Shake-up moment in world affairs
December 2, 2022
11:30 a.m.
Zoom
Click to register for this event
NOTE: The in-person lunch and lecture at Birch Bay Village is now FULL. However, you may still register for the Zoom presentation which begins at noon. When you register you may also choose to join the waiting list for the in-person lunch.
Note that masks are required at the in-person event except while eating.
World power relations and the global economy are changing fast. Governments are in trouble everywhere. Climate change hangs over the future. Fear and foreboding thrive. Are democracy and human rights a quaint ideology of bygone times, trampled by a rising phalanx of dictators? Does Russia’s war in Ukraine mark a new era of conquest and imperialism? Will nationalism snap the global supply chains that send us clothes, cellphones, can openers, and cars, but also enrich a few at the expense of the many? Will drought and flood send waves of climate refugees fleeing across borders? As governments dither on climate change, must we choose between destroying the planet and turning off the heat and the lights?
Much of this fashionable pessimism is exaggerated. I respectfully disagree with Chicken Little. We will try to consider, with data and evidence and historical common sense, what is happening and may occur, and will try to provoke some optimism and some discussion.
The Zoom presentation begins at noon. If you register for the online talk, you will receive the link the day before. There is no charge for the Zoom presentation.
The luncheon at Birch Bay Village in Hulls Cove, begins at 11:30 and costs $15, payable by cash or check at the door; the lecture is from noon to 1:00.
Seth Singleton studied Russian history at Harvard and political science at Yale. He has taught international relations since the 1960s, most recently at the University of Maine. He has been academic dean in universities in the US and overseas, and has lived in Tanzania, Russia, Ecuador, and Vietnam. He lives in Hall Quarry on MDI.
Click to register for this event, or email learn@acadiaseniorcollege.org.
