Bill McKibben to Speak at Annual Conference
October 15, 2010
Des Moines
Our 2010 Annual Conference promises to be better than ever. We're lining up another roster of remarkable speakers, including Bill McKibben. McKibben is an American environmentalist and writer who frequently writes about climate change and alternative energy and advocates for more localized economies. Beginning in the summer of 2006, he led the organization of the largest demonstrations against global warming in American history. In 2009 he led the organization of 350.org, which coordinated what Foreign Policy magazine called "the largest ever global coordinated rally of any kind," with 5,200 simultaneous demonstrations in 181 countries. The magazine named him to its inaugural list of the 100 most important global thinkers, and MSN named him one of the dozen most influential men of 2009. McKibben is active in the Methodist Church, and his writing is sometimes spiritual in nature. Al Gore wrote in 2007 that "when I was serving in the Senate, Bill McKibben’s descriptions of the planetary impacts... made such an impression on me that it led, among other things, to my receiving the honorific title 'Ozone Man' from the first President Bush.”
He currently resides in Vermont with his wife, writer Sue Halpern, and their only daughter, Sophie. He is a scholar in residence at Middlebury College, where he also directs the Middlebury Fellowships in Environmental Journalism. He is also a fellow at the Post Carbon Institute.
Joan Iverson Nassauer to Speak at Annual Conference
Author, From the Corn Belt to the Gulf
Professor, School of Natural Resources and Environment
University of Michigan
Is it possible to have a healthy U.S. agricultural economy, a healthy food supply, healthy rural communities, healthy agricultural ecosystems and healthy streams? Should we have to compromise any one of these environmental and societal goods to achieve another? Can this be achieved while the United States helps to feed the world, aims to achieve greater energy independence, and trades equitably with other nations? Can agricultural landscapes be reclaimed as desirable places to live and delightful places to visit? Is each of these a legitimate goal of federal agricultural policy? Joan Nassauer addressed all these questions in her research for the book, From the Corn Belt to the Gulf, using two watersheds in Iowa as the basis for her studies. She will share what she discovered at our annual conference in October.
Joan Iverson Nassauer is a Professor of Landscape Architecture for the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan.
Nassauer’s work on rural and metropolitan landscapes offers strategies for basing landscape change on strong interdisciplinary science. Her books: Placing Nature (1997, Island Press) and From the Corn Belt to the Gulf (2007, Resources for the Future Press) incorporate her research investigating policy and public acceptance of environmentally beneficial landscape change across scales – from the front yard to the Corn Belt region. This research has received numerous awards and appeared in many books and journals. Nassauer has been honored as a designer and as a landscape ecologist. She is secretary of the National Academy of Environmental Design, a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects and a Fellow of the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture. In 2010 she was named Distinguished Landscape Ecologist in the United States, the highest honor of the US Landscape Ecology Association, and in 2007 she was named Distinguished Landscape Ecology Scholar by the International Association of Landscape Ecology. Recently, she has served as New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architects Visiting Fellow, 2006; Beatrix C. Farrand Visiting Distinguished Professor, University of California, Berkeley, 2003; and Miegunyah Distinguished Fellow, University of Melbourne, Australia, 2001.
Please plan to attend October 15 and watch this site for more updates.
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Attention Mississippi River enthusiasts and photographers alike! The 2010 1 Mississippi photo contest presented by 1 Mississippi and Brookfield Renewable Power has arrived. This contest celebrates the beauty of the Mississippi River through the incredible talent of local photographers. We’re looking for photos that tell the remarkable story of the Mississippi River through picture perfect moments— long walks along River trails, community festivals, city reflections in still waters and birds soaring into sunsets. We want to see what the River means to you.
Submit up to three photos by August 8, 2010 for your opportunity to win. Winners in both the amateur and professional categories will be chosen based on originality, technical excellence, composition, overall impact and artistic merit. In addition to great prizes, winners will be printed on 1 Mississippi banners displayed throughout the River region!
For more information on submission rules, prizes and deadlines, please visit http://www.1mississippi.net/1-mississippi-photo-contest.
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