Magee Invited to Asian Environment Forum
17 March 2009 Magee Invited to Asian Environment Forum
Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Darrin Magee has been invited to present Chinas Transboundary Rivers: Dams, Development and Downstream Concerns at a two-day interdisciplinary conference on the environmental challenges facing India and China. The conference is sponsored by Saint Josephs Universitys Bernadette B. and James J. Nealis 69 Program in Asian Studies and will take place at the University in Philadelphia, Penn., on March 20-21.
Half-a-dozen of Asias major rivers, including the Mekong, Salween, and Brahmaputra, originate in the Tibetan plateau, explains Magee. Uncertainty about the long-term impacts of climate change on the glaciers that feed those rivers, as well as wariness about Chinas river development plans in the region, point to a need to better understand the ecological, socioeconomic, and geopolitical contexts surrounding those rivers.
The Hon. Kathleen A. McGinty 85, former Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and current Secretary of SJUs Board of Trustees will deliver the keynote address at the conference. McGintys address, Asia, the Environment and Us, will outline why the West has a vital stake in the success of India and Chinas environments and their economies.
Magee is a China geographer with expertise in water and energy in China. He earned both a B.A. in French and a B.S. in mathematics from the Louisiana State University. He earned a M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Washington. His thesis was titled, New Energy Geographies: Powershed Politics and Hydropower Decision Making in Yunnan, China. He has authored a number of articles on Chinas water and energy, the most recent of which is Socioeconomic vulnerability in Chinas hydropower development, which appeared in the China Economic Review.