Join us for an evening Lunchtime Lecture with Professor Will Steffen, from the Fenner School of Environment & Society at ANU. The topic of Will’s talk will be ‘The Anthropocene: Challenges of the Human Age’. Light lunch will be served at 12:00 pm. The talk will start at 12:30 pm.

About the Speaker:

Emeritus Professor Will Steffen

Will Steffen has a long history in international global change research, serving from 1998 to 2004 as Executive Director of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), based in Stockholm, Sweden, and before that as Executive Officer of IGBP’s Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems project.

Will was the Inaugural Director of the ANU Climate Change Institute, from 2008-2012.  Prior to that, he was Director of the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society. From 2004 to 2011 he served as science adviser to the Australian Government Department of Climate Change. He is currently a Climate Councillor with the Climate Institute, and from 2011 to 2013 was a Climate Commissioner on the Australian Government’s Climate Commission; Chair of the Antarctic Science Advisory Committee, Co-Director of the Canberra Urban and Regional Futures (CURF) initiative and Member of the ACT Climate Change Council.

Steffen’s interests span a broad range within the fields of sustainability and Earth System science, with an emphasis on the science of climate change, approaches to climate change adaptation in land systems, incorporation of human processes in Earth System modelling and analysis; and the history and future of the relationship between humans and the rest of nature.

About the facilitator:

Associate Professor Clive Pearson

Associate Professor Clive Pearson is a research fellow of the Public and Contextual Theology (PaCT) centre of Charles Sturt University. He was formerly Principal of United Theological College (North Parramatta) and, for a brief time, Head of the School of Theology, (CSU). He is a Fellow of the Center of Theological Inquiry (Princeton).

Clive is one of the three founding figures of the Global Network of Public Theology which embraces the practice of a public theology in 30 universities around the world. He is on the advisory editorial board of the International Journal of Public Theology and the Korean Presbyterian Journal of Theology. He was previously on similar boards for the journal Political Theology and Ecotheology. He was one of the series editors on cross-cultural theology published by Equinox Press (London).

Clive has been involved in the work of Affinity since its earliest days. He assisted in the establishment of the Centre for Islamic Sciences and Civilisation (CISAC) in Charles Sturt University. He oversaw the inclusion of ISRA / CISAC into the Global Network of Public Theology through its inclusion into PaCT. This is the first Muslim presence in the Global Network. He has collaborated in the writing of reports on Islamophobia and Halal certification.

Clive’s research lies in the area of systematic theology and climate change / the Anthropocene; the relationship between a systematic and contextual theology in situations of migration, diaspora and linguistic diversity; and, the relationship of the Christian faith to Islam. He has recently published a chapter on cultural minorities and the common good in The Brill Handbook of Public Theology (2017). Later this year Westminster John Knox Press will publish a major anthology on a Reformed practical theology and ethics involving scholars from the world – Imagining A Way, which he edited and held together with a seminal extended introduction.