Green infrastructure: AKA trees

MIDDLETOWN — SUNY Orange will host Paul Mankiewicz, PhD, whose lecture, “Integrating Carbon Capture, Local Climate, Energy Use & Biodiversity: Planting Trees and Conserving & Enhancing Forests,” is scheduled in Orange Hall Gallery at Orange County Community College on Tuesday, Nov. 19, at 7 p.m.

The lecture is part the series, “Trees: Nature’s Living/Giving Gift.” It is free and open to the public and will be held in Orange Hall Gallery at Orange County Community College in Middletown.

“Trees run the world where there is water,” Mankiewicz said in the college’s press release announcing the lecture.

Mankiewicz is a biophysicist, ecological designer, inventor and founder of the Gaia Institute. He will speak on green infrastructure, the most massive portion of this being trees, and how they can connect human-built structures and natural systems to solve environmental problems.Trees play a powerful role in the environs in which we live and work. Using solar energy and water, trees have evolved in tandem with other elements of our ecosystems to have an enormous capacity to move water, and influence air temperatures, humidity, and the movement of water through the landscape. the several areas he will explain in relationship to trees, he will describe his work to tap the benefits in engineered ecological systems to purify stormwater and his invention GaiaSoil, a patented product using recycled Styrofoam to create an innovative medium with key benefits for planting urban trees and building green roofs.

Mankiewicz holds a BA in Philosophy from the New School for Social Research, an MA in Biology from Lehman College and a PhD in Biology from City University of New York/New York Botanical Gardens Joint Program.

For more information: visit www.sunyorange.edu/culturalaffairs or call 845-341-4891.