Bill McKibben

Join us for his kenote address on Wednesday, March 30, at 7 p.m in Memorial Gym.

Scientists measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in parts per million, or PPM, as nationally renowned environmentalist and author Bill McKibben knows well. But McKibben also believes in another kind of PPM – people-powered movements.

McKibben, current scholar in residence at Middlebury College, will deliver the keynote address at the 2011 President’s Sustainability Symposium slated for March 30 – April 1 at the University of Idaho. His lecture will take place in Memorial Gym on Wednesday, March 30, at 7 p.m.

McKibben is the founder of 350.org, the first big global grassroots climate change initiative. The organization uses multi-media to coordinate rallies across the globe demanding that governments enact curbs on carbon emissions to reduce atmospheric concentrations of carbon to less than 350 parts per million. In 2010, 350.org conceived the 10/10/10 Global Work Party, which convened more than 7,000 demonstration events in 188 countries.

His innovative approach to engaging young people in the fight against climate change has earned him much recognition. In 2010 the Boston Globe called him "probably the nation's leading environmentalist" and Time magazine described him as "the world's best green journalist.”

He combines his activism with a prolific and successful writing career. Over the last quarter century, McKibben’s writings have shaped public perception and public action on climate change, alternative energy and the need for more localized economies.

"There are a lot of environmental activists and a lot of environmental writers, but very seldom does anyone effectively play both roles. Bill McKibben does,” says Andy Carman, student programs coordinator at the university Sustainability Center. “His talk is his walk, and his walk has been bold and powerful.”

A former New Yorker staff writer, McKibben is a bestselling author and frequent contributor to publications including The New York Times, Harper’s, Mother Jones, The Atlantic Monthly, Orion Magazine, The New York Review of Books, National Geographic, Rolling Stone, and Outside.

His seminal books include "The End of Nature," widely seen as the first book on climate change for a general audience, and "Deep Economy," a bold challenge to move beyond "growth" as the paramount economic ideal and to pursue prosperity in a more local direction – an idea that is the cornerstone of much sustainability discourse today.

In total, McKibben has penned 10 books, many of which are fixtures in college and university classrooms across the nation.

Carman believes its entirely appropriate that McKibben provides the keynote at this university event.

“Bill McKibben has had as much influence on the overarching discussion on our environmental crisis as anyone alive," he says, "and a larger role in involving my generation in the fight to fix it than probably anyone, ever."