(photo courtesy of UM Max Baucus Institute)

The original climate change leader, former Vice President Al Gore, will be the special guest of former U.S. Senator and Ambassador to China Max Baucus on October 28 via ZOOM as part of the UM Baucus Institute Series.

Director of the UM Institute and a professor in the University’s Blewett School of Law, Sam Panarella provided details to KGVO News.

“We have the Baucus Institute, which of course is named after Max Baucus, former senator from Montana and Ambassador to China,” said Panarella. “One of our signature programs is around climate change and involves students in finding solutions to climate change. Vice President Gore and Senator Baucus are longtime friends and colleagues and we were having conversations and realized it would be great to bring the Vice President.  He was going to come in person but of course with the pandemic, we will be doing it virtually.”

Panarella said the topic on October 28 will , of course, center around climate change.

“The topic is climate change,” he said. “All of the discussion is going to be around the threat of climate change both globally and within America. And then, specifically we're going to be talking about Montana and some of the impacts that we're seeing in Montana already in our farming and ranching communities and in our water resources from climate change.”

Panarella said the former Vice President will address climate change on a variety of platforms.

“It's going to have a focus locally, nationally and globally,” he said. “China will probably come up for a bunch of reasons, including the fact that China is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, but second is the United States. Of course, Ambassador Baucus spent time in China and Vice President Gore is working on a lot of different initiatives to try to get our two countries to work together on addressing climate change.”

Panarella provided contact and access information for the public to take part in the UM Baucus Institute Series presentation of former Vice President Al Gore.

“It's October 28th, at 7:00 p.m. and it is it is a virtual event,” he said. “We're going to hold it on ZOOM. There will also be some overflow available on a YouTube Live channel. Everyone is welcome to attend. There will be an opportunity for questions and answers. We're expecting lots and lots of people to attend, so there’s no guarantee that your question will get asked and answered but there will be an opportunity to ask and we'll hopefully get at least a couple of those questions answered in the time we have allotted.”

For details on how to register for the ZOOM event with former Vice President Al Gore, click here.

 

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