Webcast sponsored by Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by Common Energy UBC’s NOW (No Other World) Forum. Dr.George Hoberg specializes in environmental and natural resource policy and governance. He received a BS from UC Berkeley, and his PhD from MIT. A political scientist by training, Dr.Hoberg taught public policy and American politics at UBC for 13 years before joining the Faculty of Forestry full time in 2001.His research interests include energy policy, forest policy, and more generally the design of policies and institutions to promote sustainability. In this lecture, Dr.Hoberg speaks about his transformation from an academic to an activist, a transformation that was guided as the gravity of the climate crisis has become more apparent. As he tried to come to a deeper understanding about humanity’s failure to act yet on climate change, he came to an insight that transformed his stance: “When you consider the structure of the climate challenge as a public goods and public choice dilemma, you can see that if we are guided by short term material thinking we will simply be incapable of rising to the challenge of taking the concerted action sufficient to avoid dangerous climate change. The logic of the climate policy analyst is dominated by this economic rationality that can’t generate the necessary solutions. To envision a capacity to act you need to take a leap of faith that enough citizens and leaders are willing to act on moral, not economic grounds. You take climate action not because it is in your or your nation’s interests, but because it is the right thing to do.” He convinces us that we need to start acting that way ourselves. He can be followed on twitter @ghoberg or on his blog, http://greenpolicyprof.org/wordpress.
Relevant Books and Articles at UBC Library
Hoberg, G., Scholars Portal Books: Canadian Electronic Library, & Canadian Publishers Collection. (2002). Capacity for choice: Canada in a new North America. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. doi:10.3138/9781442672697 [Link]
Hoberg, G., British Columbia Government EBook Collection, & British Columbia. Ministry of Forests. (2002). Government’s response to public consultation report. Victoria, B.C.: Ministry of Forests. [Link]
Hoberg, G., & Canadian Public Policy Collection. (2011). Export question: Designing policy for British Columbia electricity trade. Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, University of Victoria. [Link]
Webcast sponsored by Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by Green College.This event will explore issues of practical wisdom and deliberation, including the problem of how, in the context of democratic deliberation and inclusive democracy, humans might attend to the needs and standpoints of nonhuman animals. On each panel, each speaker will speak for 15 minutes followed by 30 minutes of discussion.
Select Articles Available at UBC Library
Ormandy, E. (2010). The lifecycle of the farm pig. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, 13(3), 273-275. doi:10.1080/10888705.2010.483898. [Link]
Ormandy, E. H., & Schuppli, C. A. (2014). Public attitudes toward animal research: A review. Animals, 4(3), 391-408. doi:10.3390/ani4030391. [Link]
Ormandy, E., Dale, J., & Griffin, G. (2011). Genetic engineering of animals: Ethical issues, including welfare concerns. Canadian Veterinary Journal, 52(5), 544-550. [Link]
Ormandy, E., Dale, J., & Griffin, G. (2013). The use of genetically-engineered animals in science: Perspectives of canadian animal care committee members. Alternatives to Laboratory Animals, 41(2), 173-180.
Ormandy, E., Schuppli, C., & Weary, D. (2012). Factors affecting people’s acceptance of the use of zebrafish and mice in research. Alternatives to Laboratory Animals, 40(6), 321-333.
Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by Green College.
Robert Majzels is a novelist, playwright, poet and translator, born in Montréal, Québec, and is Associate Professor of English Literature at the University of Calgary. He has published four novels: Hellman’s Scrapbook, City of Forgetting, Apikoros Sleuth, and The Humbugs Diet. In 2007, he was awarded the Alcuin Society Prize for Excellence in Book Design for the limited edition of his book, Apikoros Sleuth. This Night the Kapo, an award-winning full-length play, was produced at the Berkley Street Theatre in Toronto, in March 2004. He was attributed the Governor General’s Award of Canada for his translation of France Daigle’s Just Fine in 2000. With Erín Moure, Robert has translated several books of poetry by Nicole Brossard, including Notebook of Roses & Civilization, for which they were nominated for the Governor General’s Award for Translation and the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2008. With Dr. Claire Huot, he has produced a series of translations of Chinese classical poetry into visual texts, which will appear in book form in 2011.
