SSU #1. Emergency stop: a call for radical inaction

Lecture #1 | Barnabas CALDER | emergency stop: a call for radical inaction

in EN

Barnabas Calder will argue that the built environment is the trace left behind by changing human energy systems. Once we have built it, it in turn locks us into patterns of energy use that are driving the climate emergency.  

Calder’s presentation will explore architectural history across humanity’s great energy shifts, going back 14,000 years to homes built by ancient hunter-gatherer people, on through the great monuments of the world’s agrarian empires, and through to fossil-fueled modernity, consumerism, and potential climate catastrophe.  

Tracing the past three centuries of construction in the industrialising world is a dizzying experience of soaring fossil fuel dependency and ever more extravagant energy consumption for making and running buildings and cities. Looking back further, or to the less industrialised world, provides inspiration and reassurance: we have lived at zero carbon in the past, and we can do it again.  

Can’t make it to the lecture in person? No worries! Tune in to our livestream or catch the replay.