Kim Stanley Robinson will be giving a talk on "Valuing the Earth and Future Generations: Imagining Post Capitalism" at the University of Texas Dallas as part of a five-lecture series on Science, Policy and Cultural Values.

When: 7:30pm, Wednesday November 16, 2011
Where: Jonsson Performance Hall, UTD

This public lecture is free and open to the public. You are also invited to join the Center for Values Fellows for this lecture for $45. Center for Values Fellows will have reserved priority seating, will receive the speaker's recent book in advance, and will be invited to an exclusive reception and book signing after the lecture. Sign up for this lecture or you can sign up for the entire series.

Climate change and population growth will combine in the twenty-first century to put an enormous load on humanity's bio-infrastructural support system, the planet Earth. Kim Stanley Robinson argues that our current economic system undervalues both the environment and future human generations, and it will have to change if we hope to succeed in dealing with the enormous challenges facing us. Science is the most powerful conceptual system we have for dealing with the world, and we are certain to be using science to design and guide our response to the various crises now bearing down on us. A more scientific economics – what would that look like? And what else in our policy, habits, and values will have to change?

As a photo for this article, the writer being a green European, it would have been too easy to put an oil rig. Instead, I've put an image from the Pickens Plan, an initiative by Dallas resident T. Boone Pickens towards a greener economy via renewables, energy conservation and natural gas. A solid and economically sound initiative!