Spring Break
Environmental pollution addressed in lecture
Vinayak Pande
Issue date: 4/9/04 Section: News
University of Washington Zoology Professor P. Dee Boersma delivered a lecture titled, "Penguins, People, Pollution and Politics: When Science is Not Enough," at the Dodd Center Thursday.
The lecture, part of an ongoing series of lectures titled "Nature and The Environment: The Edwin Way Teale Lecture Series" illustrated various points about penguins with the help of humorously arranged pictures, cartoons and recordings of penguin calls that had the near capacity crowd giggling. Boersma showed how her extensive research of the penguins of Punta Tombo yielded data that showed how the Magellanic penguins were adversely affected by the oil spills caused by the tankers that went through the penguins' feeding area.
By drawing the Argentinian government's attention to the results of her observations, she said she was able to convince it to regulate oil tanker routes and create a reserve for the penguins where their numbers were able to recover to the levels seen prior to the disruptions. Boersma said she believes the environment suffers when people are not able to regulate their consumption of the world's resources, especially the people of the developed world who, despite comprising a smaller percentage of the world's population, use a majority of its natural resources. Boersma said she intends to extend her work in Argentina to the penguins in Brazil and Uruguay, who she believes are being affected by the activities of oil giants like Exxon and Petrobras.
The lecture was attended by professors and students alike, including Andrew Townesmith, a former graduate student who came expecting this lecture to live up to the standards of previous lectures in the Teale series, and was not disappointed.
"[They] appeal to many people," he said. "[They] are interesting. The current lecture lived up to expectations."
Head of the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Greg Anderson said the Teale series would continue for the rest of the year and include lectures looking at environmental issues through perspectives other than purely ecological ones. He cited an upcoming lecture on environmental law as an example.
The lecture, part of an ongoing series of lectures titled "Nature and The Environment: The Edwin Way Teale Lecture Series" illustrated various points about penguins with the help of humorously arranged pictures, cartoons and recordings of penguin calls that had the near capacity crowd giggling. Boersma showed how her extensive research of the penguins of Punta Tombo yielded data that showed how the Magellanic penguins were adversely affected by the oil spills caused by the tankers that went through the penguins' feeding area.
By drawing the Argentinian government's attention to the results of her observations, she said she was able to convince it to regulate oil tanker routes and create a reserve for the penguins where their numbers were able to recover to the levels seen prior to the disruptions. Boersma said she believes the environment suffers when people are not able to regulate their consumption of the world's resources, especially the people of the developed world who, despite comprising a smaller percentage of the world's population, use a majority of its natural resources. Boersma said she intends to extend her work in Argentina to the penguins in Brazil and Uruguay, who she believes are being affected by the activities of oil giants like Exxon and Petrobras.
The lecture was attended by professors and students alike, including Andrew Townesmith, a former graduate student who came expecting this lecture to live up to the standards of previous lectures in the Teale series, and was not disappointed.
"[They] appeal to many people," he said. "[They] are interesting. The current lecture lived up to expectations."
Head of the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Greg Anderson said the Teale series would continue for the rest of the year and include lectures looking at environmental issues through perspectives other than purely ecological ones. He cited an upcoming lecture on environmental law as an example.