Brenda Mehdian, staff writer

Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Woodrow W. Clark spoke to Emily Smith’s AP Environmental Science class regarding clean and green energy sources on Monday, Feb. 25, in the Jon Cherny Lecture Hall.

An author, lecturer, qualitative economist and advocate for the environment, Clark won the Nobel Peace Prize along with his colleagues in 2007 for his co-editorship and co-authorship of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UN IPCC).

In addition to his widely known work, Clark has been working locally to help Beverly Hills. After the passing of the city’s centennial he created the Next Hundred Years Committee in order to focus on how the current generation and generations to come can help make Beverly Hills a sustainable community for many centuries to come.

The lecture was organized largely by junior Joshua Schenk, who previously worked with Clark on other leadership projects with ASB.

“Dr. Clark had mentioned his work in passing so I asked him more about it. He mentioned topics that were relevant to the environmental science curriculum, so I asked him if he would like to speak to our class,” Schenk said.

Smith, Schenk and Clark coordinated in order to plan a day on which Clark could speak to the AP Environmental Science class.

“I am very glad that Dr. Clark came to speak to my AP Environmental Science class. it was very interesting to see that community leaders are concerned in energy use for the future,” AP Environmental taecher Emily Smith said.

Clark began his lecture by explaining to the class that there is a significant difference between “clean” and “green” and that a lot of what people perceive to be “clean” energy is actually not “clean”. He went on to talk about the future and how to sustain our communities with solar panels, fuel cell-run cars and more. In addition, he explained the effect that extreme weather conditions in one place have on the entire globe.

“All of the topics that he spoke about were really interesting to hear about. Because we have been studying the things he talked about beforehand, we were actually able to apply the concepts to real life situations,” junior Nika Samazadeh said.

According to Smith, she hopes that an event such as this will happen next year as well.