Putting the Earth In Its Place

Comments (0) Thursday, May 19 2011

As executive director of the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Crested Butte, Dr. Ian Billick knows a little something about the power of place.

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“We’re located right outside Crested Butte in an area where people have been doing scientific research for a little over eighty years, and this kind of long-term, sustained investigation provides a really good place to understand how the world is changing, and maybe a little about what to do about it,” Billick says.

Tonight at 7:30 p.m. he’ll read from and sign copies of The Ecology of Place: Contributions of Place-Based Research to Ecological Understanding at the Boulder Book Store, 1107 Pearl Street. Billick co-edited the anthology with Mary V. Price, collecting essays from more than a dozen ecologists and naturalists. The book is a bit on the academic side but features personal and powerfully written accounts of important research.

“The only way that we ever really sense and come to grips with the richness and fullness and diversity of the world is when we start to weave together these different strands of understanding by lots of individuals who have done intensive study in specific places.” Billick says. “I think it’s incumbent on scientists to talk about the value of what they do in a way that the general public can understand and appreciate.”

Tickets are $5 and include a coupon for $5 off any purchase on the night of the event. For more information, call 303-447-2074 or go to www.boulderbookstore.indiebound.com.
Mon., May 23, 7:30 p.m., 2011