Forthcoming Sydney Ideas events Monday 4 July
A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change Associate Professor Stephen Gardiner, Department of Philosophy and the Program on Values in Society at the University of Washington, Seattle Despite decades of awareness, we are currently accelerating hard into the climate problem in a way that defies standard explanations. This suggests that our current focus on the scientific and economic questions is too narrow, and that the tendency to see the political problem as a traditional tragedy of the commons facing nation states is too optimistic. Instead, we should recognise that climate change is genuinely global, dominantly intergenerational, and takes place in a setting where our prescriptive theories are weak. This "perfect moral storm" poses a profound challenge to humanity. The key issue is that the current generation is in a position to pass on most of the costs of its behaviour (and especially the most serious harms) to the global poor, future generations and nonhuman nature. This "tyranny of the contemporary" helps to explain both the past failures of international climate policy, and the current push towards geoengineering. Part of the solution is better public ethics. We must work harder on articulating both the ethical problem, and moral constraints on solutions. In addition, there is a role for "defensive" moral and political philosophy, aimed at preserving the quality of public discourse. Stephen Gardiner is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and the Program on Values in Society at the University of Washington, Seattle. He specialises in ethics, political philosophy and environmental ethics. Steve's current research focuses on future generations, global environmental problems (especially climate change), and Aristotelian virtue ethics. Co-presented with the Environmental Humanities Group, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Sydney. Date: Monday 4 July, 2011 Time: 6.00pm to 7.30pm Venue: Law School Foyer, Eastern Avenue, the University of Sydney Cost: This event is free and open to all with no ticket or booking required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis. Web: www.sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas Thursday 7 July Playing with Particles Professor Allan Clark, Department of Nuclear and Particle Physics, University of Geneva In a 27 kilometre-long circular tunnel beneath the Franco-Swiss border sits the world's largest and most expensive physics experiment: the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC. This extraordinary feat of science and engineering aims to uncover some of the remaining secrets of our Universe, giving us a glimpse at the earliest moments after the Big Bang, and illuminating the very nature of the fundamental forces and particles that make up our world. Professor Clark is Director of the Department of Nuclear and Particle Physics at the University of Geneva, where he works with the LHC's ATLAS detector group. In this talk he will outline the Standard Model, currently our best physical theory of matter and forces, before delving into the unknown to share some of the mysteries that remain in particle physics where our science breaks down-and how colliding particles together at close to the speed of light inside the Large Hadron Collider may help us find the answers. Co-presented with the Professor Harry Messel International Science School and the Science Foundation of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Sydney. Date: Thursday 7 July, 2011 Time: 6.00pm to 7.30pm Venue: Eastern Avenue Auditorium, Eastern Avenue, the University of Sydney Cost: This event is free and open to all with no ticket or booking required.Entry is on a first come, first served basis. Web: www.sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas MEREDITH HALL | Program Manager Sydney Ideas | Alumni and Events Office THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY Rm L6.11, The Quadrangle A14 | The University of Sydney | NSW | 2006 T +61 2 9351 1935 | M +61 403 367 842 E [email protected] | W http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas _______________________________________________ SydPhil mailing list: http://sydphil.info 1000 subscribers now served!! To UNSUBSCRIBE, change your MEMBERSHIP OPTIONS, find ANSWERS TO COMMON PROBLEMS, or visit our ONLINE ARCHIVES, please go to the LIST INFORMATION PAGE: http://sydphil.info