Erín Mouré writes mainly in English, albeit multilingually. She considers translation to be part of her practice, and has translated Nicole Brossard (with Robert Majzels), Galician poet Chus Pato, Chilean Andrés Ajens, as well as the famed modernist Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, among others. In her own most recent books, O Cadoiro and O Resplandor (both from Anansi), poetry becomes hybrid and even the author’s name and signature are altered and invented in the process of dealing with grief, with love, with language. Here, names of the poets blur, sexes are indeterminate, modern and ancient levels of language co-exist, the palimpsest is pockmarked, and we sometimes don’t know any more who sings to us: it must be the book.
Brossard, Nicole. (2007). Cahier de roses & de civilisation, English Notebook of roses and civilization. Translated by Rober]t Majzels and Erin Mouré. Toronto, Coach Book House. [Available at Koerner Library – PR9257.R586 C3413 2007]
Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and funded by the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies Distinguished Scholar in Residence Program, Green College, and the UBC Centre for the Study of Democratic Institution. Barry Schwartz is Dorwin Cartwright Professor of Social Theory and Social Action, Swarthmore College. Schwartz studies the link between economics and psychology, offering startling insights into modern life. Lately, working with Ken Sharpe, he’s studying wisdom This talk is part of a Series on Practical Wisdom organized by Maxwell Cameron, UBC Political Science and 2011 Wall Distinguished Professor.
Select Articles Available at UBC Library
Grant, A. M., & Schwartz, B. (2011). Too Much of a Good Thing The Challenge and Opportunity of the Inverted U. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6(1), 61-76. [Link]
Dar-Nimrod, I., Rawn, C. D., Lehman, D. R., & Schwartz, B. (2009). The maximization paradox: The costs of seeking alternatives. Personality and Individual Differences, 46(5), 631-635. [Link]
Schwartz, B. (2000). Self-determination: The tyranny of freedom. American psychologist, 55(1), 79. [Link]
Webcast sponsored by Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by Green College. Dr. Benjamin C. Amick III is scientific director and senior scientist at the Institute for Work & Health. He is also a professor of behavioral sciences and epidemiology in the School of Public Health af the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.
Amick completed his doctorial training at the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education, The Johns Hopkins University, School of Hygiene and Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland in 1986. Amick’s current research interests include the social epidemiology of work and health; labour markets and worksite intervention research; occupational health services; outcomes assessment and the measurement of work disability and productivity; ergonomics and musculoskeletal disorders; the prevention of work-related illness and injury; and social inequalities and social change.
Select Articles Available at UBC Library
Amick, B. C., Canadian Health Research Collection, Institute for Work & Health, & Canadian Electronic Library (Firm). (2011). Benchmarking organizational leading indicators for the prevention and management of injuries and illnesses final report. Institute for Work & Health.
Amick, B. C., & Canadian Health Research Collection. (2008). Systematic review of the role of occupational health and safety interventions in the prevention of upper extremity musculoskeletal symptoms, signs, disorders, injuries, claims and lost time. Institute for Work & Health.
Amick, B. C., & Canadian Health Research Collection. (2006). Interventions in health-care settings to protect musculoskeletal health: A systematic review: Full report. Institute for Work & Health.
Amick, B. C. (1995). Society and health. New York: Oxford University Press.
On April 9, 2011, Professor Lawrence Krauss’ gave a talk titled, “Life, the Universe, and Nothing: A Cosmic Mystery Story.” Krauss’ work has been primarily in theoretical (as opposed to experimental) physics, and he has published research on a great variety of topics within that field. Krauss is a renowned cosmologist and popularizer of modern science and director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University. Hailed by Scientific American as a rare public intellectual, he is the author of more than three hundred scientific publications and 8 books, including the bestselling The Physics of Star Trek, and the recipient of numerous international awards for his research and writing. He is an internationally known theoretical physicist with wide research interests, including the interface between elementary particle physics and cosmology, where his studies include the early universe, the nature of dark matter, general relativity and neutrino astrophysics.
