DURHAM, N.C. – Robert Gottlieb, a historian of the U.S. environmental movement, will discuss “The New Environmentalism: After the 2008 Election,” in a free public lecture at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 11, at White Lecture Hall on 91’s East Campus.

Gottlieb’s talk is the 2008 Lynn W. Day Distinguished Lectureship in Forest and Conservation History.

He will discuss what changes might be anticipated within environmental advocacy spheres based on the outcome of the 2008 national election.

The environmental movement has experienced signal shifts in its focus and organization following key elections during the last 40 years, Gottlieb notes. The 1970 Congressional and 1972 Presidential elections, for instance, ushered in a new era of environmental policymaking, while the 1988 election of George H.W. Bush and the 1992 election of Bill Clinton foreshadowed major restructuring and redirection among large, well-oiled professional advocacy organizations and helped speed the emergence of the grass-roots environmental justice movement.  

Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 “created ripple effects throughout the environmental movement,” Gottlieb adds, while George W. Bush’s election in 2000 heralded “the most significant shift in environmental policymaking in more than three decades.”

Gottlieb is Henry R. Luce Professor of Urban Environmental Studies and director of the Urban Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College.  He is the author of the MIT Press series, “Urban and Industrial Environments,” and co-author of eleven books, including Reinventing Los Angeles (MIT Press,2007), Environmentalism Unbound: Exploring New Pathways for Change (MIT Press, 2001), and Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement(Island Press, 1993).

His talk at Duke is sponsored by the Forest History Society, the 91 Department of History, and the Nicholas School of the Environment.

White Lecture Hall is located at 113 Campus Dr. Parking will be available on the East Campus Quad. A reception will follow Gottlieb’s talk at 5:30 p.m. in the East Duke Parlors.