Changing Seas, Human Challenges: Bigelow Laboratory Café Scientifique in Portland on February 13

East Boothbay, Maine - Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences is hosting a special Café Scientifique at the Portland Museum of Art, Seven Congress Street in Portland, Maine at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, February 13, 2013. The event, titled Changing Seas, Human Challenges — A Conversation between a Scientist and a Journalist, will be a discussion with Bigelow Executive Director Dr. Graham Shimmield and journalist Colin Woodard, author of American Nations, The Lobster Coast, and Ocean’s End. Shimmield and Woodard will talk about current ocean issues and challenges, including extraction pressures on the ocean for food, energy, and new products; ocean acidification as a result of climate change; and the effects of melting ice caps and harmful algal blooms such as red tides.

The informal discussion, including time for audience participation, will highlight our evolving understanding of the ocean and the role of science in future ocean policy, and will focus on the consequences of environmental change, both in the Gulf of Maine and throughout the global ocean.

A reception at the museum will follow the talk, with complimentary hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar. The event
is free and open to the public.

Before becoming Executive Director of Bigelow Laboratory in 2008, Graham Shimmield was director of the Scottish Association of Marine Science and the Dunstaffnage Marine Laboratory in Scotland.  He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and was Chairman of the European Census of Marine Life Program. As a marine geochemist, his research includes identifying indicators of ocean and climate change, and examining human impacts and contamination in coastal and deep seas.

Author and reporter Colin Woodard is an investigative journalist and commentator for The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram and a member of Bigelow Laboratory’s Board of Trustees. He worked as an award-winning correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, reported from more than fifty foreign countries and six continents, and lived for over four years in Eastern Europe. He is a member of the Sea Space Symposium, an association of leading ocean and space explorers, scientists, policy makers, and philanthropists.

This is the second time the two speakers are meeting for a public conversation about the ocean. Their first discussion was held last May before a full house at the Strand Theater in Rockland, Maine. That event was recorded and recently broadcast on MPBN Radio’s Speaking in Maine program, and is available as a podcast on MPBN’s website.

Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences conducts research ranging from microbial oceanography to large-scale ocean processes that affect global environmental conditions. Recognized as a leader in Maine’s emerging innovation economy, the Laboratory’s research, education, and technology transfer programs are spurring significant economic growth in the state.

Photos: 1) Graham Shimmield. 2) Colin Woodard.