The Department of Environmental Policy and Science presents “The Global Warming Crisis: Getting there was easy, staying there may be hard,” a lecture by Richard Kerr, renowned senior writer for Science magazine.

The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be held 2 p.m. March 28 in Lewis Hall of Science’s Decker Auditorium. For more information, call 410-857-2294.

Kerr will discuss how, after 30 years of on-again, off-again excitement in the United States over global warming, he believes the media and the political establishment have finally crossed a threshold and are now taking the threat seriously. Politicians from city to national level are taking action to rein in greenhouse gas emissions. But Kerr will discuss why the haphazard, often unscientific route to action followed in the U.S. does not inspire confidence in the current mood’s staying power. So many forces that got us here — from the price of oil to Arctic temperatures — are prone to natural fluctuation that no one should be assuming victory just yet.

“As one of the most insightful and influential science writers, Richard Kerr has a unique perspective on both the science and the policies associated with global warming,” says Kevin Harrison, assistant professor of Environmental Policy and Science.

Kerr has covered the Earth and planetary sciences for Science magazine since 1977. His writing has won awards from the American Meteorological Society, the National Association of Geology Teachers, the American Geological Institute and the Geological Society of America. Kerr was elected a fellow of the Geological Society of America in 1995, and earned the American Geophysical Union’s highest accolade to a journalist.

Kerr earned his B.A. in chemistry from The College of Wooster and his Ph.D. in chemical oceanography from the University of Rhode Island.