ES Grad Student Luncheon

Attention all ES Graduate Students***

Tuesday August 26th from 1-2 pm in room 304 at the University Center, we are having our first Environmental Studies Graduate Student Luncheon.  Meet other students, ES faculty and each other! 

For more information or to RSVP please contact

ei@lehigh.edu or 610-758-6380. See you then!

Plastic Bags?

Browse this visual and informative link by the Pocono Record about plastic shopping bags. Take a moment to review it before you go shopping!

http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080506/MULTIMEDIA02/80505016

* Image on right by Chris Jordan at Treehugger.com. It depicts 60,000 plastic bags, the number used in the US every five seconds.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/10/poptech2007-chris-jordan.php

Lehigh Celebrated Earth Day 2008

Lehigh Students learned about recycling, wind power, sustainable internship opportunities, eco-friendly school supplies, vegetarianism, green buildings, and environmental jobs. We also planted a tree, had a live band, and had free organic and trade food samples!

WFMZ News Video - http://wfmz.com/view/?id=255860

Brown and White Earth day slide show - Click here to view the slideshow

Photography Contest Winners!

Here are the winners of the EI/ECo sponsored photo contest! The overall winners recieved an Olympus-donated Evolt E-510 camera and 2 lenses. The category winners recieved $25 gift cards. Put your mouse over the names of the winners to view their picture or click on them to view full size.

Best Picture Overall - Clint Zarnosky

Best Forest Picture - Kari Sexton

Best Animal Picture - Justin Mendelson

Best Flower Picture - Weike Wang

Best Sunset Picture - Nick Gava

Best Urban Picture - Michelle Fitzgerald

Wind Energy Donation Results

On April 22, Earth Day, 2008, 21 Lehigh Students signed up for semester donations ($420) along with $320.81 collected in cash donations toward Wind Power.

Click here to see Results Flyer

Tricia Long Earth Day News Article

Pennsylvania may have turned its attention this past Tuesday to the Democratic Presidential Primary, but a group of Lehigh faculty, staff and students didn’t let another important observance that day go unnoticed: Earth Day.

As students headed to class down Memorial Walkway, tossed Frisbees on the University Center lawn, and tour groups strolled through Lehigh’s campus, they were greeted by students armed with information on how to “Make Lehigh Green.”

Click Here to read more.

Lehigh Earth Systems Science Class Responds To Global Warming Hoax Article

On April 8, 2008, an article was posted on Express-Times declaring Global Warming a hoax. Recently the Lehigh Earth Systems Science Class wrote a response the will be published in the newspaper. Click Here to see the response.

Environmental Discussion Panel

Professor Dork Sahagian featured on "Everybody's Talking About the Environment" Panel Discussion on April 22 at the Da Vinci Science Center.

Click here for the flyer.

Also at the Da Vinci Science Center April 26-27 - "Yes, In My Backyard" involving events featuring easy, inexpensive ways everyone can make a difference every day at home. All weekend visitors will receive a guide outlining 15 simple things they can do at home to protect the environment and save money.

World Statistics Clock

Check out this cool clock that uses past statistics to calculate various current world statistics including population, births, deaths, various diseases, emissons, etc. Check it out here http://www.peterrussell.com/Odds/WorldClock.php

Dork Sahagian Interviewed on NPR

Professor Dork Sahagian was recently featured Thursday, March 13, on Nation Public Radio's "All Things Considered" program in the Environmental Section.
NPR Website

Environmetal Policy Design MA!

The Environmental Policy Design MA brochure is available!

MA in Environmental Policy Design (pdf)

Click here to go to the graduate admissions application.

Fall 2008-

• 401 Philosophical Politics and Environmental Policy Design (required)
• 402 Scientific Foundations for Environmental Policy Design (required)
• 438 Environmental Risk: Perception and Communication (elective)
• 455 Environmental Justice and the Law (core)
• 315 American Environmental History (context)

Spring 2009-

• 439 Env. Security (core)
• 435 Eval Policy Design (core)
• 433: Inter. Env. Law (core)
• 431: US Env. Law (core)

RESULTS - Lehigh University Focus the Nation

Bethlehem City Council member and former chair of the Human Resources and Environmental Commitee, Karen Dolan (left) talks with Lehigh University students, (left to right) Elizabeth Swiatek an International Relations and Literature student from Sergeantsville, NJ,Will Brehm an International Relations student from Lawrenceville, NJ and Laura Deutsch an Environmental Studies and Environmental Sciences dual major from Nazareth, Pa. before the panel discussion, at the "Focus The Nation" nationwide teach-in on the environment, at Lehigh Universities Sinclair Auditorium on Thursday January 31, 2008. A panel of professors and community leaders in the environment held a panel discussion as part of the nationwide teach-in to discuss what we as community members and individuals can do to help the urgent global warming problem. (Douglas Kilpatrick/Special to TMC / February 1, 2008)

Lehigh Students Attend Global Warming Conference - Powershift

On November 2nd, 27 Lehigh Students got on a bus to Powershift 2007.  They were 27 students out of over 5,500 from all over the world.  There were students from the continential U.S., Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico and even other countries.  Power Shift was the largest national youth conference on global warming ever. 

