Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
STEM
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
STEM

Leading expert in climate change science to present 2012 Milton First-Year Lecture

Friday, September 7, 2012, By News Staff
Share
College of Arts and Sciencesspeakers

Richard B. Alley will also present a free public seminar on climate change research

Richard Alley on glacierRichard B. Alley, internationally renowned expert on climate and renewable energy, will present the 2012 Laura Hanhausen Milton First-Year Lecture, hosted by Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences Sept. 19 at 7:30 p.m. Alley, host of the 2011 PBS special “Earth: The Operator’s Manual” and author of a book by the same title, is the Evan Pugh Professor of Geosciences at Pennsylvania State University.

In addition to the Milton Lecture, which is open only to first-year College of Arts and Sciences students, Alley will present a public seminar hosted by the college’s Department of Earth Sciences Sept. 20 at 4 p.m. in the Heroy Geology Laboratory Auditorium, Room 001. The seminar, “Uncorking the Bottle: Ice Sheets and Sea-Level Rise,” is free and open to the public. Parking is available in SU’s paid lots.

Alley’s Milton Lecture will focus on “Energy, Environment and Your Future.”

“We are using fossil fuels approximately a million times faster than nature saved them for us, and they will run out,” Alley writes. “But there are plenty of ways to get rich and save the world by remaking our energy system.”

Alley is a pioneer in the study of the world’s great ice sheets in Antarctica, Greenland and Alaska. Locked inside layers of ancient ice is a record of past climate change, which scientists use to predict future changes in climate and sea level. Alley’s “The Two-Mile Time Machine” (Princeton University Press, 2000) is a landmark book focused on what the Greenland ice cores reveal about Earth’s past climate.

He continues the story in “Earth: The Operators’ Manual” (2011) by presenting compelling scientific evidence linking rapidly rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide to rising global temperatures. The book also includes a fascinating history of human energy use since the invention of fire and its effect on the global environment, as well as an optimistic assessment of human resilience and the untapped potential of alternative energy resources.

Alley was a member of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, and served on the National Research Council’s Panel on Abrupt Climate Change. He has advised federal officials in the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government across multiple presidential administrations, published more than 225 papers in leading scientific journals and is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Other honors include the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, the Heinz Prize, the Revelle Medal of the American Geophysical Union, the Seligman Crystal of the International Glaciological Society, the Public Service Award of the Geological Society of America, the American Geological Institute Award For Outstanding Contribution to Public Understanding of the Geosciences and the Schneider Award for Science Communication.

  • Author

News Staff

  • Recent
  • Syracuse Stage Hosts Inaugural Julie Lutz New Play Festival
    Wednesday, May 28, 2025, By News Staff
  • Timur Hammond’s ‘Placing Islam’ Receives Journal’s Honorable Mention
    Tuesday, May 27, 2025, By News Staff
  • Expert Available to Discuss DOD Acceptance of Qatari Jet
    Thursday, May 22, 2025, By Vanessa Marquette
  • Syracuse University 2025-26 Budget to Include Significant Expansion of Student Financial Aid
    Wednesday, May 21, 2025, By News Staff
  • Light Work Opens New Exhibitions
    Wednesday, May 21, 2025, By News Staff

More In STEM

University’s Dynamic Sustainability Lab and Ireland’s BiOrbic Sign MOU to Advance Markets for the Biobased Economy

This month at the All Island Bioeconomy Summit held in Co. Meath, Ireland, it was announced that BiOrbic, Research Ireland Centre for Bioeconomy, comprising 12 leading Irish research universities in Ireland, signed a joint memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Dynamic Sustainability…

Professor Bing Dong Named as the Traugott Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

The College of Engineering and Computer Science has named Bing Dong as the Traugott Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. This endowed professorship is made possible by a 1998 gift from the late Fritz Traugott H’98 and his wife, Frances….

Physics Professor Honored for Efforts to Improve Learning, Retention

The Department of Physics in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) has made some big changes lately. The department just added an astronomy major approved by New York State and recently overhauled the undergraduate curriculum to replace traditional labs with innovative…

ECS Team Takes First Place in American Society of Civil Engineers Competition

Civil and environmental engineering student teams participated in the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Sustainable Solutions and Steel Bridge competitions during the 2025 Upstate New York-Canada Student Symposium, winning first place in the Sustainable Solutions competition. The symposium was…

Chloe Britton Naime Committed to Advocating for Improved Outcomes for Neurodivergent Individuals

Chloe Britton Naime ’25 is about to complete a challenging and rare dual major program in both mechanical engineering from the College of Engineering and Computer Science and neuroscience from the College of Arts and Sciences. Even more impressive? Britton…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • X
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2025 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.