IMPORTANT! READ ABOUT HOW TO GET THE ZOOM LINKS FOR THE LECTURES
If you are not already on the list to receive Winter Lecture Series (WLS) reminders, CLICK HERE to sign up for that email list to receive reminders. We will be sending emails 24 - 48 hours before each lecture with the Zoom link. The Zoom link will be the same for each lecture.
Global Perspectives: The Winter Lecture Series, 2025
Envisioning A Resilient Future
Access: Presentations via Zoom, on four successive Sundays beginning February 16, 2025, followed by both in-person and via-Zoom panel on March 16, 2025
Format: Lecture/Conversation followed by an audience-driven Q&A.
Availability: Recorded lectures and Q & A sessions will be posted on this YouTube channel.
Series Description and Schedule:
Governments around the world have responded with different degrees of commitment to carbon reduction, made at the annual climate-change summits. As individuals, we frequently perceive the urgent threat of climate change with a sense of helplessness, feeling that our individual actions may lack the capacity to effect meaningful change. This series seeks to transcend the conventional focus on carbon reduction by offering a vision of hope that emphasizes community-building solutions while addressing critical challenges related to shelter, food security, and sustainability. The activists and experts in the final panel will inform us on local issues and how we can each play a part in resolving them.
Sunday, February 16:
7:00 – 8:30 PM
Dr. Barb Mayes Boustead will provide an overview from her perspective as the Coordinator for NOAA's new Climate-Ready Nation Program.
Sunday, February 23:
7:00 – 8:30 PM
Dr. Tim Crews will speak on regenerative agriculture
Sunday, March 2:
7:00 – 8:30 PM
Dr. John Ikerd will speak briefly on sustainable economics and then hold a conversation with Prof. Charles Francis on the topic.
Sunday, March 9:
7:00 – 8:30 PM
Dr. Elizabeth Sawin will speak on multisolving and engage with Peter Hind and Marc Shkolnick on Lincoln's Low Income Energy Efficiency Rental Rehab Program.
Sunday, March 16:
3:00 – 4:30 PM
Panel Discussion to include Kim Morrow – Chief Sustainability Coordinator, City of Lincoln; Brandon Cobb, The Nature Conservancy–Omaha and citizen of Cherokee nation; and Mark Brohman, Executive Director of Wachiska Audubon Society.
Lecturers and Participants:
(More information about the March 16 panel and the panelists will be provided later)
Barb Mayes Boustead is a meteorologist and climatologist, currently serving as the Coordinator for NOAA's Climate-Ready Nation after 22 years in the National Weather Service. She received her Ph.D. in Natural Resources: Climate Assessment and Impacts from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a dissertation titled, "The hard winter of 1880-1881: Climatological context and communication via a Laura Ingalls Wilder narrative," and her forthcoming nonfiction book Wilder Weather draws further into what we can learn from the weather and climate of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books and life. She has served as an author for the 4th and 5th National Climate Assessments.
Tim Crews is the Chief Scientist and directs the International Initiative at The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas. He pursued a doctorate degree at Cornell, carried out a post-doc fellowship at Stanford, and developed an agroecology program at Prescott College in Northern Arizona. A significant amount of Tim's research on perennial grains has focused on topics closely tied to climate change adaptation and mitigation.
John Ikerd was raised on a small dairy farm in southwest Missouri and received his Ph.D. degree in agricultural economics from the University of Missouri. He worked in private industry for a time before moving to academia. He retired from the University of Missouri in early 2000 and has maintained an active writing and speaking schedule since retirement. He has published extensively on economic sustainability.
Elizabeth Sawin is the Founder and Director of the Multisolving Institute. A biologist with a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she co-founded Climate Interactive in 2010 and led the scientific team that offered the first assessment of the sufficiency of country pledges to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Dr. Sawin is an expert on solutions that address climate change while also improving health, well-being, and economic vitality.
Charles A. Francis is Professor emeritus Agronomy & Horticulture, with expertise and teaching experience in agroecology, farming systems, and global food and equity issues.
Peter Hind is the Director of Lincoln Urban Development.
Marc Shkolnick has served as Manager of Energy Services at Lincoln Electric System for more than 17 years. The department is charged with providing comprehensive and customized customer experience for the city of Lincoln’s industrial, commercial business and residential customers. His team is also responsible for administering the utility’s energy efficiency, demand response, customer-owned renewables and emerging technology programs.
History of the Winter Lecture Series
The Winter Lecture Series began at Vine Congregation Church in 1985. The first year the topic of the Series was Central America. That topic set the early trend of the Series focusing each year on a single country or a region of the world. In 2001 the Unitarian Church inherited the Winter Lecture Series. With that change, besides focusing on single countries or regions, sometimes our annual topics were cross-cutting issues such as human rights, or poverty, or environmental issues.
Our goal is to provide unbiased information to our attendees—information provided by experts from local or distant Universities and organizations such as the US State Department. Although bringing experts from other states and countries is expensive, our lectures are always free and open to the public, and no registration is required.
Support for our lectures has been provided each year by grants from Humanities Nebraska (formally the Nebraska Humanities Council), UNL OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute), and the Social Justice Committee of the Unitarian Church of Lincoln.
HISTORY OF WINTER LECTURE SERIES - including a list of topics and speakers.
You are invited to attend any and all lectures of the Winter Lecture Series. Each year we inform the people on our email list of the year’s topic and schedule. If you would like to be informed of upcoming lecture series, or you need additional information, please email a note to [email protected] with “Winter” entered in the subject line. Your email address will not be shared with any other entities.
