Speakers & Workshops

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The Center for the Environment regularly hosts events that allow community citizens and students to interact with influential environmental leaders. Recent events include:

  • Clean Air Lecture Series (an award-winning program that served as a catalyst for addressing the health and economic impacts of poor air quality).
  • Clean Air Conference: Community Strategies for Action.
  • Faith, Spirituality and Environmental Stewardship Conference (one of the first and largest conferences of its kind in the Southeast).

Environmental leaders who have spoken at the Center in recent years include:

  • Lester Brown, founder of Worldwatch Institute and current founder and president of Earth Policy Institute;
  • Bill Ross, secretary of the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources;
  • Gary Gardner, senior researcher at Worldwatch Institute, a leading source on the interactions among key environmental, social and economic trends;
  • Larry Shirley, director of the N.C. State Energy Office;
  • Dr. William Schlesinger, president of Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies and former Dean of Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment;
  • Dr. Clay Ballantine, nationally recognized authority on air pollution and health;
  • David Walters, urban designer and author of Designing Community;
  • Randall Arendt, internationally known land-use planner and advocate of conservation planning;
  • Dr. Viney Aneja, air quality research director at North Carolina State University.
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Upcoming Events

Nutrition & Environment: Could Arsenic in our Water by Causing Diabetes?

Dr. Miroslav Styblo, a biochemist in UNC-Chapel Hill’s Department of Nutrition, will talk on “Nutrition and Environment: Could Arsenic in our Water be Causing Diabetes?” on Thursday, Oct. 29, at the Center for the Environment facility on the Catawba College campus. The 7 p.m. presentation will be followed by a reception. The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required.

To register, contact Amanda Lanier at allanier@catawba.edu or 704.637.4727. ( Read Complete Story Here )

Amory Lovins

Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute’s cofounder, chairman and chief scientist, will speak at the Center for the Environment later in the academic year. Newsweek called him “one of the Western world’s most influential energy thinkers.” Time named him one of 2009’s most influential people in the world.