Location
Park Road Baptist Church
3900 Park Road
Charlotte, NC, 28209
Date/Time
Date(s) - 04/24/2016
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Category(ies)
The Baha’i Community of Charlotte and Park Road Baptist Church
Invite you and your friends to a special Earth Week presentation
OUR ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT: DOES HUMANITY HAVE A FUTURE?
Paul Hanley, author of ELEVEN
Sunday, April 24, 2016
3:00 pm – 4:30 pm
Park Road Baptist Church, 3900 Park Rd, Charlotte NC 28209
Presentation and Discussion 3:00 – 4:00
Reception and Refreshments Following the Presentation
UN projections show global population reaching 11 billion—and the world economy growing by 500%—by the end of this century. Can the planet accommodate 3.7 billion more people when our current ecological footprint already exceeds Earth’s bio capacity by 60%? This question will preoccupy humanity throughout this century, affecting everything we do, from designing buildings and cities to producing and using energy. Our mission is daunting: Somehow, we have to support 50% more people and raise billions out of poverty and reduce our ecological footprint to the sustainable level last found in 1976, when we were just 4 billion. Clearly, we have to change direction. Yet every facet of our social-economic-political order—indeed the totality of the dominant global culture–programs us to maintain the status quo: perpetual material growth. ELEVEN considers how we got into this predicament and maps a way forward.
Far from delivering a doomsday analysis, ELEVEN offers a glimpse of a world that will not only be livable for all of us, but, surprisingly, better than the one we live in now.
Yann Martel, Man Booker Prize-winning author of Life of Pi says of ELEVEN:
“At the heart of ELEVEN is an old-fashioned yet timeless and always radical emotional concept: love. A world packed with even more humans beings than there are now will be better, Hanley argues, because we will realize then what is of true worth: the connections we make with others. The fundamental unity of humankind, with all its emotional and existential consequences, is the guarantor of an authentically fulfilling life, rather than the clutter of objects with which we surround ourselves now or the mindless entertainment with which we fritter away our time.”
Please come and be a part of this fascinating discussion.