Want to watch a video from a past series? Winter Lecture Series videos are uploaded to our YouTube channel.
If you are not already on the list to receive Winter Lecture Series (WLS) reminders, CLICK HERE to sign up for that email list to receive reminders. We will be sending emails 24 - 48 hours before each lecture with the Zoom link. The Zoom link will be the same for each lecture.
Global Perspectives: The Winter Lecture Series, 2025
Envisioning A Resilient Future
Access: Presentations via Zoom, on four successive Sundays beginning February 16, 2025, followed by both in-person and via-Zoom panel on March 16, 2025
Format: Lecture/Conversation followed by an audience-driven Q&A.
Availability: Recorded lectures and Q & A sessions will be posted on this YouTube channel.
Series Description and Schedule:
Governments around the world have responded with different degrees of commitment to carbon reduction, made at the annual climate-change summits. As individuals, we frequently perceive the urgent threat of climate change with a sense of helplessness, feeling that our individual actions may lack the capacity to effect meaningful change. This series seeks to transcend the conventional focus on carbon reduction by offering a vision of hope that emphasizes community-building solutions while addressing critical challenges related to shelter, food security, and sustainability. The activists and experts in the final panel will inform us on local issues and how we can each play a part in resolving them.
Sunday, February 16:
7:00 – 8:30 PM
Dr. Barb Mayes Boustead will provide an overview from her perspective as the Coordinator for NOAA's new Climate-Ready Nation Program.
Sunday, February 23:
7:00 – 8:30 PM
Dr. Tim Crews will speak on regenerative agriculture
Sunday, March 2:
7:00 – 8:30 PM
Dr. John Ikerd will speak briefly on sustainable economics and then hold a conversation with Prof. Charles Francis on the topic.
Sunday, March 9:
7:00 – 8:30 PM
Dr. Elizabeth Sawin will speak on multisolving and engage with Peter Hind and Marc Shkolnick on Lincoln's Low Income Energy Efficiency Rental Rehab Program.
Sunday, March 16:
3:00 – 4:30 PM
Panel Discussion to include Kim Morrow – Chief Sustainability Coordinator, City of Lincoln; Brandon Cobb, The Nature Conservancy–Omaha and citizen of Cherokee nation; and Mark Brohman, Executive Director of Wachiska Audubon Society.
Lecturers and Participants:
(More information about the March 16 panel and the panelists will be provided later)
Barb Mayes Boustead is a meteorologist and climatologist, currently serving as the Coordinator for NOAA's Climate-Ready Nation after 22 years in the National Weather Service. She received her Ph.D. in Natural Resources: Climate Assessment and Impacts from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a dissertation titled, "The hard winter of 1880-1881: Climatological context and communication via a Laura Ingalls Wilder narrative," and her forthcoming nonfiction book Wilder Weather draws further into what we can learn from the weather and climate of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books and life. She has served as an author for the 4th and 5th National Climate Assessments.
Tim Crews is the Chief Scientist and directs the International Initiative at The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas. He pursued a doctorate degree at Cornell, carried out a post-doc fellowship at Stanford, and developed an agroecology program at Prescott College in Northern Arizona. A significant amount of Tim's research on perennial grains has focused on topics closely tied to climate change adaptation and mitigation.
John Ikerd was raised on a small dairy farm in southwest Missouri and received his Ph.D. degree in agricultural economics from the University of Missouri. He worked in private industry for a time before moving to academia. He retired from the University of Missouri in early 2000 and has maintained an active writing and speaking schedule since retirement. He has published extensively on economic sustainability.
Elizabeth Sawin is the Founder and Director of the Multisolving Institute. A biologist with a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she co-founded Climate Interactive in 2010 and led the scientific team that offered the first assessment of the sufficiency of country pledges to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Dr. Sawin is an expert on solutions that address climate change while also improving health, well-being, and economic vitality.
Charles A. Francis is Professor emeritus Agronomy & Horticulture, with expertise and teaching experience in agroecology, farming systems, and global food and equity issues.
Peter Hind is the Director of Lincoln Urban Development.
Marc Shkolnick has served as Manager of Energy Services at Lincoln Electric System for more than 17 years. The department is charged with providing comprehensive and customized customer experience for the city of Lincoln’s industrial, commercial business and residential customers. His team is also responsible for administering the utility’s energy efficiency, demand response, customer-owned renewables and emerging technology programs.
History of the Winter Lecture Series
The Winter Lecture Series began at Vine Congregation Church in 1985. The first year the topic of the Series was Central America. That topic set the early trend of the Series focusing each year on a single country or a region of the world. In 2001 the Unitarian Church inherited the Winter Lecture Series. With that change, besides focusing on single countries or regions, sometimes our annual topics were cross-cutting issues such as human rights, or poverty, or environmental issues.
Our goal is to provide unbiased information to our attendees—information provided by experts from local or distant Universities and organizations such as the US State Department. Although bringing experts from other states and countries is expensive, our lectures are always free and open to the public, and no registration is required.
Support for our lectures has been provided each year by grants from Humanities Nebraska (formally the Nebraska Humanities Council), UNL OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute), and the Social Justice Committee of the Unitarian Church of Lincoln.
HISTORY OF WINTER LECTURE SERIES - including a list of topics and speakers.
You are invited to attend any and all lectures of the Winter Lecture Series. Each year we inform the people on our email list of the year’s topic and schedule. If you would like to be informed of upcoming lecture series, or you need additional information, please email a note to [email protected] with “Winter” entered in the subject line. Your email address will not be shared with any other entities.
Want to watch a video from a past series? Winter Lecture Series videos are uploaded to our YouTube channel.