The weekend was packed with workshops, panel discussions, speakers, musical guests, and other amazing events. The weekend was emposering and it was refreshing for the students to be surrounded by like-minded people who were also fighting for a change.  Green Action came back ready for Action!

-Alice Kodama

New Lehigh University Group - Environmental Coalition

Recently, a group of Lehigh students formed the Environemntal Coalition (ECo).  The vision of the Environmental Coalition is to create an environmentally conscious and motivated Lehigh University.  The mission of the organiztion is threefold;

-To serve as a focal point for collaboration between student clubs and organizations that are involved in environmentally related efforts on campus.  The Environmental Coalition will be a means to: unite disparate, "grass roots" efforts to make Lehigh more sustainable; help groups attempting to accomplishsimilar goals; and provide a single, unified "face" to the administration, saving them time and providing weight to student initiatives.

-To serve as an educational clearinghouse for information related to sustainabilit: a reliable resource that would be known around campus as "the people to talk to" about environmentally related issues.  The Environmental Coalition will build awareness and enthusiasm for sustainability on campus by running lectures, workshops, and other activities for students, faculty, staff, and all members of the campus community.

-To serve as an advocate for institutional change, by actively lobbying the administration to make Lehigh more sustainable.  The Environmental Coalition would study Lehigh and create an in-depth sustainability assessment or "report card" to show strengths, weaknesses, impact on the environment, current initiatives, ect. in more detailed steps towards becoming sustainable instution will be created and implemented through the initiatives of the Environmental Coalition.

Sahagian plays role in IPCC receiving 2007 Nobel Peace Prize

He contributed to three reports by the IPCC, which recently shared the Nobel Prize with Al Gore.

A Lehigh University professor contributed to three of four assessment reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which on October 12 was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with former vice president Al Gore.

Dork Sahagian, professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences and director of the Environmental Initiative, served as a contributing author for the Second Assessment Report which was released in 1995, a reviewer of the Third Assessment Report released in 2001, and a contributing author for the forthcoming Fourth Assessment Report.

Authors from across the globe have written and peer-reviewed each of the assessments. These reports presented new and then stronger evidence which showed that human activity has contributed to global warming over the last 50 years.

“Through the scientific reports it has issued over the past two decades, the IPCC has created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming,” said The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which awarded the prize.

“The importance of the results of the IPCC process is in the degree to which it represents consensus of a huge community of scientists, social scientists, and other scholars,” said Sahagian. “While there is no specific political agenda in IPCC, I certainly hope that the results will be incorporated in policy-making throughout the world, as they affect everyone living now or yet to be born.”

The IPCC was established 20 years ago to assess scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant for the understanding of climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. Next week, the IPCC will meet in Valencia, Spain to adopt the fourth and final volume of the climate change assessment report.

“People have already created enough greenhouse gas emissions (and land use changes) to impact climate in ways that could disrupt fragile social and economic systems,” said Sahagian. “However, the potential for much more severe human-induced alterations looms large, and is inevitable if we do not immediately take major steps to reduce and soon curtail completely greenhouse gas emissions.”

As director of the Environmental Initiative, Sahagian is working to create a leading program for environmental science, technology, economics, education, policy, and the myriad interactions between people and the environment. He conducts research in paleoclimatology, volcanology, stratigraphy, geodynamics and tectonics, global hydrology and sea level.

“My own contribution to the IPPC has been only very minor, involving humanity’s effect on sea level rise,” said Sahagian. “Nevertheless, I am glad to have been able to provide even the smallest insights into a critically important process.”

--Tricia Long

What is the Environmental Initiative?

Lehigh University's Environmental Initiative (EI) is a broad interdisciplinary program of research, education, and outreach. The EI integrates environmental activities in science, engineering, politics and policy, communication, history, anthropology, sociology, economics, ethics, education and other traditional disciplines. Bringing together our core and affiliated departments, these interdisciplinary activities address the full spectrum of environmental problems facing society.

The EI directs an undergraduate major and minor in Environmental Studies and a graduate certificate program in Environmental Law and Policy. In Fall, 2007, the EI will launch a masters program.