Melanie Lenart is an environmental scientist and writer. Since 1996, she has dedicated
most of her time to understanding how the planet changes with climate -- and conveying this information to the
public.
After receiving her Ph.D. in Natural Resources and Global
Change (2003) from the University of Arizona in Tucson, she took a postdoctoral
research position with the UA's Institute for the Study of Planet Earth, now the Institute of the Environment
(IE). In this position, Lenart worked to inform
a variety of stakeholders throughout the Southwest on climate variability
and change.
Lenart also holds a master’s degree in forestry (1992) from
the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and a bachelor’s
degree in journalism (1984) from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. Her scientific research has involved studying carbon cycling,
the effect of high carbon dioxide levels on plants, tree-ring
dating and tree uprooting dynamics. She has explored both physical and social questions working
in subtropical, temperate and tropical forests.
From 1982 through 1996, she worked primarily as a newspaper
reporter and editor, including at Puerto Rico’s English-language
daily newspaper The San Juan Star and several papers in the Chicago
area. Since then, she has continued to report on climate and its impacts
for a variety of venues, including Landscape Architecture and Nature Reports Climate Change. She teaches environmental writing at the university and in workshops.
In 2007, the
UA Climate Assessment for the Southwest (CLIMAS) project published her book compilation, Global Warming in the Southwest. In 2010, the University of Arizona Press released her book Life in the Hothouse: How a Living Planet Survives Climate Change.

Melanie Lenart discussed her recent book, Life in the Hothouse: How A Living Planet Survives Climate Change, at the Tucson Festival of Bookson March 12 as part of a panel called Hot Times: Can Nature Survive Us? Other panelists were Laura Lopez-Hoffman, author of Conservation of Shared Environments, and Mitch Tobin, author of Endangered. The authors talked about their findings and took questions from the audience. |
|

Life in the Hothouse, released in April 2010, explores how the planet responded to previous temperature extremes, in both modern times and the distant past, for guidance on how to prepare for our future in this warming world.
BOOK REVIEWS
“This intelligent, well-written book makes a substantial contribution to the climate change debate” – Roger Paehlke, Environmental Practice
“This is a fine book.” – Elery Hamilton-Smith, Electronic Green Journal
“Readers will learn much about the Earth and the role life plays in its climate system from this book” – Jeffrey T. Kiehl, The Quarterly Review of Biology.
See more on these reviews and others
NEWS & VIEWS
A River Rams through It
A research trip to Argentina resulted in this publication for Scientific American on how the destructive rise of a new river relates to an ongoing switch from forests and grasslands to crops. Read more
Southwest Environment Stories Released
The students in Lenart’s environmental writing course came up with 16 good stories on topics ranging from fish farming in the desert to using wastewater for growing food and supporting rivers. Read more
The Cooling Power
of Trees
Recent Guest Commentaries in the Tucson Weekly cover the cooling values of trees, especially in a warming climate, and an idea on how to get more of them planted in the city.
|
|