Deep Economy

GAMBIER, Ohio (April 3, 2007) Influential author and environmentalist Bill McKibben has been warning about the dangers of climate change for nearly twenty years. On Monday, April 9, at 7:30 p.m., McKibben will discuss "Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future" in Higley Auditorium.

McKibben argues that the key to surviving global warming may be found in the concept of "deep economy," the antithesis of the current global economy. A deep economy, McKibben explains, would focus on using more people, not fewer, to aim for quality rather than quantity in the production of goods. The ultimate goal would be long-term viability, not immediate payoffs. Suppliers and consumers would be geographically connected, not half a world apart.

"The communities we need to build in order to slow down global warming are the same kind of communities that are going to be resilient and durable enough to help adapt to that which we can't prevent," McKibben explains. "In the not very distant future, having neighbors is going to be more important than having belongings. Membership in a community is going to become important once again both psychologically and physically in the way that it's been for most of human history."

In 1989, McKibben published The End of Nature, a compilation of pieces written for the New Yorker in which he addressed, for the general public, the then-new topic of global warming. His newest book, Deep Economy, appeared just last month.

Scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College, McKibben is a past recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Lannan Prize in Nonfiction Writing.