Arctic ice shelves are breaking away; spring is coming sooner as evidenced by earlier thaw dates for rivers and lakes and earlier dates for plant blooming and leafing; and the global sea level has risen 4 inches to 10 inches over the past 100 years.
Clearly, the environment is, or should be, near the forefront of everyone’s concerns and efforts to preserve what remains.
The MLA Saturday Seminar series, sponsored by the Master of Liberal Arts program and University College in Arts & Sciences, will examine recent developments in one of the most compelling and complex of subjects — the environment.
Lectures will take place from 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. every Saturday in February in McDonnell Hall, Goldfarb Auditorium. The lectures are free to the public and no registration is required.
“Environmental issues are of course on everyone’s mind these days: not only the warm and/or strange weather experienced in recent years in the United States and Europe, and the growing consensus on global warming and its dangers, but also the growing industrialization and modernization of other economies,” said Robert E. Wiltenburg, Ph.D., dean of University College.
“What we hope people will take away from this series is a sense of the range of the issues, questions, problems, opportunities and choices involved: not just industrial pollution and its consequences and remedies, but the interconnectedness of questions of esthetic and moral or spiritual values with political choices, technical advances in agriculture, water treatment, etc.”
Wiltenburg continued: “The MLA program was founded to explore the richness and complexity of all the most interesting questions — of which our relation to nature and the environment is one of the great perennials.”
The series schedule is as follows:
• Feb. 3: “Environmental Education and Research at Washington University,” Pratim Biswas, Ph.D., the Stifel and Quinette Jens Professor and chair of the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering
• Feb. 10: “Changes in River Management Policies,” William R. Lowry, Ph.D., professor of political science in Arts & Sciences
• Feb. 17: “Agriculture and Conservation,” Barbara A. Schaal, Ph.D., the Spencer T. Olin Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences and of genetics in the School of Medicine
• Feb. 24: “Respect for Nature,” J. Claude Evans, Ph.D., associate professor of philosophy in Arts & Sciences
For more information, go online to ucollege.wustl.edu/freelect_mlalectu.php.