Kerry brings the 'collision course' message to Shepparton

I

t was 20 years ago that the world was warned it was on a “collision course”.

Author, environmentalist, Kerry Higgs.

And now that warning has been echoed by writer, teacher, editor and environmentalist, Kerryn Higgs.

In August last year she wrote the book, “Collision Course: Endless Growth on a Finite Planet” and late in April she will be in Shepparton to talk about what motivated her to write the book.

Kerryn graduated from the University of Melbourne with first class honours and the Kathleen Fitzpatrick prize for combined History and English Honours.

She also has a Graduate Diploma of Environmental Studies and a PhD from the University of Tasmania.

She said the notion of ever-expanding economic growth has been promoted so relentlessly that the public is now convinced that “growth” is the natural solution to virtually all social problems—poverty, debt, unemployment, and even the environmental degradation caused by growth in the first place.

“Warnings from scientists that we live on a finite planet have been ignored or even scorned as bogus predictions of doom and systematically resisted by economists and the corporate sector,” she said.

Kerryn has taught at the University of Melbourne and the University of New South Wales. She is currently a University Associate with the University of Tasmania and was recently appointed a Fellow of the International Centre of the Club of Rome.

Her visit to Shepparton is being co-ordinated by Slap Tomorrow working with the GV Community Fund and she will speak on Wednesday, April 29, at the Harder Auditorium at 6:30 for 7:00 pm.

Admission to support the GV Community Fund will be $10, including a light supper. Shepparton’s Collins Booksellers will also have copies of Collision Course available for purchase and signing.

Twenty years ago by the Union of Concerned Scientists produced a report entitled “World Scientist’s Warning to Humanity” and that statement from 1,700 senior scientists, including 104 Nobel Prize winners, suggests we are living through something like a slow motion train wreck.

The opening words say:

Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about.

Those with any questions about the April 29 session can direct them to Robert McLean at 0400 502 199 or Cheryl Hammer at the GV Community Fund at 1300 651 224.