Lectures on Renewable Energy, Beijing Pollution

Two separate lectures — one on the global financial crisis and its impact on renewable energy development, and a second on the health effects of air pollution in Beijing, China — will be held Friday, Feb. 22 on campus. Both are free and public.

At 1 p.m. in 117 D.P. Corbett Business Building, Jonathan Rubin, professor of resource economics and policy at the UMaine Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center, will present “The Financial Crisis and Its Impact on Renewable Energy Development,” a discussion about how the economic crisis is affecting the pursuit of renewable energy in the United States, Europe, South America and China.

Rubin, who chairs the Committee on Transportation Energy, U.S. Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, specializes in the economics of energy, light-duty transportation, greenhouse gas emissions and alternative fuels. His talk is a Bangor Foreign Policy Forum presentation.

At 3 p.m. in Wells Conference Center, Peking University Professor Tong Zhu, dean of the College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, will discuss “Air Pollution in Beijing: Formation and Health Impacts.”

The University of Peking has studied factors and reported on the consequences of worsening air pollution in Beijing, a city of 20 million people.

Zhu’s presentation is sponsored by the UMaine School of Marine Sciences and the UMaine Climate Change Institute.

For additional information or to request disability accommodations, call 207.581.3940.