Climate Change Scientist Featured on the Discovery Channel to Speak in Lake Placid

Keene Valley, NY—August 1, 2006—Stephen W. Pacala, recently featured in a Discovery Channel special broadcast on global warming hosted by reporter Tom Brokaw, will be the keynote speaker at the Adirondack Nature Conservancy and Adirondack Land Trust’s 35th Anniversary Annual Meeting and Field Day on August 12, 2006, at Heaven Hill Farm in Lake Placid, New York.

A professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University, Pacala is among the nation’s leading experts working to find solutions to climate change, which is caused by the build-up of carbon dioxide, and other greenhouse gasses, in the atmosphere. The ecological, economic, and social, impacts of climate change range from shifting forest habitats and loss of species to increasing costs of farming; greater demands on freshwater resources to further degradation in air quality.

As co-director of a major effort known as the Carbon Mitigation Initiative, Pacala works with dozens of researchers from a variety of fields—science, engineering, economics, policy—focusing on things like capturing carbon from fossil fuels to prevent it from being released into the atmosphere, storing carbon in the earth, and workable policy solutions to reduce worldwide carbon output.

“Steve is a fascinating, can-do kind of a guy, seeking innovative solutions to climate change. He’s about finding answers, not spreading doom and gloom,” said ANC/ALT Executive Director Michael Carr. “With someone of Steve’s caliber as the keynote speaker, this year’s annual meeting is an event not to be missed,” Carr added.

After Pacala’s address, participants will have the opportunity to join one of the following field trips:

• Visit Whiteface Mt. with a Summit Steward and a scientist for an introduction to high-elevation birds and plants like Bicknell’s thrush and Boott’s rattlesnake-root.
• Join Adirondack Wildguide author and ANC/ALT Trustee, Michael DiNunzio, and invasive species expert Hilary Oles, for an interpretive walk on the Heaven Hill grounds. Learn about the ways in which invasive species threaten native plants and animals.
• Find out about mercury contamination in migratory songbirds, a topic recently reported on in The New York Times. Stay on site for a presentation by researcher Melissa Duron of the Biodiversity Research Institute.
• Learn about the impacts of global warming on the maple syrup industry, a mainstay of the North Country economy, at the Cornell Sugar Maple Research & Extension Program, just up the road from Heaven Hill Farm.

Pre-registration is required. Cost per adult is $20, children under 12 are free. Heaven Hill Farm, not ordinarily not open to the public, is just west of the village of Lake Placid, with a magnificent view of the high peaks.

As a chapter of The Nature Conservancy, ANC preserves plants, animals and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive. ALT protects open space, working farms and forests, undeveloped shoreline, scenic vistas, and more. This year they are celebrating 35 years of conserving Adirondack lands and waters. Since 1971, they’ve protected 382,500 acres, an average of more than 10,000 acres per year, including 4,000 acres of working farms, more than 500 miles of shoreline on lakes, rivers and streams, and more than 100,000 acres of working forests. Please visit us online at nature.org/adirondacks.

To register for this event, or obtain more information, contact Erin Short at (518) 576-2082 x133 or eshort@tnc.org.