Bill McKibben
Schumann Distinguished Scholar, Middlebury College
Barbara Weinstock Lectures on the Morals of Trade
October 1, 2024 — 4:10 PMWest Pauley Ballroom, ASUC Student Union, Martin Luther King Jr. Building — UC Berkeley Campus
Energy and Resources Group and Environmental Sciences Policy and Management, UC Berkeley
About this lecture
Oil and gas are the most traded commodities on the planet; they are also the chief causes of the most grievous harm our species has yet faced, the burgeoning climate crisis. This lecture will examine how the export of hydrocarbons, in particular, has become an enormous threat to efforts to rein in greenhouse gasses, and it will examine in particular the role that America–the world’s biggest exporter of gas–plays in this ongoing catastrophe. And it will examine the role that non-tradeable commodities–sunshine and wind–might play in easing this crisis.
About Bill McKibben
Bill McKibben is a contributing writer to The New Yorker, and a founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 to work on climate and racial justice. He founded the first global grassroots climate campaign, 350.org, and serves as the Schumann Distinguished Professor in Residence at Middlebury College in Vermont. In 2014 he was awarded the Right Livelihood Prize, sometimes called the ‘alternative Nobel,’ in the Swedish Parliament. He’s also won the Gandhi Peace Award, and honorary degrees from 19 colleges and universities. He has written over a dozen books about the environment, including his first, The End of Nature, published in 1989, and his latest book is The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at his Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened.
Note
This lecture is co-sponsored by Bay Area environmental groups 350.org and Third Act.
Related Lectures
- Environment, Population, Consumption, and Sustainable Development – The Great Challenges of Our Time — 1998
- Environmentalism: From the Control of Nature to Partnership — 2010
- ‘To Civility and Man’s Use’: History, Geography, and Nature — 1998
- Mission Blue: Protecting the Blue Heart of the Planet — 2011