Global Warming: Doing what the planet needs in Washington, Copenhagen, Pittsburgh and tropical forests
Douglas Boucher, Thursday, September 10, 2009
4:30pm - Porter 100, Gregg Hall
The next four months are going to be a critical time for action on global warming. Both in Washington, with the Senate debate on the House-passed energy and climate bill, and in Copenhagen in December, with the negotiations for a new treaty to make drastic reductions in greenhouse gases. The G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh on September 24-25 is key for both these events, since it is where President Obama and the leaders of the world’s largest economies could make a commitment to making the necessary investments to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. Part of this commitment needs to be in reducing tropical deforestation, which is responsible for about 20% of global warming pollution. This presentation will discuss the balance of forces and the political dynamics that could lead to historic steps on climate change in the next few months – or to a failure to act that would have drastic consequences for the planet.
Doug Boucher joined the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) in July 2007 as Director of its Tropical Forests and Climate Initiative. He is in charge of UCS' work in the United States and in the international climate change negotiations, on tropical deforestation and its role in climate change. He is based in UCS' Washington office.
Doug came to UCS from Hood College where he was a professor of biology for more than 10 years. Prior to that, he served as the Washington Office Director of Representative Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and as Director of the Western Hemisphere Cooperation Program at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has also taught at the University of Quebec and McGill University and conducted research in the tropical forests of Mexico, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. He has published widely on ecology and forest management issues, most recently in Ecology, Science, Plant Ecology, Forest Ecology and Management, and the Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America. Doug has a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of Michigan and a B.A. in ecology and history from Yale University.
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