Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb. If the vast majority of the world's scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced.

If that sounds like a recipe for serious gloom and doom -- think again. From director Davis Guggenheim comes the Sundance Film Festival hit, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, which offers a passionate and inspirational look at one man's fervent crusade to halt global warming's deadly progress in its tracks by exposing the myths and misconceptions that surround it. That man is former Vice President Al Gore, who, in the wake of defeat in the 2000 election, re-set the course of his life to focus on a last-ditch, all-out effort to help save the planet from irrevocable change.

Event co-sponsored by Beyond The Classroom, The First Year Book, and the Office of Undergraduate Studies.

Jessica Gordon Nembhard is an assistant Professor of African American Studies, UM. A public event open to all UM and the broader community. All are welcome! Refreshments will be served.

• Event Sponsored by Beyond the Classroom Living & Learning Program/Office of Undergraduate Studies

Is the world really flat? Come hear other views on globalization by some of those who don't champion it.

Chair: I.M. "Mac" Destler.

• Herman Daly, Professor, School of Public Policy
  
• Carol Graham, Professor, School of Public Policy
  
• Tim Gulden, Research Associate, Center for International Security at Maryland.
  
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Event co-sponsored by The School of Public Policy, The First Year Book, and the Office of Undergraduate Studies.

Author Thomas L. Friedman will be on campus to discuss

Event cosponsored by the William L. Thomas, Jr. Lecture in the Omicron Delta Kappa Series; the Provost's Conversations on Diversity, Democracy and Higher Education, and the Department of Education, Policy and Leadership "Community and Diversity in American Life" Colloquium Series.

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Ken Conca is an Associate Professor in Goverment and Politics and Director of the Harrison Program on the Future Global Agenda, UMD. A public event open to all UM and the broader community. All are welcome! Refreshments will be served.

• Event Sponsored by Beyond the Classroom Living & Learning Program/Office of Undergraduate Studies

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Thomas Friedman is the award winning Foreign Affairs columnist for the NY Times whose book, The World if Flat, A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, has become a national bestseller.

From online sources, we learn that Friedman's thesis deals with a concept he calls flattening with products in all industries being increasingly leveraged through competitive commoditization and the possibility of using labor and services in
emerging markets like India and China. Friedman argues that individuals as well as companies become empowered by this process. Friedman criticizes societies [and possibly institutions] that resist these changes, The inevitability of global change forces all societies [and possibly institutions] to either adapt to its forces or be left behind. Some critics argue that while Friedman points out that the world is increasingly inter-connected, his image may suggest the opposite, as a flat world would be harder to navigate than a spherical one. However, Friedman more likely meant the metaphor to imply the "playing field is flat" in the competitive sense.

Professor Paoletti will lead a discussion on Friedman's thesis as it pertains to higher education.

Refreshments: Lunch will be served.

Dr. Pirages offers a critical perspective of "The World is Flat", Thomas Friedman's best seller and the current first year book, challenging the beneficial aspects of technological change and global capitalism.

Dennis Pirages has been a pioneering figure in developing the field of global environmental studies. His edited book, The Sustainable Society (1977), was a path-breaking effort to focus scholarly and policy attention on the socioeconomic and political dimensions of global change and sustainability. His next publication, Global Ecopolitics: The New Context for International Relations (1978) set the standard for much of the global environmental literature that has followed, and the term "ecopolitics" has now become commonly used in the field. The author or editor of twelve books and more than fifty articles and book chapters in his areas of specialization, Dr. Pirages has also received recognition as an excellent teacher in courses in environmental policy and global ecopolitics as well as ecological security. At the University of Maryland, he has also nourished the development of the Harrison Program on the Future Global Agenda. Refreshments will be served.

• Event sponsored by the Department of American Studies, the Project on Religion, Culture, and Globalization, the First Year Book program, and the Office of Undergraduate Studies.

Contact Lauren Breedlove, breedlov@umd.edu

Charlie Garlow is an Attorney/Advisor in the Air Enforcement Division of the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance [OECA], Headquarters EPA, where he has served as the air toxics expert since 1987. Other duties include national coordination of the Stratospheric Ozone enforcement program, emissions trading programs, acid rain enforcement, citizen enforcement coordination and criteria pollutant enforcement efforts [NSPS, SIPs, NSR].

Garlow is a long time clean energy activist with the Sierra Club, the Potomac Regional Solar Energy Association, the Virginia Solar Council, the Electric Vehicle Association of Greater DC and others.

• Event co-sponsored by the Ecological Economics Student Group

From writer/director Stephen Gaghan, winner of the Best Screenplay Academy Award for Traffic, comes Syriana, a political thriller that unfolds against the intrigue of the global oil industry. From the players brokering back-room deals in Washington to the men toiling in the oil fields of the Persian Gulf, the film's multiple storylines weave together to illuminate the human consequences of the fierce pursuit of wealth and power. As a career CIA operative (George Clooney) begins to uncover the disturbing truth about the work he has devoted his life to, an up-and-coming oil broker (Matt Damon) faces an unimaginable family tragedy and finds redemption in his partnership with an idealistic Gulf prince (Alexander Siddig). A corporate lawyer (Jeffrey Wright) faces a moral dilemma as he finesses the questionable merger of two powerful U.S. oil companies, while across the globe, a disenfranchised Pakistani teenager (Mazhar Munir) falls prey to the recruiting efforts of a charismatic cleric. Each plays their small part in the vast and complex system that powers the industry, unaware of the explosive impact their lives will have upon the world (from IMDB).

• Event Cosponsored by Honors Program

Winner of the 2004 Pare Lorentz Award (International Documentary Association)

Oil on Ice is a vivid, compelling and comprehensive documentary connecting the fate of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to decisions America makes about energy policy, transportation choices, and other seemingly unrelated matters. Caught in the balance are the culture and livelihood of the Gwich’in people and the migratory wildlife in this fragile ecosystem. (source: http://www.oilonice.org)

• Event sponsored by the Ecological Economics Student Group as a part of the Environmental Policy Roundtable Series

• Event Sponsored by the University Honors Program