Vancouver

It's Wrong to Wreck the World: Climate Change and Our Moral Obligation

Free lecture presented by Dr. Kathleen Dean Moore, Distinguished Professor of Philsophy, Oregon State University

7:00pm
- 9:00pm
Wednesday March 21 2012

In our generation, as Thomas Berry writes, we have done to the Earth what no previous generation has done, because they lacked the technological power, and what no future generation will be able to do, because the planet will never again be so beautiful or abundant. In the process, we have degraded, and perhaps changed forever, the great systems that sustain our lives. This is a scientific and technological crisis, assuredly.  But it is fundamentally a moral crisis, and it calls for a moral response. Why has climate-change science elicited such stunning indifference? What calls us to act? How can we respondn to the crisis in ways that honour duties of compassion, justice, and respect for human rights? How can we discuss these values across differences? How do we live, when we truly understand that we live in complete dependence on an Earth that is interconnected, interdependent, finite, resilient, and heart-breakingly beautiful?

Bio: Kathleen Dean Moore, Ph.D., is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Oregon State University and co-founder of the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature and the Written Word. an environmental philospher, Moore writes about ethical, spiritual, and cultural relationships to the natural world. Her recent award-winning book, "Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril (foreword by Desmond Tutu) is a call toa ction on climate change from 100 of the world's moral leaders.

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