High Plains Journal, KS
02-16-07
Climate change and agriculture topic of seventh Pesek Colloquiu
Iowa
The seventh John Pesek Colloquium on Sustainable Agriculture, which
honors a retired Iowa State University agronomy professor, will explore the
potential for the agricultural sector to respond to climate change.
Cynthia Rosenzweig, who has been studying climate change and agriculture for
20 years, will be the featured speaker at two events. The first will be 7 p.m. Feb.
28 in the Sun Room of the Iowa State Memorial Union. Her presentation is titled,
"Climate Change and Agriculture: Learning Lessons/Proposing Solutions." There
will be a reception at 6 p.m. in the same location.
The same lecture will be delivered March 1 at Dordt College in Sioux Center. It
will begin at 1:30 p.m. in Room SB101 of the Science Building with a reception to
follow.
The lectures will be followed by comments from invited guests and questions and
discussion from the audience. Both events are free and open to the public.
Rosenzweig holds a doctorate in plant, soil and environmental sciences from the
University of Massachusetts-Amherst. She is a research agronomist at NASAGoddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, which is affiliated with
Columbia University.
During her lectures, Rosenzweig will present "lessons learned" from 20 years of
climate change research done to date, including biophysical impacts and
socioeconomic implications of a changing climate for the United States and
abroad. She also will examine possible responses to global warming by
mitigating atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations and adapting to warming
temperatures and more droughts and floods.
The colloquium honors John Pesek, who served terms as president of both the
American Society of Agronomy and the Soil Science Society of America. His
research led to a better understanding of the effects of farming practices on the
environment.
In the late 1980s, Pesek chaired a National Research Council committee that
produced "Alternative Agriculture," a groundbreaking report that documented
how farming systems that use less pesticides, fertilizers, antibiotics and fuel can
be productive and profitable.
The Henry A. Wallace Endowed Chair for Sustainable Agriculture is the primary
sponsor of the Pesek Colloquium. The colloquium is cosponsored this year by
the Department of Agronomy, along with several other ISU programs including
the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, College of Agriculture, College of
Liberal Arts and Sciences, F. Wendell Miller Lecture Fund, Bioethics Program
and Global Agriculture Programs. Co-sponsors include Iowa Farmers Union and
Dordt College.