Increasingly we live in an age where human impact on Earth’s climate and ecosystems is profound and far reaching. For this reason, many scientists believe that we are living in a new epoch: the Anthropocene, a recent period of human activity that has transformed the environment on a global scale.
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In this program, Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction, joins Dr. Eric Dorfman, President of the Linda Hall Library, for an important conversation on the current biodiversity crisis and what the future holds for the planet if we don’t address the harmful aspects of human activities.Â
In person attendance option
This registration is for virtual attendance via Zoom webinar. If you would prefer to attend this program in person at the Linda Hall Library, please follow this link to register beginning January 9 at 9 a.m. CT:
       CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR IN-PERSON ATTENDANCE
Elizabeth Kolbert is the author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change, The White Sky, and The Sixth Extinction, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize. For her work at The New Yorker, where she's a staff writer, she has received two National Magazine Awards and the Blake-Dodd Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.Â
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Kolbert’s masterful storytelling has been recognized with numerous additional honors, including a National Academies Communications Award, a Heinz Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Blake Dodd Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Pell Center Prize for Story in the Public Square.
Eric Dorman, PhD, is President of the Linda Hall Library and author of several popular books on New Zealand natural history and climate change, as well as scholarly papers on museum education, public programming, Egyptology, and the ecology of wetland birds. His most recent book, The Future of Natural History Museums (Routledge 2018), is currently being translated into Chinese and Japanese.
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Dr. Dorfman is active in the natural history sector internationally, coauthoring the ICOM Code of Ethics for Natural History Museums and serving as Deputy Chair of the ICOM Ethics Committee. He is also a former member of the Executive Board of the International National Council of Museums (ICOM).Â
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He completed a master’s degree through San Jose State University studying the behavioral ecology of porpoises in Monterey Bay, California, and a doctorate at the University of Sydney on scale-dependent habitat use of waterbirds in eastern and central Australia. Prior to his current position, Dr. Dorfman was CEO of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and a Research Professor at North Carolina State University.
