Words Worth Books Presents...

If you're in the area, Words Worth Books is hosting an evening of climate-changing ideas with authors, Thomas Homer Dixon and Colin Ellard Tuesday, June 2nd at 7:30 at the Waterloo Entertainment Center. (24 King North)

I haven't read either book yet, but I might try Where Am I? this weekend. I couldn't get through The Ingenuity Gap, even though it won awards, so Carbon Shift is my second choice.


Here's their blurb:

The twin crises of climate change and peaking oil production are converging on us. We need informed and decisive policies, clear-sighted innovation, and a lucid understanding of what is at stake so that our civilization is not toppled. We will need to know where we stand, and which direction we should start out in. These are the questions Carbon Shift (Hardcover $34.95) addresses. Thomas Homer-Dixon argues that the two problems are really one: a carbon problem. We depend on carbon energy to fuel our complex economies and societies, and at the same time this very carbon is fatally contaminating our atmosphere. To solve one of these problems will require solving the other at the same time. Carbon Shift brings together six of Canada’s world-class experts to investigate the question of where we stand now, and where we might be headed. Homer-Dixon was born in Victoria, B.C., and holds a Ph.D. in political science from MIT. He is currently the Chair of Global Systems at the Balsillie School of International Affairs at the University of Waterloo. His first book, The Ingenuity Gap won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction

How do you get from here to there? Psychologist Colin Ellard demonstrates that navigating through space is utterly fascinating in Where Am I? (Hardcover $32.95). Beginning with the neurological and muscular coordination involved in the simple act of reaching for an object, he then investigates our interaction with space--how near and distant landmarks are used differently in navigation. From the complex behavior of insects to the epic journeys of sea turtles, to the subtle knowledge of the environment demonstrated by navigators such as the Inuit to the conceptual worlds of cyberspace, Where Am I?, reveals just how deeply our unique relationship with space defines what it means to be human. But Ellard also takes his argument a step further to show that the uniquely human ability to visualize and partition space has led to an increasing disconnection from the natural world. Ellard is an experimental psychologist at the University of Waterloo, the director of its Research Laboratory for Immersive Virtual Environments and an international expert in the psychology of navigation. The results of his research in the areas of animal behaviour, cognitive mapping, human navigation and neuroscience have been published in scientific journals for more than 20 years.

We hope that you can attend on Tuesday June 2nd at 7:30pm at the Waterloo Entertainment Centre – 24 King St N between Erb and Dupont intersections. Tickets are $10 and are available in the bookstore and at the door. If you buy a copy of Carbon Shift or Where Am I? from Words Worth books before the event starts you will receive one free ticket. This will be a great night if you have any interest in our changing planet and how we relate to it.
See you there!