Agenda Overview

Welcome to the 2010 Summit. Enjoy the reception and opening plenary with author, Elizabeth Grossman, a freelance writer and journalist specializing in environmental and science issues. Ms. Grossman is the author of Chasing Molecules: Poisonous Products, Human Health, and the Promise of Green Chemistry (Island Press, September 2009), High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health, Watershed: The Undamming of America, and Adventuring Along the Lewis and Clark Trail, and co-editor of Shadow Cat: Encountering the American Mountain Lion. Copies of Ms. Grossman's latest book will be available for purchase during the reception, and after her presentation, she will be available to sign them.

Her work has appeared in a variety of publications, including The Washington Post, Salon, The Huffington Post, Scientific American online, The Nation, Mother Jones, AlterNet, ClimateProgress and Grist. She's received support for her work from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Overbrook Foundation, Oregon Literary Arts, The Nation Institute, the Fund for Investigative Journalism, and Chemical Heritage Foundation, and has been a science journalism fellow at the Wood Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory. Ms. Grossman holds a B.A. in literature from Yale University and lives in Portland, Oregon.

Also during the Opening Plenary, Play the P2Rx-sponosored EcoFluxx Game! P2, Sustainability, Mitigation! Quick! Adapt to survive! Will you win when Trees sequester GHG? Or will someone change the Goal so that Insects & Spiders Inherit the Earth?  Play ecology-themed Actions and Rules like Scavenger or Composting, but watch out for Creeper cards like Affluenza, that can ruin it all! Goals & rules change so often, it's like dealing with a bureaucracy!

Dr. James M. Fenton has been Director of the University of Central Florida’s (UCF) Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC) since January 2005, where he leads a staff of 140 in the research and development of energy technologies that enhance Florida's and the nation's economy and environment and educate the public, students and practitioners on the results of the research. FSEC, created in 1975 by the Florida Legislature to serve as the state’s energy research institute, is the nation’s largest and most active state-supported renewable energy and energy efficiency research institute.

In addition to his duties as FSEC Director, he leads a 12-member university and industry research team in a $19 million U.S. Department of Energy research program to develop the next generation proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell automobile engine. Dr. Fenton also serves as a Professor in UCF’s Mechanical, Materials and Aerospace Engineering Department. Dr. Fenton holds a Ph.D. and an M.S. both from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and a B.S. from the University of California, Los Angeles.