Thu, November 21, 2013 4:30 PM - 6:00 PM UBC Point Grey Campus. Free. Utopia/Dystopia: Creating the Worlds That We Want
Third Annual Richard V. Ericson Lecture
Energy Slaves and the Fate of Hydrocarbon Culture
Andrew Nikiforuk
4:30-6 pm, Cecil Green Park House, 6251 Cecil Green Park Road, UBC
On November 21, Andrew Nikiforuk gives the third annual Richard V. Ericson lecture, and the third lecture in the Utopia/Dystopia: Creating the Worlds That We Want series.
For the last 100 years we have used cheap fuels to multiply the number of energy slaves that do work for us. These inanimate slaves, from cars to iPods, have played a profound yet often unrecognized role in the transformation of human culture and gender roles. With the advent of extreme hydrocarbons, will North Americans willingly give up some of their energy slaves? And just what may the future look like in an energy constrained world?
Andrew Nikiforuk has been writing about the oil and gas industry for nearly 20 years and has won seven National Magazine Awards. His books include Saboteurs: Wiebo Ludwig’s War Against Big Oil, which won the Governor General's Award for Non-Fiction in 2002. Pandemonium, which examines the impact of global trade on disease exchanges, received widespread national acclaim. The Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of the Continent, which considers the world’s largest energy project, was a national bestseller and won the 2009 Rachel Carson Environment Book Award and was listed as a finalist for the Grantham Prize for Excellence In Reporting on the Environment. Empire of the Beetle, an account of how one tiny bug reshaped the geography of the west, was a Governor General’s nominee for non-fiction in 2011. In his latest book, The Energy of Slaves: Oil and the New Servitude, Nikiforuk calls for a moral revolution in our attitudes towards energy consumption.
This academic event hosted by Green College is open to the University community and general public without charge. For more information, contact gc.events@ubc.ca or visit www.greencollege.ubc.ca