(LECTURE) Elizabeth Kolbert’s continuing series in the New Yorker about global warming (her most recent essay discusses the acidification of the ocean) is popular science journalism at its most elegant. Interviewing her onstage is Tim Egan, author of National Book Award—winning The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl—the chronicle of yet another man-made ecological disaster. (Benaroya Hall, 200 University St, www.lectures.org. 7:30 pm, $15—$60.)

Annie Wagner is The Stranger's former film editor. She was born and raised in Capitol Hill, but has since lived in such far-flung locales as Phoenix, AZ, Charlottesville, VA, and Wedgwood. After graduating...