Rsa Events

There’s no scientific impediment - even with present knowledge - to achieving a sustainable world in this century. We live under the shadow of new hazards - but these can be minimized by reprioritizing the thrust of the world’s technological effort - and optimizing the educational system and the institutions where research is done.   Astronomer Royal Martin Rees has spent a lifetime exploring science’s most profound questions, and advocating for its place in our common culture, at the heart of our democracy and decision-making.At the RSA, he insists that we can be technological optimists, despite the pessimism engendered by intractable politics and sociology.  Environmental degradation, unchecked climate change, and unintended consequences of advanced technology could trigger serious, even catastrophic, setbacks to our society, he warns – and our world is so interconnected that a collapse - societal or ecological - would be a truly global catastrophe. So it’s ever more crucial to ensure that science is deploy