Lectures

Past Events:

NHM Hosts free lecture with environmentalist Tim Flannery
Friday, October 23, 2009; 6:30 pm

The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County welcomes Tim Flannery, acclaimed scientist, conservationist, explorer and author of bestseller The Weather Makers, as he discusses the subject of climate change and his new book Now or Never: Why We Must Act Now to End Climate Change and Create a Sustainable Future. In it, Flannery returns to the subject of climate change with a forceful call to action. Utilizing the most up-to-the-minute data available, he takes us on a guided tour of the environmental challenges we face and outlines the best new ideas to help solve the crisis.

USC College Commons Signature Event
The Map of the World: Movement and Mystery
Tuesday, January 26, 2010; 5:30 pm - 8 pm

The Museum is a repository for some of the most fascinating attempts to understand the nature of life on this planet. For what is a map, but a way of reading and thinking about who we are and where we travel?

This event brings together faculty from departments as diverse as English, anthropology, history and Earth sciences, to discuss the range of “mappings” that give us meaning: maps of the Americas; the shifting of the tectonic plates; and voyages of discovery and wanderings by “curiosos.”

How did we get here, and where are we going? We draw on the wonderful collections of the Natural History Museum (California history, great sea voyages and underground mysteries) to pose new answers to those questions.

Sustainable Salon
“Sustaining Our Water” Panel Discussion
Thursday, March 25, 2010; 7 pm – 8 pm
North American Mammal Hall, Level 1
Free to the public
Water Panel with Miguel Luna from Urban Semillas, Renee Maas from Food and Water Watch, and moderated by Conner Everts, from the Southern California Watershed Alliance.
 
Join us for a lively discussion on current water issues.
 
Are we in a drought or is this permanent climate change?  Where does our water come from and where does it go?  Will technology, ocean desalination, for example, save us from ourselves?  What are the threats of water privatization and what should we know about bottled water?  Where are our future water leaders coming from? What are the opportunities and education needed to change our water world?  What can we learn from other successes around the world and locally?  
 

Bring your questions and participate in an interactive session.
 

The Poetry of California/The Beauty of the World:  A Tribute to Carol Muske-Dukes, Poet Laureate of California
Tuesday, April 20, 2010; 5:30 pm
Grand Foyer, Level 1
Free to the public

Poet Robert Pinsky joins USC College’s Carol Muske-Dukes (English) in a reading and celebration of the vast diversity of California in language, images and objects, as The College Commons concludes its year of “mapping the world.” Join us, as these brilliant writers open up the world of the West, from migration to the millennium and beyond — the fantasy of Hollywood; the lure of the endless horizon; and the promise of (literary) transformation.

Cruisin’ The Fossil Freeway
Lecture and Book Signing
Monday, May 3, 2010; 4 pm
Fin Whale Passage, Level 1
Free with museum admission
Join us as Ray Troll, paleo-artist, and Kirk Johnson, paleontologist, take us cruisin’ down the fossil freeway.  Follow their zany travels as they drive across the American West in search of fossils.  They encounter other paleonerds, travel to remote places, and discover many paleontological treasures. It is evident that fossils are everywhere, and it only takes knowing what to look for to find them, even at 65 miles per hour.

The Last Tortoise: A Tale of Extinction in Our Lifetime
Lecture and Book Signing
Thursday, June 10, 2010; 4 pm
Fin Whale Passage, Level 1
Free with museum admission
In THE LAST TORTOISE Craig Stanford, Professor of Anthropology and Biological Sciences at USC, explains the role of tortoises in modern ecosystems, how longevity has been their greatest evolutionary breakthrough, and perhaps also their downfall. He also offers reasons for hope due to efforts underway to make people part of the solution rather than the problem.

Tortoises are at the forefront of the global battle to prevent an imminent mass extinction. They cover a dazzling spectrum of form and function and they range in size from four inches and a couple of hundred grams to the great tortoises of the oceanic islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, which may top 500 pounds in the wild, and break the scales at nearly half a ton in the confines of a zoo. Today these tortoises are linked by their vulnerability to many of the same intransigent threats.

In THE LAST TORTOISE Stanford details the risks facing these creatures. He begins by describing what a tortoise is, and why it is unique in ways that go well beyond that wondrous shell. Species loss, he insists, can be minimized through sensible policies, diligent work to implement the policies, and community-based programs.

Stanford has spent much of his career working with primates, and had thought that their survival prospects in the 21st century were grim. This was before he began to see the magnitude and speed with which tortoises are being driven to extinction. He finds that there are entire regions of the globe from which these creatures have been eliminated, and he maintains that there is no group of vertebrates for which extinction risk in the 21st century is more real and more imminent. The book includes 20 color illustrations of these fragile creatures. In THE LAST TORTOISE Stanford tries to show that there are solutions to all but the most dire problems, and very often what seems like a species lost can be turned into a success story with hard work by diligent people unwilling to accept defeat.