Author of first book on climate change coming to ECU
Bill McKibben (Photo by Nancie Battaglia)
Bill McKibben, an environmentalist and best-selling author who has written extensively on the impact of global warming, will present East Carolina University’s 27th annual Distinguished Lecture on Religion and Culture. The Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences Religious Studies Program hosts the lecture.
McKibben will discuss “Global Climate Change: Trying to Make Sense of the Biggest Things that Ever Happened,” which will address ethical issues and the role of faith communities, at 7 p.m. Sept. 19, in the Main Campus Student Center, Ballrooms A-B. The event is free and open to the public.
In 1989, McKibben wrote “The End of Nature,” which is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change and has appeared in 24 languages. He is a founder of https://350.org/, the first planet-wide, grassroots climate change movement, which has organized 20,000 rallies around the world in every country except North Korea. The organization also spearheaded the resistance to the Keystone Pipeline and launched the fast-growing fossil fuel divestment movement.
The Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, McKibben was the 2013 winner of the Gandhi Prize and the Thomas Merton Prize. In 2014, he was awarded the Right Livelihood Prize, sometimes called the “alternative Nobel.”
Foreign Policy named McKibben to its inaugural list of the “world’s 100 most important global thinkers,” and The Boston Globe said he was “probably America’s most important environmentalist.” In 2014, biologists honored him by naming a new species of woodland gnat — Megophthalmidia mckibbeni —in his honor.
A former staff writer for the New Yorker, McKibben writes frequently for a wide variety of publications around the world, including the New York Review of Books, National Geographic and Rolling Stone. He has authored a dozen books and has honorary degrees from 18 colleges and universities. McKibben lives in the mountains above Lake Champlain with his wife and writer Sue Halpern.
For more information about McKibben, visit www.billmckibben.com. Questions about McKibben’s visit may be directed to Dr. Mary Nyangweso, director of the religious studies program, at wangilam@ecu.edu or 252-737-2422.
-by Lacey L. Gray, University Communications