Spring Creek Project

DJ Spooky: Book of Ice
May 5, 2014
In May, DJ Spooky, aka Paul D. Miller, performed in concert with OSU musicians Dana Reason and Michael Gamble. A composer, multimedia artist and author, DJ Spooky is known for his genre-bending art, vast catalog of music, and his work in environmental awareness and social justice. He is currently the executive editor of Origin Magazine, which focuses on the intersection of art, yoga and new ideas, the composer of the multimedia performance piece Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica, and author of Book of Ice, a multimedia, multidisciplinary study of Antarctica that contemplates climate change and humanity’s relationship with the natural world. The concert was co-sponsored with the OSU Music Department’s “Between the Cracks” series. In advance of his Corvallis appearance, Miller was writer-in-residence for the Long-Term Ecological Reflections program at the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest.
 

Transformation without Apocalypse Symposium
February 14-15, 2014
Humans will be living differently in the very near future, perhaps occasioned by catastrophes brought on by overpowering forces of greed and climatic disintegration. But it’s also conceivable that we will choose, by acts of imagination and collective will, to create new narratives of how to inhabit the planet. This will require a radical re-imagining of who we are in relation to the world and how we ought to live. We have to be doing everything possible to end dependence on fossil fuels, stop the privatization of water, seeds, and the very atmosphere, and arrest climate chaos. But that work will fare better if we have tangible visions of new / old ways to live that promise thriving without exhausting the Earth. Keynote speakers included Joanna Macy, Ursula K. LeGuin, Tim DeChristopher, Kim Stanley Robinson, Rob Nixon and others. 
 

350: The Most Important Number in the World
November 17, 2011
Called “the world’s best green journalist” by TIME magazine, Bill McKibben wrote the first general audience book on climate change, The End of Nature, which has been translated into 20 languages. A leading university scholar, environmental writer and organizer, McKibben has launched 350.org, a grassroots effort with a big goal: to change the world’s response to climate change by involving people from every nation in the fight against global warming. Click here to watch the video of McKibben’s lecture.

Spring Creek Cafe: What Are Our Obligations to Future Generations?
February 25, 2010
Modeled on the popular Socrates Cafés, Spring Creek Cafés invite people to come together in an informal setting to participate in thoughtful, guided discussion on topics of deep human importance. In this discussion philosophers Michael Nelson and Kathleen Dean Moore, writer Brian Doyle, and singer/songwriter Libby Roderick addressed the questions: Do we have any obligations to the future? Why should we sacrifice now to help people who don’t even exist yet? What’s wrong with taking what we need from the Earth?

The Columbia River Quorum: Bringing Science and Moral Imagination Together to Communicate about Climate Destabilization
March 5-8, 2009
Sixteen environmental scientists, social scientists, philosophers, communications experts, and creative writers explored the question: Can we do a better, more effective job of alerting the public to both the physical, cultural dangers of environmental degradation, and our moral responsibilities to the future by combining the power of scientific information with the moral values that are embedded in a culture’s literature and worldviews? The three-day gathering was co-sponsored with the US Forest Service. (See participant list with bios.)

Changing Climates on Campuses
February 24, 2009
SueEllen Campbell, professor of English at Colorado State University, is co-director of Changing Climates @ Colorado State University. Campbell discussed Colorado State University's innovative, cross-disciplinary education initiative, “Changing Climates @ CSU,” and how two English professors have hooked up with atmospheric scientists, ecologists, political scientists, and many others to raise the visibility of the climate problem on a land-grant university campus--and to bring together many different ways of understanding and tackling it.

What Are Our Obligations to Future Generations?
January 25, 2007
What we do today will determine the opportunities and lives of people not yet born. During this panel interview, four panelists posed questions to David Orr, Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies at Oberlin College: Charlie Tomlinson, Mayor of Corvallis; Courtney Campbell, Chair of the Department of Philosophy, OSU; Cristina Eisenberg, graduate student, OSU College of Forestry; and Kathleen Dean Moore, OSU philosophy professor. Co-sponsored by the Starker Lectures in the OSU College of Forestry.