Sage Staff and Members of the Community to Give Lectures About Climate Crisis

By: Samantha Brierley

The fall 2009 semester at Russell Sage College will feature a variety of guest speakers who are concerned about the planet’s changing environment including Oceanographer and Environmentalist Fabien Cousteau,  and staff members of the Sage Colleges.

The series of lectures entitled “A Climate in Crisis – Sage Presents: The Road to Copenhagen” will present issues such as how health and climate change are related and how climate change impacts our oceans. The events will take place throughout the semester and will lead up to the Climate Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark in December 2009.

 The conference in Denmark is important because it is the last time to make a climate protocol; The Kyoto Protocol will run out in 2012. The protocol currently supports the effort to fight global warming and climate changes, and 37 countries currently support the protocol.

The Speakers

On October 29. 2009, Fabien Cousteau is grandson to explorer Jacques Cousteau and has been a part of his grandfather’s ships Calypso and Alcyone since age 12 and diving since age 4. With a degree in environmental economics from Boston University, Cousteau travels and explores oceans and gives talks about preservation. He has organized Natural Entertainment, and a series called Ocean adventures, which airs on the PBS channel.

On October 1, 2009, Dr. Steven Leibo, a professor of history and political science at The Sage Colleges will present his ideas on climate change in his lecture “The Climate Crisis: Updating an Incovenient Truth” on October 1. Leibo is trained by Global Warming expert and former Vice-President Al Gore. He is district manager of The Sage Colleges Climate Crisis Center.  Leibo is enthusiastic about these events, especially famed Oceanographer and Environmentalist, Fabien Cousteau. “Having Fabien is an extraordinary accomplishment for Sage.” Leibo and the volunteers at the Climate Crisis Center will sponsor “A Climate in Crisis-Sage Presents: The Road to Copenhagen.”

On November 10, 2009, President of The Sage Colleges Susan Scrimshaw will give a lecture on how the climate crisis and health are related. Her degree in anthropology and experience as a dean of Public Health at the University of Chicago for twelve years will compliment her lecture entitled “Public Health and the Climate Crisis.

For more information, please visit www.sage.edu. All events will be held at 7:30 p.m. in Bush Memorial at Russell Sage College in Troy, N.Y. 

Below: The Sage Colleges President Susan Scrimshaw during her Inauguration week. Photo by Tamara Hansen.