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Waterloo: Internationally renowned scholar Thomas Homer-Dixon will speak at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) on September 15, launching CIGI’s 2008-09 Signature Lecture Series.

 

In his lecture, “Crisis and Resilience: Why the future won’t be anything like the past and what we can do about it,” Dr. Homer-Dixon will discuss future global stresses and our capacity to exploit these opportunities for reform and renewal.

 

“In coming decades, Canada and the world face an unprecedented convergence of natural, social and economic stresses, such as worsening energy scarcity, changing climate, rapid population growth, mass migration and widening gaps between rich and poor,” says Dr. Homer-Dixon. “At some point, these stresses are likely to cause sharp, sudden shifts in world order, including breakdown of economies and political systems. This possibility is not, in itself, bad news. In times of crisis, people often show their greatest capacity to change their institutions and behaviors.”

 

Dr. Homer-Dixon holds the CIGI Chair of Global Systems at the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo . He has led several international research projects studying the links between environmental stress and violence in developing countries. Recently, his research has focused on threats to global security in the 21st century and on how societies adapt to complex economic, ecological and technological change.

 

His award-winning books include The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization, which won the 2006 National Business Book Award; the national bestselling The Ingenuity Gap, which won the Governor General's Literary Award for non-fiction in 2001; and Environment, Scarcity, and Violence which received the 2000 Lynton Caldwell Prize from the American Political Science Association.

 

“Crisis and Resilience: Why the future won’t be anything like the past and what we can do about it”

 

DATE:
Monday, September 15

 

7:00 – 9:00 pm

 

The Centre for International Governance Innovation

57 Erb Street West, Waterloo , Ontario

About Thomas Homer-Dixon 

Thomas Homer-Dixon holds the Centre for International Governance Innovation Chair of Global Systems at the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Canada, and is a Professor in the Centre for Environment and Business in the Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo.

He was born in Victoria, British Columbia and received his B.A. in political science from Carleton University in 1980 and his Ph.D. from MIT in international relations and defense and arms control policy in 1989. He then moved to the University of Toronto to lead several research projects studying the links between environmental stress and violence in developing countries. Recently, his research has focused on threats to global security in the 21st century and on how societies adapt to complex economic, ecological, and technological change.

His books include The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization (Knopf, Island Press, 2006), which won the 2006 National Business Book Award, The Ingenuity Gap (Knopf, 2000), which won the 2001 Governor General's Non-fiction Award, and Environment, Scarcity, and Violence (Princeton University Press, 1999), which won the Caldwell Prize of the American Political Science Association.

For more information, please see Dr. Homer-Dixon's web site at www.homerdixon.com, or you can contact him by email at tad@homerdixon.com.