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The Energy Transition and the Global Economy
September 25, 12:00 – 1:30 pm
Althouse 106
Lunch Provided: 
Sponsored by: The Center for Sustainability Education and the Burgess Institute for the Global Economy

An energy transition is underway in the United States and globally that is expanding the use of renewable sources of energy to supply growing demands while reducing emissions of climate changing and other pollution. A panel of ºìÐÓÖ±²¥app faculty and an alumnus will explore questions about how the transition is unfolding, or could unfold, in the U.S, India, China, and other parts of the world, the implications for energy reliability, energy costs, equitable access to clean and affordable energy, economies, jobs, and public health, and policies that can enable rapid and just transitions.

Panelists: Nate Teti ‘96, Vice President and Head of the Washington DC Office of Equinor; Heather Plumridge Bedi, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies; Tony Underwood, Associate Professor of Economics. 

Moderator: Neil Leary, Director of the Center for Sustainability Education

Accelerating the Clean Energy Transition to Low-Carbon Solutions
October 29, 7:00 pm
Anita Tuvin Schletcher Auditorium
360 W. Louther Street, Carlisle, PA 17013

(for more information)
Free & open to the community, no RSVP needed

A panel discussion with staff of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), recipient of the 2025 Rose Walters Prize. EDF is accelerating the transition to affordable, clean, reliable, and low-carbon energy solutions to create a safer and healthier world for people, nature and the economy. In key global regions, EDF is working on solutions to overcome major energy challenges at a scale consistent with the cuts in climate pollution required to hit global temperature targets and to sustain a livable, thriving planet. EDF’s goal is to bend the curve on global greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel production and use by 2030, cleanly and equitably. In an effort to meet this goal, EDF launched MethaneSAT in 2024 with the objective to provide a comprehensive view of oil & gas emissions in order to increase transparency and accountability from countries and companies towards their emission reduction goals. 

Panelists: Millie Chu Baird, Vice President, Office of the Chief Scientist, EDF; Dan Grossman, Associate Vice President for Energy Transition, EDF; and Beth Trask, Global Vice President, EDF.

Moderator: Neil Leary, Director of the Center for Sustainability Education

Screening of documentary film King Coal
November 11, 5:00 pm 
Althouse 106
The film will also be available for streaming online

A lyrical tapestry of a place and people, King Coal meditates on the complex history and future of the coal industry, the communities it has shaped, and the myths it has created. Elaine McMillion Sheldon reshapes the boundaries of documentary filmmaking in a spectacularly beautiful and deeply moving immersion into Central Appalachia where coal is not just a resource, but a way of life. While intimately situated in the communities under the reign of King Coal, where McMillion Sheldon has lived and worked her entire life, the film transcends time and place, emphasizing the ways in which people are connected through an immersive mosaic of belonging, ritual, and imagination. Emerging from the long shadows of the coal mines, King Coal untangles the pain from the beauty and illuminates the innately human capacity for change. 

A Conversation on the Making of the Film King Coal
November 12, 7:00 pm
Anita Tuvin Schletcher Auditorium
360 W. Louther Street, Carlisle, PA 17013

Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Elaine McMillion Sheldon will join the Clarke Forum for an event about her 2023 film King Coal. She will reflect on her creative goals and on choosing the film's hybrid form—a blend of vérité, poetic narration, dance, and sound design—that echoes the mythic power coal still holds over Appalachian communities. McMillion Sheldon will discuss how nonfiction storytelling can transcend the traditional bounds of documentary to express a region’s imagination and grief. Her documentary practice included work with creative collaborators to incorporate breath art, choreography, and archival fragments which reimagine coal not as a commodity, but as a cultural force embedded in daily life, rituals, and dreams. A short presentation of select video and audio clips from the film will be followed by a​ conversation with Dickinson professor emerita of Theatre & Dance, Sherry Harper-McCombs, and a Q&A with the audience, opening a space for dialogue around environmental storytelling, regional identity, and the ethics of nonfiction filmmaking.

Speakers: Filmmaker Elaine McMillion Sheldon and professor emerita Sherry Harper-McCombs