FREE PUBLIC LECTURE WITH PETER HARPER FROM CENTRE FOR ALTERNATIVE TECHNOLOGY (CAT), UNITED KINGDOM

Responding to the threat of climate change, governments have set targets for reducing greenhouse gas by 60-80% over the next 40 years. Recent climate science suggests this is nowhere near enough. A 100% reduction in 20 years might be necessary. Is this remotely possible? How might it be done? What technologies would we need? How would we design a zero-carbon – modern - economy? What impact would it have on lifestyles – on food, travel, housing, infrastructure, employment, leisure? Would it be a nightmare? Does it offer opportunities for a revitalisation of society?

30 years of living investigation at the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) in Wales may provide the answers the world urgently needs. (www.cat.org.uk)

Peter Harper has been part of a team working on these questions at CAT. He can bring an unusual lifetime of experience to illuminating the vigorous debate around a new vision for ‘Zero Carbon Britain’ 2020. Peter Harper is Head of Research and Innovation at the Centre for Alternative Technology, where he has worked for 25 years, with periodic secondments to overseas universities. He was a pioneer of the alternative technology movement and has always tried to relate technological ‘hardware’ with social and personal ‘software’. His main interests have been in horticulture and low-carbon lifestyles. He runs his own home as an experimental ‘lifestyle lab’. He is mildly obsessed by compost.

6-8pm, 21 April 2008 at the Prince Philip Theatre, University of Melbourne. Please RSVP your attendance to Ferne Edwards at fedwards @unimelb.edu.au. More information will be published shortly.

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