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News Release

Last modified: Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Elinor Ostrom to speak at IU Bloomington forum on climate change

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Nov. 30, 2010

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Indiana University Professor and Nobel Prize laureate Elinor Ostrom will be the keynote speaker this Thursday (Dec. 2) at a forum on community actions against climate change.

Presenters from various institutions will discuss ways to conserve natural resources, promote ecological sustainability, and reduce the pace of global climate change at the free public seminar, which will take place from 2 to 5 p.m. in Alumni Hall of the Indiana Memorial Union, 900 E. Seventh St. It is sponsored by Sycamore Land Trust, a regional non-profit environmental conservation organization.

Ostrom has been a Sycamore Land Trust supporter since 2001. Last year she became the first woman to win the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, commonly known as the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. The prize recognized her ground-breaking research about decision-making and rule enforcement in social mechanisms for communal resource usage.

She is Distinguished Professor and Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science in the IU College of Arts and Sciences and a professor in the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs. She is also senior research director of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at IU and founding director of the Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity at Arizona State University.

Ostrom will deliver the keynote address, titled "What Can We All Do to Reduce the Threat of Climate Change?" Her speech will highlight communities actively taking on the challenge of building sustainability and the benefits of working at multiple scales, down to the neighborhood level, rather than only expecting governmental, national, and global solutions. Attendees may participate in a question-and-answer session.

Other presenters will discuss what is being done to promote healthy ecology in different community contexts -- neighborhood, city, county, and campus. They will include:

• Mark Kruzan, mayor of Bloomington
• Jacqui Bauer, sustainability coordinator for the City of Bloomington
• Iris Kiesling, Monroe County commissioner
• Karen Hanson, IU Bloomington provost and executive vice president
• Christian Freitag, executive director of Sycamore Land Trust

Sycamore Land Trust has a mission of preserving the disappearing landscape and connecting people with nature in southern Indiana. It works with private land owners in 26 counties to conserve natural places for healthy ecosystems, wildlife habitat, human enjoyment and trees to mitigate greenhouse gases. The organization has so far assisted 70 families in placing permanent protections on fields, forests and family farms. It is the fastest-growing conservation group in Indiana.

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