Goals

after talking to jenny hu some more, i realized i should elaborate more on what the purpose of the sustainable lecture is, who exactly am i looking for to speak, and what i want them to talk about.

I'm most interested in getting the bigger picture on global sustainable development. China and India combined have a population of more than 2 billion people. Most of these people are not living at first world living conditions. For example, only around 10% of the population in China have living standards comparable to the rest of the developed world. That is, they have refrigerators, computers, air conditioning, gadgets, mattresses, washers, dryers, etc. The exponential demand on energy needs to be addressed and I think it's the next crucial challenge for the human race. I would like the speakers to comment on what needs to be done in their respective fields to sustain this demand. I'm not so interested in having scientists in to talk about the technical details of their research. I am very interested in economists, business-people, and policy makers because they are crucial to the bigger picture.

The two main trains of thought I want to chip away at are
1. Only people who are particularly caring or otherwise do-gooders go into sustainability careers.
2. The main obstacle to sustainability is lack of clean energy technology, and there's not a lot we can do until we get that.

In order to effectively tackle the energy and sustainability problem, it needs to be an attack on all fronts.

My target audience is primarily undergrads or generally people who have not yet decided on their career. Thus, I am looking for influential speakers, preferably someone who runs an undergrad course that is well-liked. The course itself doesn't have to have anything to do with sustainability. It's just so they have name-recognition, and students who respect them and like the way they speak. however, sustainability should be an important issue to them and it's something they're working on in their research.