Biology Program Presents

Global Change and Biodiversity: Understanding Our Future through the Past

Humans are massively modifying our planet in many ways. Scientists often speak of five major components of global change: climate change, land use change, overharvesting, chemical change, and invasive species. One of the key challenges for both scientists and policy makers is to understand how these changes will influence the natural world we live in (and thus ultimately affect humans). This is a hard task. But very usefully, all of these kinds of change have occurred in the distant past (i.e, thousands and millions of years ago), which can help us understand what the future will look like. In this talk I will summarize how humans are modifying the planet, contextualize these changes in the context of similar changes in the the distant past, and explore how they will impact humans and the natural world. Climate change will be the main focus, but I will also look at other aspects of global change.

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For more information, call 845-752-2349, or e-mail [email protected].

Time: 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm EDT/GMT-4

Location: Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium

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