Dr. María Cristina García will present the 2017 Wallenberg Lecture, “Climate Refugees: An Unrecognized Challenge at Home and Abroad” on February 28, 2017 at 7 p.m. in Wallenberg Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.
García, the Howard A. Newman Professor of American Studies at Cornell University, has a background working with refugee and immigration history. During the lecture, García will discuss how the change in climate has forced a number of people from their homes and even out of their home country.
Dr. María Cristina García
According to The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), an estimated one person every second has been displaced by a disaster, with 22.5 million people displaced by climate or weather-related events since 2008. The lecture will expand on the growing issue of climate change, both within the United States and internationally, as well as the challenges that lie ahead for the people who will be displaced by such changes, and the countries that will be forced to give them refuge.
García has published over a dozen book chapters and articles focusing on climate change in Latin America. She was named 2016 Andrew Carnegie Fellow and has also received multiple awards, including the Stephen and Margery Russell teaching award.
The Wallenberg Memorial Lecture celebrates the heroic actions of Raoul Wallenberg, a World War II activist. Wallenberg willingly put himself in danger to save the lives of thousands of Hungarian Jews in danger of Nazi-driven genocide. In 1982, Gustavus Adolphus College awarded Raoul Wallenberg an honorary degree in absentia which was accepted on his behalf by his sister, Nina. Gustavus established an annual lecture in 1983.
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