The Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy

Thank you to Friends of Alta for sponsoring this event.  Go here to register.  This event is free and open to the public.

Join Friends of Alta and John Lin from the University of Utah for a presentation and discussion on Greenhouse gases, Air Quality, and Future of the Wasatch Front.

John Lin is a Professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences and the Associate Director of the Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy. He has over 20 years of experience researching the emissions and transport of greenhouse gases and atmospheric pollutants, publishing over 100 peer-reviewed journal papers to date. He was selected as a Earth Leadership Fellow in 2022 and participates regularly in national and international research efforts such as with the World Meteorological Organization and the European Union. John's research group (http://lair.utah.edu/) is carrying out greenhouse gas and air quality observations in the Salt Lake area, as well as in the Uinta Basin. John also works regularly with satellite observations from NASA to determine carbon emissions from cities around the world. He has recently served on the Great Salt Lake Strike Team to synthesize scientific knowledge and inform policy decisions surrounding the Great Salt Lake. John received his AB, AM, and PhD degrees from Harvard University.

The Wilkes Center is thrilled to co-sponsor this event with the American West Center, the Natural History Museum of Utah, and the Stegner Center.

Bestselling author John Vaillant will be discussing his newest book, Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World, and life in the Pyrocene in the American West.

On Friday, November 8^th, from 11:30 to 1 PM, John Vaillant will be in conversation with students in LNCO 2110.  Light refreshments will be served.

All events are free and open to the public.

John Vaillant is an author and freelance writer whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Geographic, and  the Guardian, among others. His first book, The Golden Spruce (Knopf, 2005), was a bestseller and won several awards, including the Governor General's and Rogers Trust awards for non-fiction (Canada). His second nonfiction book, The Tiger (Knopf, 2010), won the B.C. Achievement Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, was a bestseller and has been published in 16 languages. Film rights were optioned by Brad Pitt’s film company, Plan B. In 2014 Vaillant won the Windham-Campbell Prize, a global award for non-fiction. In 2015, he published his first work of fiction, The Jaguar's Children (Houghton Mifflin), which was long-listed for the Dublin IMPAC and Kirkus Fiction Prizes, and was a finalist for the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize (Canada). Fire Weather (Knopf, 2023), a #1 bestseller in Canada, won the UK's Baillie Gifford Prize, a global award for English language non-fiction, and was a finalist for National Book Award and the Canadian Writers‘ Trust Nonfiction Prize. It was named one of the ten best books of 2023 by The New York Times, among many other prominent publications in Europe and North America. Feature film rights have been optioned by Vendôme Pictures, which won an Academy Award for CODA in 2022.

The Wilkes Center is excited to co-sponsor this event with the Natural History Museum of Utah.

The Wilkes Center is excited to co-sponsor this event with the Tanner Humanities Center

Kimmerer:

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, which has earned Kimmerer wide acclaim. Her first book, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing, and her other work has appeared in Orion, Whole Terrain, and numerous scientific journals. In 2022, Braiding Sweetgrass was adapted for young adults by Monique Gray Smith. This new edition reinforces how wider ecological understanding stems from listening to the earth’s oldest teachers: the plants around us.

Whyte:

Kyle Whyte is George Willis Pack Professor at the School for Environment and Sustainability, teaching in the SEAS environmental justice specialization. He is founding Faculty Director of the Tishman Center for Social Justice and the Environment, Principal Investigator of the Energy Equity Project, and Affiliate Professor of Native American Studies and Philosophy. His research addresses environmental justice, focusing on moral and political issues concerning climate policy and Indigenous peoples, the ethics of cooperative relationships between Indigenous peoples and science organizations, and problems of Indigenous justice in public and academic discussions of food sovereignty, environmental justice, and the anthropocene. He is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.

The Wilkes Center is excited to co-sponsor this event with the American West Center and NHMU.

Join us for a lively conversation about the state of the Colorado River, water rights in the American West, and the future of water conservation in our region.  The event is free, but you must register at nhmu.utah.edu/events/future-colorado-river

Utah State University Professor Jack Schmidt has devoted nearly 40 years to research of river systems, centered on the Colorado River, its tributaries, and the Grand Canyon. During his academic career — as well as time spent as chief of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center — he has focused on the relationship of ecosystem health and dams, reservoirs and diversions associated with river management.

He currently serves as the director for the Center for Colorado River Studies, housed in the Quinney College of Natural Resources at USU. The center aims to produce innovative research, teaching and outreach that can help to inform focused decision-making and effective management of the Colorado River and other major rivers of the American Southwest.