Sverdrup Lecture, 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 16, Hoversten Chapel

Title: MESSENGER at Mercury: Solving the riddles of the innermost planet in our solar system

Abstract: Because the planet Mercury is so much closer to the Sun than the Earth it is hard to observe with telescopes and difficult to reach with spacecraft, and is the least explored of the terrestrial planets. On 18 March 2011 NASA’s MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft became the first ever to orbit Mercury. After overcoming numerous challenges and a journey of nearly 5 billion miles, MESSENGER trained its cameras and other instruments on the planet and revealed immense lava flows that would cover half of the United States, landscapes littered with hollowed depressions each the size of a small city, and evidence for bombardment of the surface by furious blasts of charged particles.

Sverdrup Student Convocation, 11:00 a.m. Tuesday, April 17, Hoversten Chapel

Title: Exploration as a Moral Imperative

Abstract: Humankind is inquisitive by nature and this impulse has played a critical role in technical advances throughout our history as a species from the development of agrarian societies to the Renaissance, the industrial revolution, and the explosion of formal scientific inquiry. Should we understand this capacity as something more than an accidental trait that gives humans a competitive advantage? Does the health of civilization depend on communal enterprises of creativity and discovery? Does the religious understanding of creation and life as more than incidental imply a moral imperative to create and explore?

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The number of people in the world is increasing, and they will undoubtedly demand higher standards of living that likely will be fueled by cheap, available energy sources such as coal for electricity generation and petroleum for gas-consuming large automobile sources which emit large amounts of greenhouse gases.

Local, regional, and international actions to put in place both adaptation and mitigation policies are already beginning and much more could be done if there were political will to substantially reduce the magnitude of the risks. There are many actions that individuals, groups, businesses, cities, states, and countries can do to reduce global warming, while at the same time providing sustainable jobs and reduced dangers from importing oil from unreliable foreign sources. These actions help to motivate needed international cooperation.

Schneider is the Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies, professor of biological sciences, and a senior fellow in the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. Founder and editor of Climatic Change, he has authored or co-authored more than 500 books, scientific papers, proceedings, legislative testimonies, reviews, and editorials. He is actively engaged in improving public understanding of science and the environment through extensive media communication and public outreach.

Global Warming: Is the Science Settled Enough for Politics?

Monday, April 13, 7:30 p.m.

Hoversten Chapel, Foss Center

What Can Individuals do to Deal with Global Climate Change When They Aren’t Authorized to Negotiate with the Chinese?

Tuesday, April 14, 11 a.m.

Hoversten Chapel, Foss Center

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