Moral Implications of Climate Change to be Discussed at Town Hall Meeting Nov. 14

Climate change conversation and discussion will take a fresh turn when editors of a new book highlight a side of the global warming challenge that has so far received little attention – the moral implications – at a town hall meeting with Northern Colorado residents. Changing Climates @ CSU is a sponsor of the meeting, which is free and open to the public.

Kathleen Dean Moore, distinguished professor of philosophy at Oregon State University, and Michael P. Nelson, professor of environmental ethics at Michigan State University, will host the Moral Ground Town Hall meeting at 1:30 p.m. Nov. 14 at First United Methodist Church, 1005 Stover St. in Fort Collins.

Moore and Nelson are editors of “Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril,” which brings together the testimony of more than 80 visionaries – theologians and religious leaders, naturalists, scientists, elected officials, business leaders, activists and writers – to present a call to honor our individual and collective moral responsibilities to the planet.

“We are called to do far more than change out our light bulbs,” Moore said. “Taking what we need for our comfortable lives and leaving a degraded and dangerously destabilized world for our children is not worthy of us as moral beings. We owe it to the future to live our lives in ways that embody our deepest values.”

The program will include readings, stories, philosophical adventures and opportunities for audience participation.

“Why is it that, despite increasing scientific consensus about human-caused global warming, fewer Americans, and our political and other leaders, seem willing to act on the challenge? Moore and Nelson’s exciting new book argues that there is a missing spiritual or value-laden link between our recognition of the problem and our willingness to do something about it,” said John Calderazzo, CSU English professor and co-director of Changing Climates @ CSU.

Katie McShane, assistant professor of philosophy at CSU, and Alison Hawthorne Deming, professor of creative writing at the University of Arizona, will also participate in the town hall meeting. Holmes Rolston III, a CSU Distinguished Professor and philosophy professor emeritus, established the field of environmental ethics and will be a special guest.

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu wrote the foreword of “Moral Ground.” Among the contributors are Wendell Berry, Marcus J. Borg, Thomas L. Friedman, Barbara Kingsolver, the Dalai Lama, Wangari Maathai, Sallie McFague, Bill McKibben, N. Scott Momaday, Seyyed Hossein Nasir, Barack Obama, Pope John Paul II, Tri Robinson, George “Tink” Tinker and Terry Tempest Williams.

Moore and Nelson will sign copies of the book, which will be available for purchase at the event. The editors have pledged to donate any proceeds from the book to climate action.

Event sponsors are Changing Climates @ CSU, Northern Colorado Faith Library, Adult Faith Formation at First United Methodist Church and Trinity University Press.

For more information, call (970) 226-4016.

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