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Risser Prize Symposium: Climate Change Hits Home

Risser Symposium on Local Impacts of Global Warming to be Held at Stanford Dec 3

A panel of journalists and researchers will gather at Stanford in a symposium to discuss the localized impacts of global climate change.

The symposium will be presented in conjunction with the 2008 James V. Risser Prize for Western Environmental Journalism. Anton Caputo, of the San Antonio Express-News, won the prize and will participate in the symposium.

The symposium is titled, "Climate Change Hits Home." Caputo won the Risser Prize for his series of the same name, which described how global warming is affecting the Gulf Coast and South Texas.

Caputo will be joined by Terry Root, professor of biological sciences and a Freeman Spogli Institute Senior Fellow at Stanford, and Will Travis, executive director of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission. Philippe Cohen, administrative director of Stanford's Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, will be the moderator.

The symposium will begin at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, December 3, in the Oksenberg Room in Encina Hall. It is open to the public, and will be followed by a reception.

The prize is named for Risser, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and director emeritus of the Knight Fellowships program. It is sponsored by the John S. Knight Fellowships for Professional Journalists and the Bill Lane Center for the Study of the North American West at Stanford.

Caputo's series documented the current and looming effects of climate change in a local context - lost wetlands and vanishing beaches, decreasing cropland and wildlife habitat, and wildly unpredictable water supplies. One judge said Caputo's reporting "resulted in a razor-sharp portrayal of the critical scientific underpinnings of climate change...The series coupled this outstanding scientific reporting with real-world impacts on real (and local) people and institutions."

Caputo has covered environmental issues for the San Antonio Express-News since August 2004, when he joined the newspaper. Before moving to Texas, Anton worked for the Pensacola (Florida) News Journal, the Northwest Florida Daily News and the Columbia Basin Herald in Washington. His environmental coverage has been honored by the Society of Environmental Journalists and the Investigative Reporters and Editors.

Root's work focuses on large-scale ecological questions investigating factors shaping the ranges and abundances of animals and plants. Her small-scale studies have focused on possible mechanisms, such as physiological constraints, that may be helping to generate the observed large-scale patterns. Her work demonstrated that climate and/or vegetation are important factors shaping the ranges and abundances of birds. She was on the faculty in the School of Natural Resources and Environment at The University of Michigan from 1987 to 2001, and has been at Stanford since then.

Will Travis has spent most of his professional career working for state coastal management agencies, but he has also worked in the fields of architecture, local planning, private consulting, advertising and public relations. He has written many articles on coastal issues, has provided advice on coastal matters to other states and nations, and has been a lecturer at universities throughout North America. With 240 square miles of low-lying filled land along the Bay shoreline, he has become a leading advocate for a regional strategy to address climate change and sea level rise in the Bay Area.

The Risser Prize was established in 2005 and is open to print, broadcast and online journalists writing about environmental issues in western Canada, Mexico and the United States. The prize was established in recognition of Risser's outstanding journalism career and his leadership of the John S. Knight Fellowships for Professional Journalists from 1985 until his retirement in 2000.

The Knight Fellowships program annually brings 12 outstanding mid-career U.S. journalists and as many as nine from other countries to study at Stanford in a one-year program. More than 700 journalists have studied at Stanford under the program since it began in 1966. James Bettinger is director of the program. Dawn E. Garcia is deputy director.

The Bill Lane Center for the Study of the North American West was established at Stanford in 2002. In 2005 it was endowed by L. W. "Bill" Lane Jr., Stanford, '42. The Bill Lane Center is an interdisciplinary institute dedicated to promoting understanding of the North American West's distinctive regional identity and enriching the region's social, economic, environmental, political, and cultural vitality. Through research programs, teaching, public events and conferences, the center brings together scholars, journalists, public and private sector leaders, and public intellectuals to address the central issues shaping the past, present and future of the West- from Canada to Mexico, from the Great Plains to the Pacific Rim. Stanford history Professors David M. Kennedy and Richard White are directors of the program, and Tammy Frisby is executive director.