If, as many scientists believe, the Earth's climate is warming, how should government leaders respond?

Should they crack down on the pollutants suspected of causing global warming? Should they prepare for changes in water supplies and farming opportunities? Or should they do nothing at all?

Three experts in climate change and public policy will address thorny questions like these in a symposium on Tuesday, April 7, at the Homewood campus. The program, called "Strategic Responses to Climate Change: Policies and Actions," will take place from 3 to 5:30 p.m. in the Garrett Room in the Milton S. Eisenhower Library.

The symposium will be the second in a series sponsored by Theodore M. Schad, a 1939 Hopkins graduate who completed a 34-year federal career as an environmental policy specialist. He continues to work as a private consultant on water resource issues.

Scheduled to speak are Richard Moss, head of the technical support unit for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Working Group II; Joel D. Scheraga, director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Global Change Research Program; and Igor A. Shiklomanov, director of the Russian State Hydrological Institute.

The program will be moderated by Eugene Z. Stakhiv, chief of the Policy and Special Studies Division, Institute for Water Resources, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The symposium is timely because global warming raises tough questions for public policy makers, said John Boland, a Hopkins professor of geography and environmental engineering.

"Some places will become drier, some will become wetter, and some will become warmer," said Boland, an organizer of the symposium. "It will redistribute water supplies and the need for water. We may be able to grow wheat in Siberia but not in Iowa. These things can have important economic and geopolitical implications."

The event is free and open to the Hopkins community and the general public. A reception will follow.