Prominent environmentalist to give talk at Purdue

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - It’s almost the University’s annual Green Week, and Purdue is highlighting this year’s activities with a Discovery Lectures Series Talk by international environmentalist, author, educator and pioneer in the green building movement David W. Orr.

Orr is the Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics at Oberlin College in Ohio.

He’ll be speaking at 3:30 p.m. Oct. 22 in Stewart Center’s Fowler Hall. His free, public talk is titled “Designing Resilience in a Black Swan World.”

"Dr. Orr's career as a scholar, teacher, writer, speaker and entrepreneur spans fields as diverse as environment and politics, environmental education, campus greening, green building, ecological design and climate change," said Leigh Raymond, political science professor and director of Discovery Park's Center for the Environment, which is co-sponsoring Orr's talk. "The talk will be of strong interest to the Purdue community because of Dr. Orr's historic work in the green building movement, particularly on university campuses in the U.S."

Orr is also the James Marsh Professor at the University of Vermont. He is a well-known environmentalist who is active in education and design.

In 1996 he organized the construction of one of the greenest buildings on the continent: the Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies at Oberlin.

It’s been named by the U.S. Department of Energy as “One of 30 Milestone Buildings in the 20th Century.” The New York Times also called it the most interesting of a new generation of college and university buildings.

The center purifies wastewater and is the first college building in the U.S. powered entirely by sunlight.

Orr is the winner of the Millennium Leadership Award from Global Green (2007), the Bioneers Award (2002), the National Wildlife Federation Leadership Award (1993), the Benton Box Award from Clemson University for his work in environmental education and a Lyndhurst Prize (1992) acknowledging "persons of exceptional moral character, vision, and energy."

He also has six honorary degrees and has written seven books. His most recent book is “Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse” (2009). He has been the co-editor of three other books, and he’s lectured at hundreds of schools throughout the U.S. and Europe.

In a 2000 article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Orr came up with a goal of carbon neutrality for colleges and universities, and organized and funded efforts to define a carbon-neutral plan for his own campus at Oberlin. Hundreds of schools – including Oberlin – have now signed on to that pledge.

In 987 Orr put together studies of energy, water and materials used on several college campuses, which helped to launch the green campus movement.

He also spearheaded the first-ever conference (co-sponsored by then-Gov. Bill Clinton) on the effects of impending climate change on the banking industry in 1989. That conference featured prominent bankers throughout the mid-South and leading climate scientists.

Orr got his bachelor’s from Westminster College, his master’s from Michigan State and his international-relations doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania.

He also serves as a trustee for many organizations, including the Rocky Mountain Institute and the Aldo Leopold Foundation.

The ongoing Discovery Lecture Series is sponsored in part by a $1-million gift from the Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment in 2005.