A Planet Under Pressure:
Citizens and Scientists Taking Action on
Global Warming and Other Threats
A David and Cecilia Ting Endowment
2011-2012 Film and Lecture Series
Wednesday, March 21, 2012, 7–9 pm
Segal Centre, Room 1400 SFU Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings, Vancouver, BC
It’s Wrong to Wreck the World: Climate
Change and the Moral Obligation to the Future
Presented by Dr. Kathleeen Dean Moore, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy,
Oregon State University
Presented by
the Centre for Coastal
Science and Management
and Continuing Studies in
Science and Environment at
Simon Fraser University
For more information visit:
www.sfu.ca/cstudies/science
Abstract:
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 respond to the crisis in ways that honor 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-Sketch: Kathleen Dean Moore, Ph.D., is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Oregon State
Reservations
recommended as seating is
limited. To reserve a seat
visit, www.sfu.ca/reserve
Hosted by:
Simon Fraser University
• Faculty of Environment
• Faculty of Science
University and co-founder of the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature, and the Written Word. An
environmental philosopher, 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, Desmond
Tutu) is a call to action on climate change from 100 of the world’s moral leaders.
Moore is the author of books of nature essays ‑ Wild Comfort: The Solace of
Nature, Holdfast, Riverwalking: Reflections on Moving Water, and The Pine Island
Paradox, winner of the Oregon Book Award. She is co-editor of How It Is: The
Native American Philosophy of V. F. Cordova and Rachel Carson: Legacy and
Challenge. Her current collaborative work, “The Blue River Declaration,” uses
ecological concepts to make a powerful moral response to our environmental
emergencies. Moore lives in Corvallis, Oregon and, during the summers,
writes from a cabin where two streams and a bear trail meet a tidal cove on
Chichagof Island in Alaska.
Reservations: www.sfu.ca/reserve