Environmental policy expert Dr. Michael Maniates will speak about "The Power of Sacrifice in an Ecologically Full World" at Westminster College Monday, Oct. 29, at 7:30 p.m. in the Witherspoon Room of the McKelvey Campus Center.

The presentation is part of Westminster's Distinguished Speaker Series, "Perspectives on the Environment." The lecture series, funded by a grant from the Lewis Foundation, is free and open to the public.

"This lecture series explores the economic, social, religious, political, and security aspects of environmental issues," said Dr. Shahroukh Mistry, Westminster assistant professor of biology and coordinator of this series. "To acquire knowledge of, and to demonstrate moral and ethical commitments to, the natural world is an integral part of a liberal arts education at Westminster. This speaker series is an important step toward developing an interdisciplinary and cooperative approach to engaging students in becoming knowledgeable and responsible stewards of the natural world and their communities."

Maniates is professor of political science and environmental science at Allegheny College. He studies and writes about global patterns of consumption, overconsumption, and consumerism; low consumption/high prosperity paths to development; underexplored routes of citizen involvement in contemporary environmental struggles; and joyful learning and teaching in the liberal arts.

Maniates earned an undergraduate degree in conservation and resource studies and a master's and Ph.D. in energy and resources from the University of California at Berkeley. He is the coordinator of The Project on Teaching Global Environmental Politics, an electronic network of over 300 scholars, educators, and activists focused on global environmental affairs, and the co-founder and member of the advisory board of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security, now celebrating its 20th year of interdisciplinary policy analysis and advocacy.

His best-known publications include "Environmental Studies: The Sky is Not Falling," published in BioScience; "In Search of Consumptive Resistance: The Voluntary Simplicity Movement" in Confronting Consumption (MIT Press 2002), which he also co-edited; and "Of Knowledge and Power" in his edited volume Encountering Global Environmental Politics (Rowman & Littlefield 2003).

He is currently working on two projects around what he calls "the politics of sacrifice" within today's environmental movement - an edited academic volume tentatively titled The Power of Sacrifice in an Ecologically Full World, to be published by MIT Press in late 2008; and a lively book aimed at a popular audience with the working title of Selling Us Short: Ten Challenging Ways To Save the Planet.

Westminster College's Drinko Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning is hosting the lecture. The Drinko Center was developed to advance world-class teaching at Westminster and enrich K-12 education through outreach programs for area educators.

Contact Dr. Virginia Tomlinson, director of the Drinko Center, at (724) 946-6097 (e-mail tomlinvm@westminster.edu) or Mistry at (724) 946-7210 (e-mail mistrys@westminster.edu) or visit www.westminster.edu/drinko for more information. 

Dr. Michael Maniates

Westminster's Drinko Center