The West Virginia University College of Law presents

Climate Change: A Wild Solution

11 a.m., Thursday, January 31, 2013
Marlyn E. Lugar Courtroom, WVU Law Center


presented by
Thomas E. Lovejoy
Professor of Environmental Science and Policy
George Mason University


Thomas Lovejoy is an innovative and accomplished conservation biologist who coined the term “biological diversity”. In 2010 he was elected University Professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at George Mason University. He currently also holds the Biodiversity Chair at the Heinz Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment based in Washington, DC. He served as President of the Heinz Center from 2002-2008. Before assuming this position, Lovejoy was the World Bank’s Chief Biodiversity Advisor and Lead Specialist for Environment for Latin America and the Caribbean as well as Senior Advisor to the President of the United Nations Foundation. Spanning the political spectrum, Lovejoy has served on science and environmental councils under the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations. At the core of these many influential positions are Lovejoy’s seminal ideas, which have formed and strengthened the field of conservation biology. In the 1980s, he brought international attention to the world’s tropical rainforests, and in particular, the Brazilian Amazon, where he has worked since 1965. In 1980 he produced the first projection of global extinctions for the Global 2000 Report to the President. Lovejoy also developed the now ubiquitous “debt-for-nature” swap programs and led the Minimum Critical Size of Ecosystems project. He also founded the series Nature, the popular long-term series on public television. In 2001, Lovejoy was awarded the prestigious Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement. In 2009 he was the winner of BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Ecology and Conservation Biology Category. In 2009 he was appointed Conservation Fellow by the National Geographic. In 2012 he was recognized by the Blue Planet Prize. Lovejoy holds B.S. and Ph.D (biology) degrees from Yale University.