PUTNEY — Environmental activist, author, and 350.org founder Bill McKibben will speak at Landmark College on Tuesday, Oct. 22, at 7 p.m.
McKibben will speak about his new book, “Oil and Honey: The Education of an Unlikely Activist” (Times Books), which fuses a lifetime of insight on the climate fight with observations from a Vermont beekeeping practice.
The public is invited to this free event, which will be held at the Greenhoe Theater in the Fine Arts Building on the Landmark College campus.
According to Dr. Peter Eden, president of Landmark College, speaking in an event announcement, McKibben's impact is important on a macro level because “without passionate, expert supporters of important causes we would not drive courageous and effective change.
“But on a more micro level, at a college, he is able to communicate to young learners the complexities of phenomena related to energy: energy uses, origins, benefits and risks to the world,” Eden added.
One such controversial idea is that colleges and universities should divest fossil fuel holdings from their endowment portfolios. This idea is a galvanizing theme in McKibben's “Do the Math” tour, which started in November 2012 and boasts engagements across the nation.
That divestment movement has come to Landmark College, where leaders here reportedly have resisted it, the press release read.
When asked why McKibben was invited to speak Eden said he wanted students “to learn more about the multi-factorial nature of divestment - as a possibility - in the important area of endowment that exists to protect the institution well into the future. And so that the students can start to even better understand the delicate balance between realism and idealism, when it comes to the decisions we make - and the 'costs' associated with such now, and years from now.”
McKibben is the author of a dozen books about the environment, beginning with “The End of Nature” in 1989, which is regarded as the first book for a general audience on climate change. He is a founder of the grassroots climate campaign 350.org, which has coordinated 15,000 rallies in 189 countries since 2009.
He is a Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College and holds honorary degrees from a dozen colleges, including the universities of Massachusetts and Maine, the State University of New York, and Whittier and Colgate colleges.
In 2011 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.