2007-2008 Events

Fall 07

September
Wednesday, September 19

Environmental Leadership Series: featuring Elizabeth Kolbert 
4:00 pm - 5:00 pm  Shattuck Hall, Cassani Lounge  An Informal Discussion with Author Elizabeth Kolbert  What Al Gore has done through film, political journalist, Elizabeth Kolbert, has done through the written word: catapult the wider public to a new level of understanding and action on climate change. Come join an informal discussion with Ms. Kolbert to learn about her career and her experiences in writing the acclaimed Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature and Climate Change.  This event, co-hosted by Environmental Studies, is the first in the Center for the Environment's year-long Environmental Leadership Series.Cassani Lounge, Shattuck Hall  This series aims to educate students across the disciplinary spectrum about important environmental issues, and to create an aspirational and mentoring quality to each speaking event. 

Common Reading Author Elizabeth Kolbert on Campus 7:30 PM, Mary Woolley Hall, Chapin Auditorium Elizabeth Kolbert, author of the College's Common Reading, Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change, will read and discuss  this book with students. To research the book, Kolbert traveled to Alaska, Greenland, and Iceland, where the effects of global warming are the most visible, spending time with some of the world's leading climate scientists to witness the effects of global warming firsthand.

Wednesday, September 26

"The Power of the Plate: Food, Politics, and Social Change," a talk by author Anna Lappe
7:00 PM Clapp Laboratory, Hooker Auditorium
Anna Lappe is a national bestselling author,  cofounder of the Small Planet Institute and public speaker on food politics, sustainable agriculture, globalization, and social change. She will deliver a speech on the intersecting challenges posed by climate change, environmental degradation, and the globalized food system--and offer alternatives that can lead to healthier people, communities, and ecosystems.

October
Thursday, October 25

Author Alan Weisman: The World without Us 
7:00 PM,
Art Building, Gamble Auditorium
Weisman will read from his new book "The World without Us," which offers an original approach to questions of humanity's impact on the planet. The book, released in July 007, is on its way to becoming one of the year's literary phenomena. It is climbing on every major best-seller list and is being published in almost 30 languages. "Weiseman's enthrallig tour othe world of tomorrow explores what little will rema of ancient times while anticipating, ofte poetically, what a planet without us would be like."--Publisher's Weekly

Environmental Leadership Series: Dams and River Ecology in New England
4:00 PM-5:30 PM Kendade 305
Laura Wildma is director of River Science at American Rivers, a national river conservation organization. Kimberly Lutz is director of the Nature Convervancy's four-state Connecticut River Project, overseeing conservation efforts across this 7.2 million ace watershed. Wildman and Lutz will talk about the challenge of restoring natural flows and ecological processes to the rivers of New England.
The Environmental Leadership Series, a new program of the Center for the Envrionment at Mount Holyoke College, brings to campus professionals whose work and goals place them in the role of environmental leaders striving to create a more environmentally sustainable and just society.

Spring 08: "Water, Climate Change and Sustainability: Connecting the Dots"

January
Thursday, January 31

Focus the Nation: Activism, Stewardship, Community 
Click on for detailed descriptions of a series of events  

"Everything's Cool": a film by judith Helfand and Daniel Gold
7-10 PM Gamble Auditorium, Art Building
A film about America finally "getting"global wrming in the wake of the most dangerous chasm ever to emerge between scientific understanding and political action.

March
March 3-7

MHC Launches "Kick the Bottle"
The Center for the Environment's "Kick the Bottle"campaign is raising awareness about the environmental impacts of bottled water in order to reduce its consumption and lightenthe environmental footprint of the MHC community. During the week, the center will hold eventis, activities, and info sessions in Blanchard and othe locations aorund campus to inform our communiy about the local and global impacts of bottled water from its manufacture to its disposal.

Monday, March 3

"Restoring Mill Creek: Landscape Literacy, Environmental Justice, and City Planning and Design" A Talk by Anne Whiton Spirn
4:15-5:30 PM Dwight Hall Room 101
Anne Whiton Spirn is the professor of landscape architcture at MIT and an internationally recognized scholar working at the intersection of landscape archtecture and  environmental planning. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship to complete her new book, Daring to Look: Dorothea Lange's Photographs and Reports from the field which reflects on fifteen years of combined reseach in history, eology, landscape design and urban planning in a project called the West Fhiladelphia Landscape Project. In it Anne "sets a ut a theory of landscape and aesthetics that takes account of both human interpretive frameworks and natural process."

April
Tuesday, April 1

"Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail" by Paul Polak
7:30 PM, Gamble Auditorium Art Building
Paul Polak is the founder of International Development Enterprise (IDE), a nonprofit organization that has helped more than 17 million impoverished farmers in developing countries to escape the cycle of poverty. Polak will discuss his new book, "Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail." Polak's lecture is sponsored by the Center for the Environment, the McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives, the economics department, and the Odyssey Bookshop.

Monday, April 7

"Local Conservation and the Global Environment: A New England Example" by David Foster
4:15-5:30 PM Dwight Hall, Room 101
David Foster is the director of the Harvard Forest, Harvard University and has been a faculty member in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology since  1983. Foster has a Ph.D in ecology from the University of Minnesota and has conducted research in the boreal forests of Labrador, Sweden and  Norway and the tropical forests of Puerto Rico, in addition to his primary studies on temerate forest dynamics in eastern North America. He is author, co-auther, or editor of several books, including, Forest in Time: Ecosystem Structure and Function as a Consequence of 1000 Years of Change, Thoreau's Country: Journey Through a Transformed Landscape and New England Forests Through Time: Insights from the Harvard Forest Dioramas. 
A Link to his previous talk on history of local landscape at Mount Holyoke College in 2002: Harvard Forest Director to Speak about History of Local Landscape

"The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil" Community Film Screening and Discussion
4:30 PM, Hooker Auditorium, Clapp Lab
"The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil," is a film highlighting the creativity of the Cuban people during the 1990s, when the collapse of the Soviet Union forced a radical transformation of Cuba's society and economy. The film depicts how a society dependent on fossil fuels was able to rise from the hardships of an economic crisis to completely transition its once mechanized, industrial system to its current system of organic farming and local, urban gardens. "The Power of Community" portrays waht is possible when a community is faced with no choice but to massively reduce fossil fuel consumption. It offers hope to a fossil-fuel addicted society, like the U.S., for the time when world oil production will reach its all-time peak and begin to decline forever.
Community discussion on building sustainable communities will follow the screening.
Hosted by: The Center for the Environment and Gardening the Community

"Pangy Day": May Pageant and Earthfest
11:00 AM -1:15 PM, Pageant Green
MHC Community Picnic, Hosted by Dining Services
11:30 AM -1:00 PM, Amphitheater Stage
Lively Performances of Music and Dance
Green Partners Exhibits
1:00 PM -3:00 PM, Skinner Green   
May Pole and Spring Fair Festivities
Ice Cream Served after May Pole
5:00 PM, Blanchard Steps                   
Concert with Andy Suzuki and Kozza Babumba