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By Lookout Staff

October 18, 2011 -- Two new China's – that's what environmentalist Andrew Revkin says will be added to the earth's population by 2050.

Hence the title of his lecture – Nine Billion People + One Planet – presented in conjunction with Santa Monica College's Sustainability Week at the school's Theatre Arts Main Stage on Thursday, October 27.

"[T]he hard thing to convey in print as journalists, and for society to absorb, is that this is truly a century-scale problem," Revkin said in a 2006 interview with Seed Magazine.

Revkin was the first New York Times reporter to file stories from the North Pole area and has covered subjects ranging from Hurricane Katrina to the Amazon Rain Forest to the Bush Administration's interference with scientific research at NASA.

He now writes the Times blog Dot Earth and is a senior fellow at the Pace Academy for Applied Environmental Studies in New York.

His illustrated talk at SMC will focus on the effects of population growth and how we manage our consumption of the planet's resources.

Although the topic may seem forbiddingly serious, a Bloggingheads.tv chat Revkin had this weekend with David Roberts of Grist belies an optimistic outlook.

“The key thing is to get engaged,” said Revkin. “We live at the most exciting moment I can think of in the history of the human species.

“And if you’re a communitarian and you go sit down in the street in Wall Street or you’re a libertarian and you want to invent the next great gadget beyond Steve Jobs that makes the world a better place…get out there,” he said.

Revkin's talk at the SMC Theatre Arts Main Stage on the main campus at 1900 Pico Boulevard will begin at 11 a.m. on Thursday, October 27.

He will also lead a roundtable discussion of SMC's Climate Action Plan at 5:15 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 27 in Business Building Room 111 on the main campus.

The talk is sponsored by the SMC Political Science Association and the SMC Associates, a private organization that funds speakers and special programs on campus.

For more information, call (310) 434-3909.