Renowned Writer and Environmental Activist Bill McKibben Joins Bard Center for Environmental Policy Advisory Board

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. —Author and climate leader Bill McKibben has joined the Bard Center for Environmental Policy (Bard CEP), an innovative graduate program in at Bard College that offers master of science degrees in environmental policy and in climate science and policy. McKibben is the author of a dozen books about the environment, beginning with The End of Nature in 1989, which is regarded as the first book for a general audience on climate change. He is a founder of the grassroots climate campaign 350.org, which has coordinated 15,000 rallies in 189 countries since 2009. Time magazine called him “the planet’s best green journalist,” and the Boston Globe said in 2010 that he was “probably the country’s most important environmentalist.”

“The Bard Center for Environmental Policy is training the kind of leaders we desperately need,” said McKibben. “Bard is one of the few places in the country where you can get an integrated master’s degree in climate science and policy.”

“We are honored to have Bill McKibben join our board,” said Eban Goodstein, director of Bard CEP. “For more than twenty years, Bill has been a leading educator engaging Americans about climate science and the need for policy action. He is a model for students around the country.”

Other Bard CEP board members include UK environmental leader Stewart Wallis, and regional members Terence Boylan, Tricia Zimic, Greg Quinn, Dianne O'Neal, and Jeffrey Scales.

Bill McKibben is Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College. His first book, The End of Nature, was published by Random House after being serialized in the New Yorker. 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 other books include The Age of Missing Information; Hope, Human and Wild; The Comforting Whirlwind: God, Job, and the Scale of Creation; Maybe One; Long Distance: A Year of Living Strenuously; Enough; Wandering Home; and Deep Economy: the Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. McKibben was a writer for the New Yorker from 1982 to 1987 and is a frequent contributor to various magazines including the New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, Orion Magazine, Mother Jones, New York Review of Books, Granta, Rolling Stone, and Outside. He is also a board member of and contributor to Grist Magazine. McKibben has been awarded Guggenheim and Lyndhurst Fellowships, and won the Lannan Prize for nonfiction writing in 2000. In 2011 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He lives in Ripton, Vermont.

Driven by the belief that environmental challenges should be tackled from an integrated perspective, the Bard Center of Environmental Policy is an innovative graduate program that provides its students with a rigorous education in science, law, economics, and policy leading to a master of science degree in either environmental policy or climate science and policy. Bard CEP graduates enter the professional world equipped with the knowledge and practical experience to create thoughtful, realistic, and competent policy. The emphasis on science-based policy enables students to progress from knowledge of the issues to the formulation of feasible, effective solutions. Distinctive features include an interdisciplinary approach to course work, small classes, one-on-one faculty advising, an extended professional internship, skills-based training, and research opportunities created to fit student interests. The master’s degree curriculum is shaped to reflect the fact that today’s students face an unprecedented leadership challenge, requiring from educators not only sound instruction in multiple disciplines, but also the vision and courage to change the future. For more information about the Bard Center for Environmental Policy, visit www.bard.edu/cep.

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(10.15.13)

This event was last updated on 10-17-2013

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