HAMPTON, Va. – "The world is facing significant environmental challenges: shortages of clean and accessible fresh water, degradation of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, increases in soil erosion, changes in the chemistry of the atmosphere, declines in fisheries, and the likelihood of significant changes in climate," claims Berrien Moore, co-chair of the science decadal study released in January 2007. How much has human activity altered the global environment?

Moore, professor and director of the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space at the University of New Hampshire, will speak on "Humans and the Global Carbon Cycle: A Faustian Bargain?" on Tuesday, April 10, at 2 p.m. in the NASA Langley Research Center Reid Conference Center. Moore will give a similar briefing for the general public at 7:30 p.m. at the Virginia Air & Space Center, downtown Hampton.

Media who wish to interview Moore at a news briefing at 1:15 p.m. Tuesday should contact Marny Skora at 864-3315 or 344-6111 (mobile) by noon for credentials and entry to the Center.

The long-awaited study, "Earth Science and Applications from Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond," was produced by and for the Earth science community. This National Academy of Sciences decadal survey outlines a decline over the next five years in the number of satellite instruments to monitor Earth from space. Space-based observations provide information for tracking severe weather, understanding climate activity, and monitoring land use.

Moore's research focuses on global change, the carbon cycle, global biogeochemical cycles, as well as policy issues in the area of the global environment. He has served on several NASA advisory committees and, in 1987, chaired the NASA Space and Earth Science Advisory Committee.

From 1987-1992, Moore was a member of the National Research Council (NRC) Board on Global Change and he chaired the NRC Committee on Global Change Research from 1995-1998. That committee produced a landmark NRC report, "Global Environmental Change: Research Pathways for the Next Decade."

For more information on NASA Langley's Colloquium and Sigma Series lectures, visit:

- end -

text-only version of this release