Slow Learners: Two Hundred Years of Unheeded Warnings February 22, 2011

Cogent, compelling warnings – that exponential population growth must be stopped, that faith in technology to solve our problems is misplaced, that consumer culture cannot bring satisfaction, that greed and envy are treacherous underpinnings for an economic system, that violence elicits more violence, that nature bats last – have been ignored for more than two centuries. These warnings have come from some of the best minds of their times and have often been endorsed by other respected scientists and thinkers, yet their influence on public policy and individual behavior has been negligible. Oregon State University professor emeritus Richard Clinton will explore some of these early warnings, discuss them, and pose three questions: 1) Why have we largely ignored these urgent warnings? 2) What will it take to make us heed them? 3) What would be required of us if we did take them seriously?

Made possible by funding from Oregon Humanities and by the National Endowment for the Humanities Fund of The Library Foundation.

Official Website: http://www.multcolib.org/events/conversationproject.html#learners