Integrity of Creation Conference Takes Steps ‘Toward a Healthy Planet’

Registration is open for the fifth annual Presidential Conference on the Integrity of Creation (IOC), which will address the steps being made to protect the environment.

Integrity of Creation Conference: Towrrds a Healthy Planet

The conference, Toward a Healthy Planet, will be held Tuesday, Sept. 24, and Wednesday, Sept. 25, in the Charles J. Dougherty Ballroom. It will feature plenary presentations from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives such as science, law, policy, ethics, health and religion.

“In light of multiple very recent reports from international bodies about the threats of climate change to planet earth, this conference focuses on measures that are being enacted to safeguard the environment,” Dr. Gerard Magill, the Gallagher Chair for the Integration of Science, Theology, Philosophy and Law, said.

The conference website, www.duq.edu/ioc, features various resources on global warming, including a report released this month by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“It is of paramount importance to recognize and support what is being done to develop a sustainable ecology for the immediate future,” Magill, who also chairs the IOC committee, said.

Presenters and their topics include:

  • Sylvester (Jim) Gates, Ford Foundation Professor of Physics at Brown University, will present Challenges of ‘Anthropocenic’ Policy-Making: A View From Inside A Policy-Formation Organization.
  • Mary Jane Angelo, professor of law and director of the Environmental and Land Use Law Program at the University of Florida, will present Food Security, Industrialized Agriculture and a Changing Global Climate.
  • Cynthia D. Moe-Lobeda, professor of theological and social ethics at the Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary of California, will present Hope, Radical Love and Moral-Spiritual Power in an Age of Climate Colonialism.
  • Ronan Barry, Spiritan education trust officer, Dublin, Ireland, will present Spiritan Global Citizenship Education Program: Preparing for the New Challenges in Our Interconnected World.
  • Aurora Sharrard, director of sustainability at the University of Pittsburgh, will present Sustainability Via Patience, Persistence and Hope.
  • Patricia M. DeMarco, visiting researcher and writer at Carnegie Mellon University, will present Protecting the Rights of the Living Earth.
  • Thomas McQuillan, vice president of corporate strategy, culture and sustainability at Baldor Specialty Foods, Inc., will present The Food Asset Potential, Changing Cultural Norms to Reduce the Amount of Food We Waste.

The conference is free and open to the public. For more information, including the full conference schedule and to register, visit the conference website or contact Glory Smith at 412.396.4504.