Saturday 20 March 2021: 11.00 – 12.30  A Hexham debate run as part of a series organised by local Quakers.

The Future of Humanity Depends on the Size of our Population.
Simon Beard, Academic Programme Manager and Senior Research Associate in the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, Cambridge University

For several hundred thousand years Homo Sapiens was a perfectly successful species. We exploited our own evolutionary niche within thriving ecosystems. With the advent of language, agriculture, cities and other technologies, human numbers began to increase rapidly, but at significant cost to our health, wellbeing and biosphere. In the 21st century we are reaching a point where this process has become totally unsustainable. It is time for us to choose: can we find a way to once more live within our ecological limits, or will we have to transcend the very notion of a biological species?

Simon Beard is Academic Programme Manager and Senior Research Associate in the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, and a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. He has a PhD in philosophy and has twice stood as a parliamentary candidate for the Liberal Democrats. Simon is a Cambridge Quaker He is also an associate tutor at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre.

30-45 minutes presentation followed by questions and discussion. To attend you subscribe via a free mailing list. Further details will be sent to QCOP members nearer the time.