2011 Vetlesen Lectures in Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the University
of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography:
The State of Our Oceans
Oceans and Human Health: The Urgent Need for Sustainable Resource Management - March 1.
Edward Laws, professor of environmental sciences at Louisiana State
University, will present a lecture entitled “Oceans and Human
Health: The Urgent Need for Sustainable Resource Management” at
the University of Rhode Island on Mar. 1 at 7:30 p.m. His presentation,
in Edward’s Auditorium on the URI Kingston campus, is part of
the University’s Vetlesen lecture series on “The State
of the Oceans” in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the
Graduate School of Oceanography. The event is free and open to the
public.
In his lecture, Laws will discuss how to maintain the oceans in the face of increasingly damaging exploitation.
“What is disturbing about the climate changes projected for the next several centuries is the abruptness of the changes and the fact that the changes reflect non-sustainable use of natural resources by human beings,” he said. “Furthermore, the projected changes in the ocean/atmosphere system will persist for thousands of years because natural restoring forces are unresponsive on a timeframe of decades to centuries.”
After teaching for 30 years at the University of Hawaii, Laws joined the faculty at the LSU School of the Coast and Environment, where he serves as chair of the Department of Environmental Sciences. He also serves as the director of the Pacific Research Center for Marine Biomedicine, one of four centers of oceans and human health supported by the National Science Foundation and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
Laws has published more than 140 papers in scholarly journals and is the author of a textbook on aquatic pollution that has been translated into numerous languages. He received his B.A. in chemistry and his Ph.D. in chemical physics from Harvard University.
For background material on this lecture, click here.
To view this lecture online, click here.
Major Sponsors:
The G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation
The URI Graduate School of Oceanography
Co-Sponsors:
URI Coastal Institute
URI Honors Program
Special Sponsors:
URI College of Arts & Sciences
URI Harrington School of Communication and Media
Rhode Island Sea Grant
Colloquium Coordinators:
Professor Steven D'Hondt, Graduate School of Oceanography;
Dr. Sunshine Menezes, Metcalf Institute for Marine & Environmental Reporting, Graduate School of Oceanography;
Professor Arthur Spivack, Graduate School of Oceanography;
Professor Judith Swift, Coastal Institute / Communication Studies.
