Environmental activist Chad Kister promises his talks around the area this week on global warming won't be all doom and gloom.

Sure, he'll hit audiences at Binder Park Zoo on Wednesday, Albion College on Thursday and Kalamazoo College on Friday with the heavy ammo from his recent research:

• A prediction of 180 million deaths in Africa blamed on increased diseases from world warming.
• Cities such as Fairbanks, Alaska, that are built on the permafrost struggling with such phenomena as cracked roads and "drunken trees" that are collapsing into the melting tundra.
• Forests throughout central and southern Alaska, where insect outbreaks used to be kept in check by -40-degree temperatures, now being killed by rampaging bugs and burning in huge forest fires.

  But Kister said he'll also focus on some practical solutions, because he can't stand it that "people think that it's too late and we have to give up."

  While he said "we can't change the past — we've got to focus on the future," Kister said we need to act dramatically and rapidly to derail the runaway global warming freight train.

  For starters, he said, "We need to enact corporate average fuel-economy standards" that U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Dearborn, is blocking.

  Another urgently needed step is "enacting a federal cap and a reduction on vehicle emissions," Kister said.

  "And I'm a huge advocate of trains and mass transit," he said.

  Kister, director of the Arctic Refuge Defense Campaign, has been fighting for the environmental sanctity of natural Alaska since his first trip there in 1991. Based in Ohio, he said he has made three more trips to arctic Alaska since then, documenting them in books and a film.

  The dramatic facts he cited in a Monday interview with the Enquirer were from a variety of solid sources, he said. He's been delving deep into research as he prepares for a new edition of one of his books, he said.

  Robert Warner can be reached at 966-0674 or rwarner@battlecr.gannett.com.

Zoom Photo Chad Kister If you go Environmental activist Chad Kister will make three speaking appearances in the area this week to warn of the effects of global warming. Here's Kister's schedule: Wednesday: 7 p.m. at Binder Park Zoo, 7400 Division Dr. Thursday: 7 p.m. in Albion College's Norris Hall, Room 101. Friday: 7 p.m. in Kalamazoo College's Olds-Upton Science Hall, Room 103. All of the events are free and open to the public.