Public Lecture
| Event Start Date: 23rd January 2018 | Event End Date: 23rd January 2018 | Event Venue: Bangalore |
The Indian Institute for Human Settlements will host a public lecture by Prof Dr Bert J M de Vries on 23 January 2018 from 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm. The lecture will be held at the IIHS Bengaluru City Campus.
Abstract
In this lecture, Prof Dr Bert de Vries reflects on the SDGs from various worldviews and related ethical positions. He will critically examine some features of the SDGs. For instance, the absence of a proper account of the necessary (sub)national governance structures and regimes required to direct economic growth in alignment with SDGs, and the inadequate manner in which planetary constraints, as already explored in the 1972 report Limits to Growth, are examined.
Against this background, the SDGs have to be judged as a typical product of Modernity. They are formulated within a Modernity bubble – or prison – that is characterised by a mixture of Enlightenment optimism about science and technology and belief in the universality of human rights. The SDGs thus may function as a new morality in the humanist tradition, almost as a new religious ideal. Prof Bert de Vries will evaluate this aspect in the broader context of worldviews and associated ethical positions.
Speaker Bio
Prof Dr Bert J M de Vries has a background in Theoretical Chemistry. He is co-founder and member of the Institute for Energy and Environment (IVEM) at the University of Groningen in The Netherlands, where he received his PhD on sustainable resource use. Since 1990 he has been a senior scientist at the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. Between 2003 and 2013 he has been Professor of Global Change and Energy at Utrecht University in The Netherlands.He has contributed to and published extensively on resource and in particular energy analysis, modelling and policy; climate and global change modelling; and (complex) systems modelling for sustainable development. He has been actively involved in modelling and scenario construction for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). At present, his interest and research is on worldviews and ethics in relation to sustainability and the connection between sustainable development and the financial system.
He has co-edited several books, including Perspectives on Global Change: The TARGETS Approach (1997, Cambridge University Press) and Mappae Mundi: Humans and their Habitats in a Long-Term Socio-Ecological Perspective (2002, Amsterdam University Press). He published the textbook Sustainability Science, based on ten years of teaching the course Sustainable Development – An Integrating Perspective (2013, Cambridge University Press).
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