March, 2016, Lecture Series

6-7 PM Mondays in March, room 202, Johnson County Senior Center:

March 7, Maureen McCue , Climate Change: Risks to Health Here, There and Everywhere. (PowerPoint)

March 14, Mary Skopek , Water Quality: What We All Need To Do To Improve Iowa’s Water. CedarRapidsTopSoilOrdinance11-10-15 IC Handouts

March 21, Marc Franke and Pat Higby , Electric Cars: Save the Planet and Your Budget Too. (Power Point)

March 28, Sailesh Rao , If You Are Serious About Climate Change… (Power Point) (Huff Post article) (video of lecture)

Details from pages 14-15 of Senior Center Catalog:

Climate Change: Risks to Health Here,

There, and Everywhere (3/7/2016)

Dr. Maureen McCue has traveled, consulted, and

worked extensively as a physician, researcher,

and peace maker. She is a founding member,

faculty, and former director of the University

of Iowa Global Health Studies Program as well

as a founding board member for the UI Center

for Human Rights. As an adjunct Clinical

Professor in the Colleges of Public Health and

of Liberal Arts & Sciences, Dr. McCue teaches

a variety of Health and Human Rights topics

including Global Health and Climate Change.

She coordinates the Iowa Chapter of Physicians

for Social Responsibility addressing the gravest

threats to human health and survival, specifically

the threat of climate disruption and nuclear

proliferation.

Water Quality: What We All Need to Do to

Improve Iowa’s Water (3/14/2016)

Mary Skopec is a senior research scientist for

the Water Monitoring and Assessment Section

(WMAS) at the Iowa Department of Natural

Resources (IDNR), Geological Survey Bureau

(GSB). Last year Dr. Skopec received the John

Wesley Powell Award from the U.S. Geological

Survey (USGS) Iowa Water Science Center for

research and development in estimating stream

flow and water-quality values for any point on

a stream entitled, STREAMEST. At the GSB, she

has worked on a variety of water quality projects

including the development of a statewide

database to track pesticide occurrences in Iowa’s

water resources. Dr. Skopec currently coordinates

the WMAS analyses of data from the statewide

Ambient Water Monitoring Program.

Electric Cars: Save the Planet and Your
Budget Too (3/21/2016)
Using green electricity (Iowa wind and solar)
pollutes our planet much less than gasoline and
reduces global warming. A used Electric Vehicle
(EV) is inexpensive to buy ($12-16,000), operate
(“gas” @ $1/gal), and maintain! Pure electric
cars have no muffler, oil, air filters or emissions
controls. Extended range electric cars like the
Chevy Volt have far less maintenance than a
comparable gas powered car. Come ready to ask
any question about Electric Vehicles.
Marc Franke is writer, educator and advocate
for that which helps people. Educated as an
engineer, he has a lifelong interest in science, the
environment and our society. Pat Higby is Energy
Education and Outreach Coordinator at the UNI
Center for Energy & Environmental Education.

Electric Cars: Save the Planet and Your

Budget Too (3/21/2016)

Using green electricity (Iowa wind and solar)

pollutes our planet much less than gasoline and

reduces global warming. A used Electric Vehicle

(EV) is inexpensive to buy ($12-16,000), operate

(“gas” @ $1/gal), and maintain! Pure electric

cars have no muffler, oil, air filters or emissions

controls. Extended range electric cars like the

Chevy Volt have far less maintenance than a

comparable gas powered car. Come ready to ask

any question about Electric Vehicles.

Marc Franke is writer, educator and advocate

for that which helps people. Educated as an

engineer, he has a lifelong interest in science, the

environment and our society. Pat Higby is Energy

Education and Outreach Coordinator at the UNI

Center for Energy & Environmental Education.

If You Are Serious About Climate Change…

(3/28/2016)

Climate change is a symptom of the

unsustainable nature of our global industrial

civilization. In this talk, using simple arithmetic,

we show why dealing with climate change is an

urgent matter for today and why it requires an

all-hands-on-deck approach in which each and

every one of us plays a vital part, starting now.

Using simple analogies from Gandhi’s Freedom

movement of the 20th century, we show what

strategies a successful climate movement could

embrace and how that might unfold.

Sailesh Rao is the Executive Director of the non-

profit, Climate Healers. An electrical engineer by

training with a B.Tech from IIT Madras (1981)

and a Ph.D. from Stanford University (1986),

Sailesh’s technology career included service with

AT&T Bell Labs and Intel.

This entry was posted in Archive, Education and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.