April brings three renowned authors, including environmental leaders and a leading physicist, to the UC Davis campus for free, public presentations.

Chris Mooney

On Friday, April 13, science and political journalist Chris Mooney will present “The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science and Reality, ” which is also the title of his new book.

Mooney is the bestselling author of three other books, including "Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future," and "The Republican War on Science." During his presentation, he will discuss the psychological factors that contribute to today’s polarized political environment. Climate change and evolution are two classic scientific issues where views tend to fall along party lines. In his lecture, Mooney will review research that suggests that liberals and conservatives are fundamentally different, with different ways of processing information, particularly when it comes to science with political implications. He will explain why understanding these differences is critical to building a society grounded in reality and reason.

Mooney’s presentation and book signing will be held from 10:30 a.m. to noon, in the Activities and Recreation Center at UC Davis. The event is free and open to the public. It is hosted by the UC Davis John Muir Institute of the Environment, Institute of Government Affairs, Department of Geology, and Division of Mathematical and Physical Sciences.

Bill McKibben

On Monday, April 16, environmental superstar Bill McKibben will visit UC Davis to give a presentation hosted by the UC Davis John Muir Institute of the Environment and Capital Public Radio.

McKibben is the author of a dozen books about the environment, including "The End of Nature." Published in 1989, it was one of the first books to warn a general audience about climate change. More recently, his 2011 book "Eaarth" describes a planet that has reached its tipping point and is nearly unrecognizable from the world we know. McKibben is also a frequent contributor to The New Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, Orion Magazine, Mother Jones, Rolling Stone and Outside.

As much as he is a writer and speaker, McKibben is one of the country’s preeminent environmental activists. He founded the grassroots climate campaign 350.org, which has coordinated 15,000 rallies since 2009. A Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College in Vermont, he helped lead a five-day walk across Vermont in 2006 to demand action on global warming. In 2007, he founded stepitup07.com to demand that Congress enact curbs on carbon emissions to cut global warming pollution 80 percent by 2050. With six college students, he organized 1,400 global warming demonstrations across the country on April 15, 2007 — considered the largest day of protest about climate change in U.S. history.

McKibben will speak from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. in the UC Davis Conference Center Ballroom. The event is free, but participants must RSVP. For more information and to RSVP, visit http://www.capradio.org/events/2012/04/capital-public-radio-presents-bill-mckibben.

Lisa Randall

On Tuesday, April 17, Lisa Randall, a professor of physics at Harvard University, will give a public lecture based on her recent book, "Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World." Her talk will begin at 8 p.m. in the ARC Ballroom on the UC Davis campus. Admission is free.

“Knocking on Heaven's Door” is an exhilarating and accessible overview of recent developments in physics, and an impassioned argument for the significance of science, according to the Department of Physics website. Randall, bestselling author of "Warped Passages" (2006), is an expert in both particle physics and cosmology. In her new book, she explores how we decide which scientific questions to study and how we go about answering them. She examines the role of risk, creativity, uncertainty, beauty and truth in scientific thinking, and explains with wit and clarity the latest ideas in physics and cosmology.

The event is sponsored by the UC Davis High Energy Frontier Theory Initiative and the Department of Physics.

More information: http://particle.physics.ucdavis.edu/hefti/lectures/randall/index.php