Mortara Center for International Studies

Tropical Swamps, Maya Civilization, and the Current Climate

A discussion exploring 10,000 years of climate and environmental change based on records from Central America, following the rise and fall of the Maya Civilization, looking for evidence that mirrors and helps flesh out global environmental change.


Featuring

Professor Timothy Beach
Cinco Hermanos Chair in Environment and International Affairs
Director, Science, Technology and International Affairs
School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University

November 11, 2009
12:15pm
Mortara Building
(1248 36th Street)

Lunch will be served

The records, based on two decades of field studies, show that El Ninos, recurring droughts, hurricanes, epic erosion, and other large-scale environmental changes punctuated the rises and falls of Maya Civilization. Wetlands provide among the most important sources for human-environmental interaction, and the talk will focus on the evidence that mirrors and helps flesh out global environmental change. This Maya environmental history connects to global climate change by providing long-term and regional complexity to our short, modern instrumental record. Moreover, these wetlands record the cultural contexts of environmental change in their evidence of Maya adaptation and abandonment.

Professor Tim Beach holds the Cinco Hermanos Chair in Environment and International Affairs and is Professor of Geography and Geoscience and Director of the School of Foreign Service's Program in Science, Technology, & International Affairs (STIA) for 2009-2010. He was also Director of Georgetown University's Center for the Environment from 1999 until 2007. He teaches courses in physical geography (climatology, hydrology, geomorphology, and environmental management) and how these relate to international management and policy in the STIA and environmental studies programs.