"The Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of Americas Coastal Cities"

Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2008 
7 p.m.
Bucknell Hall

Mike Tidwell

Maryland author and filmmaker Mike Tidwell predicted in vivid detail the Katrina hurricane disaster in his 2003 book Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana’s Cajun Coast. His most recent book, focusing on Katrina and global warming, is titled The Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of America’s Coastal Cities.

Tidwell has written six nonfiction books focused on the themes of nature and travel. These include Amazon Stranger (detailing efforts to save the Ecuadorian rainforest) and In the Mountains of Heaven (travels to exotic lands across the globe). Tidwell has won four Lowell Thomas awards, the highest prize in American travel journalism, and is a former grantee of the National Endowment for the Arts. Tidwell’s most recent documentary film We Are All Smith Islanders – details the dangers and solutions associated with global warming in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.

In 2003, Tidwell received the Audubon Naturalist Society’s prestigious Conservation Award. Tidwell is founder and director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, a grassroots nonprofit dedicated to raising awareness about global warming in the Chesapeake region.

A native Georgian, he now lives in Takoma Park, Md., with his nine-year-old son Sasha.