SUNY Cortland News

    Bill McKibben, a leading environmentalist whose first book, The End of Nature (1989), raised the alarm about global climate change, will speak on Tuesday, Sept. 25, at SUNY Cortland.
    McKibben, who frequently writes about global warming, alternative energy and the risks associated with human genetic engineering, will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Old Main Brown Auditorium. The lecture opens the College's yearlong series on the theme of "Earthly Matters," organized by the College's Cultural and Intellectual Climate Committee. The series is free and open to the public.
    McKibben is currently a scholar in residence at Middlebury College in Vermont. His most recent book, Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future (2007), addresses the shortcomings of the growth economy and envisions a transition to more local-scale enterprise.
    McKibben grew up in suburban Lexington, Mass. He was president of the Harvard Crimson newspaper in college. He joined the New Yorker magazine as a staff writer and penned much of the "Talk of the Town" column from 1982 to early 1987. He quit the magazine when its longtime editor William Shawn was forced out of his job, and soon moved to the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York.
    His first book, The End of Nature, was published in 1989 by Random House after being serialized in the New Yorker. Regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change, it has been printed in more than 20 languages. Several editions have come out in the United States, including an updated version published in 2006.
    His subsequent books include Hope, Human and Wild, about Curitiba, Brazil and Kerala, India, which he cites as examples of people living more lightly on the earth; The Comforting Whirlwind: God, Job, and the Scale of Creation, which is about the Book of Job and the environment; and Maybe One, about human population.
    In late summer 2006, McKibben helped lead a five-day walk across Vermont to demand action on global warming that some newspaper accounts called the largest demonstration to date in America about climate change. Beginning in January this year, he founded stepitup07.org to demand that Congress enact curbs on carbon emissions that would cut global warming pollution 80 percent by 2050. With the help of six college students, he organized 1,400 global warming demonstrations across all 50 states and gained the support of environmental, student and religious groups. "Step It Up 2007" has been described as the largest day of protest about climate change in the nation's history. A guide to help people initiate environmental activism in their community coming out of the "Step It Up 2007" experience, titled "Fight Global Warming Now," will be published in October.
    McKibben is a frequent contributor to various magazines including The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, Orion Magazine, Mother Jones, The New York Review of Books, Granta, Rolling Stone, and Outside. He is also a board member and contributor to Grist Magazine.
    He has been awarded Guggenheim and Lyndhurst Fellowships, and won the Lannan Prize for nonfiction writing in 2000. He has honorary degrees from Green Mountain College, Unity College, Lebanon Valley College and Sterling College.
    "Earthly Matters" is the third yearlong series of lectures and cultural events organized around a single theme at SUNY Cortland. Sponsored by the College's Cultural and Intellectual Climate Committee, the series is funded by the Offices of the President and the Provost.
    For more information, contact Assistant Professor of History Kevin Sheets at (607) 753-2060.