6:00 PM: Mediterranean Dinner ~ Tariff: $20.00 (if eating)
Contact Freddie Smith for Reservations / Cancellations at 312-842-7100 or Freddie@mcri.org by Noon THURSDAY, January 25, 2018 (this is a special catered event, early RSVP is required, if eating)

7:00 PM: Presentation
Dr. Potosnak will present a talk that focuses on climate change and also touches on his personal research and the moral aspects of climate change. After a short introduction to the basic drivers, mechanisms and impacts of climate change, Dr. Potosnak will consider three aspects of this complex problem: renewable energy, short-lived climate pollutants and fracking. Next, Dr. Potosnak will briefly explain his research on interactions between plants and atmospheric chemistry and how climate change will affect these interactions. From there, he will discuss effectively communicating climate change to general audiences and in particular how a faith perspective can be used to bring otherwise disengaged people into a productive conversation about solutions to climate change.

Bio Sketch: An associate professor of Environmental Science & Studies at DePaul University, Dr. Mark Potosnak has degrees from Harvard and Columbia Universities, and he was a fellow in the Advanced Study Program at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. His research focuses on interactions between the terrestrial biosphere and the atmosphere. Specifically, he studies how trace gas emissions from plants affect atmospheric chemistry and how climate change will impact this interaction in the future. His field studies have been conducted in temperate, tropical, urban/arid, and tundra ecosystems. His research has revealed complex interactions between temperature, drought, carbon dioxide concentration and other global climate change factors. Understanding these complexities is essential for our ability to successfully predict the Earth system's response to human stresses on the environment.

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