UF's Ingram to participate in Florida Summit on Global Climate Change

July 9, 2007

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Lonnie Ingram, director of the University of Florida’s Florida Center for Renewable Chemicals and Fuels, will join celebrities including California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at a Florida conference on global climate change on Thursday and Friday in Miami.

Ingram, a distinguished professor of microbiology in UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, will be a panelist discussing “Effective Ways to Reduce Greenhouse Gases: Clean and Renewable Energy” on Thursday. The Florida Summit on Global Climate Change will be held at the InterContinental Miami Hotel.

Gov. Charlie Crist said summit participants will start work on a plan to find technologies and strategies to put Florida at the front of the worldwide movement to reduce greenhouse gases. With most of its citizens living near almost 1,200 miles of coastline, the state is more vulnerable to rising ocean levels and violent storm patterns than any other state, he has said.

Crist announced the summit at the opening of the 2007 Legislative Session in March during his State of the State address. In April, he joined the Global Warming Virtual March and met with environmental activist Laurie David and singer Sheryl Crow at the “Stop Global Warming College Tour” at the O’Connell Center.

UF’s involvement in the summit will include a display highlighting some of the many alternative environmental solutions in which UF plays a major research, development or implementation role. Topics include biomass energy based on Ingram’s research, nuclear energy, solar energy and UF’s sustainable campus. UF researchers will answer questions and distribute additional information on alternative environmental solutions.