Together with the Center for the Environment, the Honors Program sponsored by an April 4 visit by environmentalist and author, Bill McKibben. McKibben spoke and answered questions in HP101, in which the students had read his book, Enough. That evening he gave a public lecture in a packed CAMP 177 and held a book signing. McKibben’s 1989 book The End of Nature, often cited as a classic work on the environment, has been published in 20 languages. In Enough, McKibben explores the ethical concerns associated with developments in genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics.

In his public lecture, McKibben spoke about the certainty of global warming and its likely effects on life as we know it. As an antidote to some of the deleterious effects, he argued for rethinking of community, what it means to live in communities. Interestingly, he cited data that suggested Americans satisfaction with their lives peaked in 1956 and has been gradually declining ever since. Since average American have three times more “stuff” in their lives now, he raised questions about the relationship between consumption and happiness.

We hope to sponsor more such lectures in the future, ideally, at least one a year with a speaker of McKibben’s stature. Contributing to the intellectual life of the campus has long been a mission given to the Honors Program, and, like many of the other assignments given us, it is a tough one to fulfill.

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