Sir Crispin Tickell to Lecture on Climate Change
Sir Crispin Tickell, a former British diplomat with particular interest in the relationship between the environment, politics and business, will give a lecture at Washington and Lee University on May 5, at 5:30 p.m. in Northen Auditorium in Leyburn Library.
The title of Tickell’s talk is “Climate Change: Should We Worry?” It is free and open to the public.
“Over the last 250 years human activities have accelerated change, with wide regional variations and multiple effects,” said Tickell. “It is already the subject of widespread debate, especially on future energy policy and management of changes in atmospheric chemistry, whether caused by humans or natural, sometimes catastrophic, events.”
In answer to the title of his talk, he said, “Yes, we should worry, and we should do something about it.”
Tickell served as Permanent Secretary of the Ministry responsible for Overseas Aid, and British Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York, among other things. He was also warden (or president) of Green College, Oxford, and chancellor of the University of Kent. He is now on the Advisory Board of the Oxford Martin School at Oxford University.
He has connections with a number of universities in the United States, including Harvard, Columbia and Arizona State, where he is adviser at large to the president of the university. He has advised a wide range of governments and international agencies, and published extensively on environmental and related issues, especially climate change.
Tickell is the author of a classic on this topic, “Climate Change and World Affairs” (1977).
The lecture is sponsored by W&L’s Johnson Endowment and the Class of ’63, in cooperation with the Center for International Education.
