RIT Gosnell Lecture Looks at Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Gosnell lecture series kicks off Oct. 1

Drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will be the focus of the first Gosnell lecture of the academic year at Rochester Institute of Technology.

“When to Drill? Trigger Prices for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge” will be presented by Jon Conrad, professor of applied economics and management at Cornell University, from 3 to 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 1, in the Building 70 auditorium, room 1400. The talk is free and open to the public, and will be followed by a reception.

An expert in resource economics, Conrad has written about such issues as urban deer herds, water quality and treatment, and managing wilderness.

The lecture series—sponsored by the Arthur J. Gosnell Professor of Economics, Amit Batabyal, in RIT’s College of Liberal Arts—brings prominent scholars to campus throughout the year to give accessible, public talks that typically pertain to the environment.

“I see this as one event of many the Institute holds to encourage scholarly dialogue between established professionals in the field and everyone at RIT,” Batabyal says.

“Drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge has increasingly become a contentious public policy issue with environmentalists very much against drilling and the Bush administration for drilling,” says Batabyal. “Conrad’s talk will explain what economic theory and the theory of decision making under uncertainty tell us about the desirability of drilling.”