His soon to be published book, A Universe From Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing is already garnering strong reviews. Exploring the scientific advances that provide insight into how the universe formed, Krauss ultimately tackles the age-old assumption that something cannot arise from nothing by arguing that not only can something arise from nothing, but something will always arise from nothing. One review of this book says:
Lawrence Krauss’s provocative answers to these and other timeless questions in a wildly popular lecture now on YouTube have attracted almost a million viewers. The last of these questions in particular has been at the center of religious and philosophical debates about the existence of God, and it’s the supposed counterargument to anyone who questions the need for God. As Krauss argues, scientists have, however, historically focused on other, more pressing issues—such as figuring out how the universe actually functions, which can ultimately help us to improve the quality of our lives.
– Amazon Book Review
Questions For Discussion:
One of the classic arguments for the existence of God is known as the “First Cause” argument. It works from the premise that in the universe every event is the effect of a cause. As a result, the events that caused today’s events must have had causes for themselves, and those causes in turn must have had their own causes, and so forth, creating a chain. Many religious proponents argue that First Cause is itself the strongest evidence for the existence of God. So do scientists, such as Stephen Hawking, who argue it is the laws of physics themselves brought the Universe into being, rather than God. What are your thoughts to this debate?
In what is now a classic debate, Christian apologist Dr. William Lane Craig recently debated Lawrence Krauss in North Carolina in an attempt to address the question: “Is there (sufficient) evidence for God? How does one try to prove their hypothesis against a belief? Is there evidence for God based on what we know about the universe?
In the past decade, there have been a number of best-selling books by proclaimed atheists and scientists regarding the existence of God. Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great), and Sam Harris (The End of Faith) all point out the flaws of religion and the harmful effects of it. Can religion be equated with God? Is religion the same as God?
One of the most prominent theologians of our time, Alister McGrath, once said “As a child I never had any interest in Christianity,’ he says. ‘I went through the motions of going to church with my parents but neither my heart nor my head was in it. It was while I was at the Methodist College, probably aged around 15 or 16, that I became an atheist – somebody who deliberately and intentionally does not believe in God and thinks that anyone who does believe in God is mentally deficient or seriously screwed up.” There are a number of famous theologians who had converted from atheism to being proponents of Christianity, such as C.S. Lewis. In your opinion, what does this say about religion, faith, and reason?
Agnosticism is the view that the existence of God is unknown or unknowable. Agnosticism is criticized from a variety of standpoints. Some religious thinkers see agnosticism as a limitation of the mind’s capacity. Some atheists criticize that agnosticism is indistinguishable from atheism. What are your thoughts about this issue? What do other world religions have to say about this argument?
What are some online webpages you think might be relevant to the topic of the science, the universe, and the question of God’s existence.
Based on a survey and interviews with scientists at more than 20 elite U.S. universities, Ecklund’s book argues that other scientists must step up to the table of dialogue and that American believers must embrace science again. Both science and religion are at stake if any less is done.
Universe or multiverse? edited by Bernard Carr [UBC Okangan Library QB981.U557 2007]
Recent developments in cosmology and particle physics, such as the string landscape picture, have led to the remarkable realization that our universe – rather than being unique – could be just one of many universes.
Cosmic beginnings and human ends: Where science and religion meet edited by Clifford N. Matthews, Roy Abraham Varghese [UBC Koerner Library BL241.C588 1995]
Science and religion meet in a fine series of statements by thinkers ranging from scientists to philosophers. This isn’t just a Christian collection: opinions range across and board and are based on a variety of beliefs; but all consider the basics of connections between science and religion; and all provide interesting reviews of human spiritual and scientific evolution.
Vancouver Institute lectures are free and open to the public. The Vancouver Institute was established in 1916 to serve as a liaison between “town and gown” in providing lectures of general public interest. For more information about the Vancouver Institute, please visit its homepage at http://vaninst.ca
Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by the Faculty of Education. In September 2012 the re-visioned teacher education (BEd) program will begin. The presenters of this seminar will discuss the ways their long-standing PBL curriculum will fit with the new CREATE curriculum.
