Investigative journalist to speak at Baker

Baldwin  David Helvarg, author of “The War Against the Greens,” will speak at 8 p.m. Tuesday at Baker University.

Helvarg is an award-winning investigative journalist and former war correspondent in Northern Ireland and Central America. He has 22 years’ experience in print, radio and television covering a range of issues, from the military to ocean science to AIDS to immigration.

His articles have appeared in The Nation, Audubon and the Los Angeles Times, and he has served as a consultant for or been interviewed by ABC, CBS CNN, NPR, Newsweek and other news agencies.

Program features Irish step dancers

Irish step dancer Jean Denney will perform at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Lawrence Public Library, 707 Vt. She will be joined by some young Irish dancers, accompanist Dan Grotewohl and fiddlers from the Tallgrass Folk Project LTD of Lawrence.

Denney, who has toured nationally and performed at the Kennedy Center and Smithsonian Institution, will perform solo and with her students. Dances include jigs, old- style or sean nos reels, hornpipes and ceili or set drills.

She will share some history of Irish dance and teach the audience a few steps.

The free event is open to the public.

KU professor writes chapter of ‘Wild Earth’

A Kansas University professor is among the contributing writers for “Wild Earth: Wild Ideas for a World Out of Balance,” a book edited by Tom Butler and published by Milkweed Editions.

Donald Worster, a Hall distinguished professor of American history, wrote the chapter “The Wilderness of History.”

Worster also is the author of “A River Running West: The Life of John Wesley Powell,” “Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity and the Growth of the American West,” “Nature’s Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas” and other works of environmental history.