of Ecological Society of America and is currently on the Board of Directors of Defenders of Wildlife. Pulliam's research interests focus on understanding the factors involved in the maintenance of biological diversity. His teaching interests include teaching environmental literacy to undergraduates and to the general public. For a biography see http://www.uga.edu/columns/040698/pgone1.html
- Sponsored by the College of Charleston Environmental Studies Minor
- Co-sponsored by the College of Charleston Biology Department and Masters Program in Environmental Studies
Fall 2002 Speaker
SOMETHING NEW UNDER THE SUN: ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE AND THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM SINCE 1900
John McNeill, Georgetown Univ. Environmental Historian
Prof. John McNeill examines the relationship between the international system and the mammoth scale and scope of environmental change in modern times. The priority commanded by security, especially between 1914 and 1991, favored some paths and precluded others, helping to shape human attitudes and policies toward the natural environment. From nuclear weapons programs to population policies to the Green Revolution in agriculture, environmentally important developments bore the imprint of security considerations. Those links remain significant today. Professor McNeill will also be speaking on "Environmental History as a Discipline" to the Introduction to Environmental Studies Class. John McNeill studied at Swarthmore College and Duke University, where he completed a Ph.D. in 1981. Since 1985 he has taught at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, where he has been professor of history since 1993. His research interests lie in the environmental history of the Mediterranean world, the tropical Atlantic world, and Pacific islands. He has held two Fulbright awards, a Guggenheim fellowship, and a fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson Center. His books are The Atlantic Empires of France and Spain, 1700-1765 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985); Atlantic American Societies from Columbus through Abolition (co-edited, London: Routledge, 1992); The Mountains of the Mediterranean World (New York: Cambridge University Press); and Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-century World (New York: Norton, 2000), winner of the World History Association book prize and runner-up for the BP Natural World book prize. He is currently working on the history of yellow fever.
- Sponsored by Environmental Studies Minor and M.A. programs, History Department, and Office of International Education and Programs
Spring 2001 Speaker
HOW CRUCIAL IS STORY TELLING TO ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS?
Christopher Preston, Philosophy Department and Environmental Studies, University of South Carolina
One of the most interesting pieces of writing in the environmental ethics literature is a beautiful first person narrative about scaling a rock face written by Karen Warren. Warren shows how this narrative suits a feminist approach to doing ethics down to the ground. I want to broaden Warren's claim and suggest that narratives are an excellent way of doing many other kinds of environmental ethics. I will show how if you look closely at one of the most popular non-narrative approaches to environmental ethics, the claim that nature has intrinsic value, then you find that is indeed also a narrative approach. I will also discuss the importance of ecological and evolutionary theory to this narrative form of environmental ethics.
Christopher Preston is an environmental philosopher with expertise in the philosophy of science and in feminist epistemology. His recent dissertation was on "Epistemology and Environment: The Greening of Belief." Preston has worked for the National Park Service and has been involved with issues concerning commercial fishing and oil-spill response in Alaska. He was a visiting scholar at the Hastings Center and is on the Editorial Advisory Board of Environmental Ethics, the main journal in his field. He has published in Hypatia, Ethics and the Environment, Philosophy of Geography, and Environmental Ethics, and he is currently working on two books about the relationship between environmental philosophy and the theory of knowledge.
- Sponsored by Environmental Studies Minor
- Co-sponsored by the Philosophy and Biology Departments, the Masters in Environmental Studies Program, Women's Studies Department, and Alliance for Planet Earth