Relevant Books and Articles at UBC Library
Zavalkoff, A. (2002). Teaching the teachers. Journal of Lesbian Studies, 6(3-4), 243. [Link]
Cramer, E. P., Ed. (2002). Addressing homophobia and heterosexism on college campuses. Harrington Park Press, The Haworth Press, Inc.
Hartley, P., Woods, A., Pill, M., & Taylor & Francis eBooks – CRKN. (2005). Enhancing teaching in higher education: New approaches for improving student learning. New York; London: Routledge. [Link]
Farr Darling, L., Erickson, G. L., & Clarke, A. (2007). Collective improvisation in a teacher education community (1. Aufl. ed.). Dordrecht: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-5668-0 [Link]
Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre in partnership with Woodward Library and Richmond Public Library. The Health Information Series is an ongoing public lecture series that take place in the Lower Mainland community. Dr. Roger Wong is Clinical Professor in the Division of Geriatric Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia (UBC), Assistant Dean of Postgraduate Medical Education of the UBC Faculty of Medicine, and Associate Program Director of the UBC Internal Medicine Residency Program. Dr. Wong is also Consultant Physician and Head of the Geriatric Consultation Program, Vancouver General Hospital. His clinical research focuses on hospital medicine in vulnerable older adults, including quality improvement in acute care geriatrics. He has received numerous awards of appreciation from the Alzheimer Society of British Columbia to recognize his advocacy work in the community.
UBC Library Resources
Sztramko, R., Chau, V., & Wong, R. Y. (2011). Adverse drug events and associated factors in heart failure therapy among the very elderly. Canadian geriatrics journal: CGJ, 14(4), 79. [Link]
Wong, R. Y. (2013). Improving Health Care Transitions for Older Adults Through the Lens of Quality Improvement. JAMDA. [Link]
Villanyi, D., Fok, M., & Wong, R. Y. (2011). Medication reconciliation: identifying medication discrepancies in acutely ill hospitalized older adults. The American journal of geriatric pharmacotherapy, 9(5), 339-344. [Link]
We have been featuring resources from Rare Books and Special Collections that relate to the place names used in the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre as room names. Sometimes we find it challenging to find a related resource; sometimes the challenge is in narrowing down our research!
Such is the case with Victoria. Victoria B.C., on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, is our province’s capital and hence the place of many events in the province’s history. Rare Books and Special Collections contains almost innumerable books, maps, documents, and photographs related to Victoria. However, to rare books enthusiasts, there is one (or two) events from Victoria’s history that are of particular note: the publication of the first book (or books) to be printed in British Columbia.
What is largely accepted to be the first book printed in B.C. is Order in council constituting the Supreme Court of Civil Justice of Vancouver Island and rules of practice and forms to be used therein, which basically amounted to a “rule book” for the Supreme Court in Victoria. It was printed at the Victoria Gazette in November 1858.
“Order in Council…”
The copy photographed above is particularly special: it was David Cameron‘s personal copy! David Cameron was the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia- in other words, not only did he own the book, he wrote the book too. This copy was given to us by Dr. Wallace Chung, on the occasion of the re-opening of theChung Collection in Spring 2008. David Cameron’s signature can be seen on the cover, and on the Act to provide for the Administration of Justice in Vancouver’s Island, tipped in the front:
David Cameron’s signature
So, first book printed in B.C.- straightforward story, right? There was some debate over the years regarding which came first: Order in Council or Alfred Waddington’s Fraser Mines Vindicated, or, the History of Four Months.:
“Fraser Mines Vindicated”
It may have had something to do with Waddington’s preface, describing itself as “the first book published on Vancouver Island.” However, even Waddington’s own fine print explains that, “When the above was written Judge Cameron’s Book of Practice had not yet appeared.”
“Fraser Mines Vindicated” preface
Apparently the Order in Council leapfrogged ahead of Fraser Mines by mere days. In Lowther’s A Bibliography of British Columbia, she explains that Order in Council “has the distinction of being the first book printed in the colony of Vancouver Island, coming off the press ahead of Waddington’s Fraser mines vindicated.”
In the Barber Centre, the Victoria Learning Theatre is room 182. This is a large lecture theatre and is often used for special events.
Victoria Learning Theatre, courtesy of UBC Library Communications
