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
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • 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
  • College of Visual and Performing Arts Welcomes New Full-Time Faculty
    Monday, September 25, 2023, By Erica Blust
  • School of Education Faculty Publish ‘Lesson Study With Mathematics and Science Preservice Teachers’
    Sunday, September 24, 2023, By Martin Walls
  • Water Main Break Near Bird Library to Be Repaired Monday
    Sunday, September 24, 2023, By News Staff
  • University Musicians, West Point Band to Perform Together This Weekend As Part of Events Around Military Appreciation Day
    Friday, September 22, 2023, By Christine Weber
  • Turning Young Enthusiasts Into Scientific Researchers
    Friday, September 22, 2023, By Wendy S. Loughlin

More In STEM

Turning Young Enthusiasts Into Scientific Researchers

Miguel Guzman ’24, a native of Lima, Peru, is a senior biotechnology major in the College of Arts and Sciences with an entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises minor in the Whitman School of Management. His research centers on developing bio-enabled protein…

Center for Sustainable Community Solutions and Environmental Finance Center Announces New Director

The College of Engineering and Computer Science is pleased to announce the transition of Melissa Young into a new role as director of the Center for Sustainable Community Solutions-Environmental Finance Center (CSCS-EFC) at Syracuse University. CSCS-EFC is housed within the…

Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Attends UN Session on Reducing Plastic Pollution

Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Svetoslava Todorova attended the second session of the United Nations (UN) Intergovernmental Negotiations Committee on Plastics this summer in Paris, France. Todorova was invited as an academic expert based on her research on the environment,…

Experts Say Federal Agency or Global Organization Should Govern AI, New Survey Co-sponsored by Two University Institutes Finds

A new survey co-sponsored by two Syracuse University institutes finds that a majority of computer science experts at top U.S research universities want to see the creation of a new federal agency or global organization to govern artificial intelligence (AI)….

Q&A With School of Information Studies Dean Andrew Sears: Seeing Countless Opportunities in the Ever-Changing Tech World

In the rapidly changing world of technology, School of Information Studies Dean Andrew Sears knows it’s hard to predict how technology and the iSchool will evolve if you look too far into the future. But, he knows if you pay…

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
  • @SUCampus
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2023 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.