For streaming video of this program, please click here.
Speakers:
Prof. David Lodge, University of Notre Dame
Duane Chapman, United States Geological Survey
Josh Ellis, Metropolitan Planning Council
David Ullrich, Executive Director, Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative
Bill Bolen, US Environmental Protection Agency
The spread of Asian carp toward the Great Lakes continues to cause great controversy. Electric barriers and poisons have been used to halt their spread, but the species still seem to be advancing up the Illinois River, through Chicago waterways, and into Lake Michigan. Some biologists and environmentalists maintain that Asian carp would cause an ecological disaster in the Great Lakes, and a case is pending in the Supreme Court to force the closure of Chicago area navigation locks to slow their spread. Despite these claims and court actions, there remains significant uncertainty about how severely Asian carp would impact the Great Lakes, and how effectively different management strategies would slow their spread.
Sponsors: The University of Chicago Program on Global Environment and the Chicago Council on Science and Technology
The Program on the Global Environment at the University of Chicago, in partnership with the Chicago Council on Science and Technology, is hosting an event to explore the threat of Asian carp to Chicago and the Great Lakes. Experts in biology, economics and policy will present the most up to date information about how these species threaten the ecology of the Great Lakes , how closing Chicago waterways would affect the regional economy, and the broader implications for the Great Lakes region and environmental management.
The World Beyond the Headlines series is a collaborative project of the University of Chicago Center for International Studies, the International House Global Voices Program and the Seminary Co-op Bookstores, and is funded in part by the McCormick Foundation. Its aim is to bring scholars and journalists together to consider major international issues and how they are covered in the media.
