2008 Great Cities Dialogue
Climate Change: Prospect for Nature
On October 20, 2008, the Green Spaces Alliance of South Texas and the UTSA Center for Policy Studies hosted renowned biologist and environmental advisor, Dr. Thomas Lovejoy at the UTSA Buena Vista Theater. Dr. Lovejoy, brought his vast expertise to South Texas to discuss the topic “Climate Change: Prospects for Nature.” Lovejoy spoke to an overflow audience of 450 attendees.
Dr. Lovejoy offered a perspective on global warming, the melting of Greenland and Antarctic ice, deforestation and other phenomena with a focus on the effects of climate change on biological species. He documented how natural patterns have begun to change, such as the facts that various plants flower almost a month earlier than they did 20 years ago and that birds have begun nesting nine days earlier that they did 40 years ago. Lovejoy also discussed how climate change destroys habitat. For example, the warming climate has created ideal conditions for creatures such as bark beetles that thrive in warmer temperatures. In Canada, bark beetles have killed more trees than logging and wildfire combines. In search of new habitat, species have begun to migrate from the forests, though migrations do not all take place at the same time. This often separates predator and prey species, interrupting the food chain. In the oceans, increasing acidity is affecting base-level species, which disrupts the marine food chain.
Currently the president of The Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, Dr. Lovejoy has served as the World Bank’s Chief Biodiversity Advisor and Lead Specialist for Environment for Latin America and the Caribbean and Senior Advisor to the President of the United Nations Foundation. He has been Assistant Secretary and Counselor to the Secretary at the Smithsonian Institution, Science Advisor to the Secretary of the Interior, Executive Vice President for the World Wildlife Fund-U.S., and is the founder of the noted PBS television series Nature. In 2001 he was awarded the prestigious Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement. Dr. Lovejoy has served on Science and environmental councils and committees under the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administration. He holds a B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in biology from Yale.
Details for the spring’s Great Cities Dialogue will be provided in the next newsletter.
Submitted by James Benavides, UTSA Public Affairs Specialist.
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