FARMINGTON — University of Maine at Farmington will feature award-winning, internationally acclaimed investigative journalist Colin Woodard as the next speaker in its revealing University forum on climate change, according to a press release. His talk, “The Great Meltdown: Tales from the Front Lines of Climate Change,” will begin at 7 p.m. Wednesday in Lincoln Auditorium, in Roberts Learning Center. The presentation is free and open to the public.

In his talk, Woodard will address his firsthand encounters with the effects of climate change around the world, from the melting glaciers of Antarctica and Greenland to the low-lying atolls of Micronesia and the fortified shores of the Netherlands. He will also explore U.S. regional divisions on whether to respond to such threats, as reflected in his most recent book, “American Nations: The Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America.”

Two of his books, “Ocean’s End: Travels Though Endangered Seas” and “The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators, and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier,” both crafted as investigative journalism works, have gained him a unique perspective on the plight of the world’s oceans as they respond to profound environmental change and challenge.

Currently state and national affairs writer at the Portland Press Herald, Woodard recently won a prestigious George Polk Award for his investigative reporting.

During the span of his career, he has reported from more than 50 foreign countries and six continents. He has lived for four years in Eastern Europe and worked as a foreign correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and has contributed to other major publications such as The Economist, Smithsonian, The Washington Post, Newsweek and many more.

An NBC prime time television drama series based on his third book, “The Republic of Pirates,” will begin airing in 2014 under the title “Crossbones” and starring John Malkovich.

Woodard was born in Waterville and spent his childhood in Farmington, Phillips and Strong where he graduated from Mt. Abram High School. He received an undergraduate degree from Tufts University and a master’s from the University of Chicago.

The spring 2013 University Forum is sponsored by the UMF Sustainable Campus Coalition, Interdisciplinary and General Education Committee, Divisions of Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and the Provost’s Office.

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