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Thursday, October 16, 2008 from 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM (GMT)
In his new book Eternity: our next billion years the Daily Mail’s science editor, Michael Hanlon,
takes issue with what he argues has become the received wisdom - that
our world is doomed, that we live in the End of Days, that extreme
weather, droughts, famines and floods will overtake humanity within the
century, or sooner. If not global warming, then supervolcanoes,
meteoric impacts, nuclear war, bioterrorism, or natural plagues pose a
mortal threat to human existence as we know it.
But Hanlon’s
view is that, whatever happens, humankind will go on. He argues that
humanity may be thrown back to the Stone Age on hundreds of occasions
and may come close to extinction. But recovery will follow, each time
more rapidly than the last. The world of 10,000 years hence, let alone
100,000,000 years hence, will be strange and almost unrecognizable. But
no matter how battered and re-born, it will still be our world,
populated by us through eternity.
Join our panel of speakers
to debate this thesis and ask: just how risky is it to adopt a
“life-will-go-on” attitude? If this attitude gained prevalence, what
would it mean for the sustainability movement and its attempt to
educate the public about global environmental and social challenges,
and effect radical behaviour change?
For more than 200 years, the RSA has provided platforms for leading public thinkers. That tradition lives on in our free events programme.
Our distinguished and diverse roll call of speakers has recently featured, amongst others, Kofi Annan, Wangari Maathai, Al Gore, Clay Shirky, Jeffrey Sachs and Craig Venter.
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