June’s speakers at the Moab Information Center-hosted Lecture Series, sponsored by Canyonlands Natural History Association, feature discussions on climate change in Utah’s mountains and Juneteenth, Freedom Day.

The lectures take place at the MIC, on the southeast corner of Main and Center streets at 6 p.m. Note: Previous lectures have begun at 5 p.m. in the past.

On June 19, Dr. Scott Hotaling will lead a discussion titled “Climate Change in Utah’s High Mountains: Implications for Natural Resources and Biodiversity.”

“Climate change is proceeding rapidly at high elevations and leading to dramatic changes in snowpack and streamflow with implications for natural resources and biodiversity,” reads the press release. “In this talk, Hotaling, an assistant professor at Utah State University in the Department of Watershed Sciences, will talk through how Utah is changing, what these changes mean for natural resources in the regions including aquatic biodiversity, and an overlooked, potentially important resource for Utah under climate change: rock glaciers.”

Rock glaciers are masses of debris-covered ice common in the region (including in the La Sals) and are resistant to climate change-induced ice recession, according to the press release. Hotaling is a new Canyonlands Natural History Association Discovery Pool Recipient.

At 6 p.m. June 26, Robert Anderson will present “Juneteenth: Freedom Day. “Ranger Robby” will talk about the “history and importance of the federal holiday that memorializes the last enslaved African Americans being freed from slavery, two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

-Doug McMurdo