Global warming at issue in annual Muskie Environmental Lecture

Kalee Kreider, manager of a national campaign to raise awareness about global climate change, assesses the effort to forestall global warming in a lecture at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 7, in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives. Presented as the annual Muskie Environmental Lecture, the event is open to the public at no charge.

Since 1999, Kreider has been global warming and energy campaigns manager for the National Environmental Trust, a nonprofit membership organization established to inform citizens about environmental issues.

In her talk, titled Ten Years After the Rio Earth Summit: Where Have We Gotten on Global Warming? Kreider tracks efforts to curb climate change since the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, which produced the Framework Convention on Climate Change, the world’s first treaty designed to address global warming.

In her lecture, Kreider will cover points that include the failure of the Framework Convention, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and U.S. reluctance to commit to it, existing measures to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas production and the domestic political context for the issue, and President Bush’s recent controversial plan for voluntary greenhouse gas cutbacks.

A 1992 graduate of Rollins College, Kreider has been a campaign manager for Greenpeace and communications director for Ozone Action, and has worked as a Truman Fellow in a variety of federal agencies.