UNC’s Earth Day celebration features noted environmental leader

Photograph of Fred Krupp

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Earth Day celebration, to be held April 18 and 20, will feature a keynote speech by Environmental Defense President Fred Krupp and student-led events at the Pit and Polk Place.

Krupp’s Earth Day talk, “Changing Climate, from Chapel Hill to Capitol Hill,” will be held at 7 p.m. on April 18 in Carroll Hall auditorium on the Carolina campus. The event is free to the public. For more information about the event, or for directions to Carroll Hall, call (919) 966-9922 or email rustyr@email.unc.edu.

Krupp is president of Environmental Defense, a national nonprofit organization known for linking science, economics, law and innovative business partnerships to create market-based solutions. Environmental Defense has four main goals: stabilizing Earth’s climate, preserving species and habitat, protecting human health and safeguarding oceans and marine life.

Earth Day events continue on April 20 with a campus Earth Day fair, which will include tabling by environmental campus and community groups and businesses on Polk Place and in the Pit from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The displays will offer both environmental information and interactive displays.

In the event of rain, the Earth Day fair will be held in the multipurpose room (room 1505) in the Frank Porter Graham Student Union.

Other Carolina Earth Day events include a Community Carbon Reduction Panel Discussion on Monday (April 16). For the latest information about all UNC 2007 Earth Day events, visit the Sustainability Office event calendar.

Carolina’s 2007 Earth Day events are co-sponsored by the Institute for the Environment, Student Government, the Sustainability Office, the Carolina Environmental Student Alliance and the Center for Sustainable Enterprise.

Photograph of Dr. Douglas Crawford-Brown

The UNC Institute for the Environment is the multidisciplinary program leading UNC-Chapel Hill’s world-renowned environmental community in educating practitioners, researching and solving global challenges, and informing people about critical issues. Dr. Douglas Crawford-Brown, professor of environmental sciences and engineering at the UNC School of Public Health, directs the Institute for the Environment. It focuses on four main areas: balancing energy production and environmental quality, protecting human health, assisting environmental policy makers with making decisions, and developing sustainable community design principles and practices.

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Institute for the Environment contact: Tony Reevy, (919) 966-9927, tony_reevy@unc.edu.

School of Public Health contact: Ramona DuBose, (919) 966-7467, ramona_dubose@unc.edu.

News Services contact: Becky Oskin, (919) 962-8596, becky_oskin@unc.edu.