Rob Verchick to give the 2019 Gilbert and Sarah Kerlin Lecture on Environmental Law
THE ELISABETH HAUB SCHOOL OF LAW AT PACE UNIVERSITY ANNOUNCES 2019 GILBERT AND SARAH KERLIN LECTURE ON ENVIRONMENTAL LAW
Leading disaster and climate change law expert Rob Verchick will present “Lights Out: Climate Resilience and Energy Justice”
WHITE PLAINS, NY – The Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University announced today that Rob Verchick will give the 2019 Gilbert and Sarah Kerlin Lecture on Environmental Law. Mr. Verchick holds the Gauthier-St. Martin Chair in Environmental Law at Loyola University New Orleans and is a nationally recognized expert in climate change law. His talk, Lights Out: Climate Resilience and Energy Justice, will take place on the Haub Law campus on September 26th at 5 p.m.
“As home to the #1 ranked environmental law program in the nation, Haub Law is proud to host scholars and practitioners from around the world to speak to our students and faculty about pressing environmental challenges to help develop solutions,” said Interim Associate Dean & Executive Director of the Environmental Law Program Katy Kuh. “We look forward to welcoming Rob Verchick to campus to speak about the intersection of the energy system and climate change.”
The lecture will focus on how energy policy affects climate impacts. Verchick argues that making the nation’s energy grid climate-ready requires forward-looking policies that will spur change in technology, operations, and markets. Such reforms are barely under way, and still more are needed.
“From rancid food to emergency-room nightmares, communities take a punch when the lights go out,” said Kerlin lecturer Rob Verchick. “The nation’s aging power grid leaves us very susceptible to such risks. And the growing intensity of floods and storms on account of climate change make things even worse. If we fail to account for the climate’s impact on our energy system and don’t start addressing them now, we’ll leave our children and grandchildren with a massive infrastructure problem—one that will affect their personal safety and economic well-being.”
Rob Verchick is a leading expert in disaster and climate change law and a former EPA official in the Obama administration. He holds the Gauthier-St. Martin Chair in Environmental Law at Loyola University New Orleans and is a Senior Fellow at Tulane. He also leads the Center for Progressive Reform, a think tank focused on health and the environment. He has written more than 60 articles and four books, including the award-winning, Facing Catastrophe. His podcast, CPR’s Connect the Dots, offers straight talk with policy experts on everything from food safety to pipeline wars. Verchick has spent a career studying environmental resilience. He has paddled swamps, scaled glaciers, and dived among endangered corals, all to understand what’s at stake and how we can protect the things we need—and love. Verchick graduated with honors from Stanford University and Harvard Law School. He divides his time between New Orleans and Whidbey Island, Washington.
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About Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University
Pace University’s Elisabeth Haub School of Law offers J.D. and Masters of Law degrees in both Environmental and International Law, as well as a Doctor of Juridical Science (SJD) in Environmental Law. The school, housed on the University’s campus in White Plains, NY, opened its doors in 1976 and has over 8,500 alumni around the world. The school maintains a unique philosophy and approach to legal education that strikes an important balance between practice and theory. For more information visit law.pace.edu.
About the Sarah and Gilbert Kerlin Lecture
The Elisabeth Haub School of Law established the Gilbert and Sarah Kerlin Lecture on Environmental Law to expand the its programs of research, education, professional and scholarly activity and publications in environmental law, a field for which the Haub School has received national and international recognition. The Kerlin endowment funds a named professorship on Environmental Law at Haub. Professor Nicholas A. Robinson, founder of the Haub School's environmental programs, was named the first Gilbert and Sarah Kerlin Distinguished Professor in 1999 and Professor Jason J. Czarnezki was designated as the second Kerlin Distinguished Professor in 2013.
