2010-2011 PROGRAM
SOLD OUT
Course Fee: Three Lectures for $15
September 10, 2010
The End of Food?
Thomas Pawlick
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The nutritional value of supermarket food has been decreasing in recent decades while the toxic ingredients have been multiplying because of the methods employed by corporate factory farms. Corporate food now dominates the North American marketplace, whereas family farms have been driven almost to extinction. This lecture will show how this trend can be reversed.
Thomas Pawlick is an award-winning science journalist who has authored several books including The End of Food. He has lectured at Carleton University, University of Detroit, and University of Regina. Currently, he lives north of Belleville where he farms organically.
September 17, 2010
Wild Places, Wild Hearts:
Nomads of the Himalaya
Allen Smutylo
This lecture will focus on some of the Tibetan Buddhist tribes (a traditional, textile-based culture, dependent on yaks, sheep and goats) that live in the Himalaya, in one of the harshest environments on earth. Through artwork, photos and story-telling, Smutylo will describe his seven-year association with the nomads, including how climate change is threatening their survival.
Allen Smutylo is an honour graduate of the Ontario College of Art and has been a professional artist for 40 years. Both his artwork and his book, Wild Places Wild Hearts, have garnered international acclaim and awards.
September 24, 2010
Losing the Buzz:
The Disappearance of Bees & Why it Matters
Laurence Packer
Bees are responsible for up to one-third of our food supply. The collapse of honeybee colonies is of great concern, but other bee species (about 20,000 worldwide) are also in trouble. This lecture will survey the morphological, behavioural and ecological diversity of bees. Dr. Packer will argue that bees are perhaps the best choice for monitoring the state of the environment and make suggestions for constructing more bee-friendly gardens.
Laurence Packer is Professor of Biology at York University and runs the largest wild bee research lab in the world. He is a member of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada and author of Keeping the Bees.
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SOLD OUT
Music that Changed the World
Robert Harris
Oct. 15, 22, 29, Nov. 5, 2010
Course Fee: $20
This program is based on Mr. Harris' highly acclaimed series, Twenty Pieces of Music that Changed the World. Music, as well as entertaining us, influences us emotionally in such a powerful way, and stands for so many different values, that occasionally a piece of music has the power to change the manner in which we understand and see the world. There have been many such pieces, from Gregorian chant to We Shall Overcome, and this course will discuss a selection of these pieces, explain their history, and discuss their world-changing aspects.
| Oct. 15: |
Music as a Social Force |
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Two pieces of popular music that changed the way North Americans and the world at large thought about their society and their relationships within those societies.
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| Oct. 22: |
Music as a Political Force |
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Two pieces of music from the world of classical music, written almost two centuries apart, that share the similarity of lighting the fires that ended in social revolution and world-changing political events.
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| Oct. 29: |
Music that Changed Society &Technology |
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Two relatively primitive recordings, made only a few years apart in the first decades of the twentieth century that changed that century forever, and had an impact equally on music, society and technology that would have shocked the artists who made the records.
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| Nov. 5: |
Music as a Defining Force |
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Two compositions from the world of pop music that both demonstrate the enormous power that music has come to have in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries as a force in society, a means by which millions of people define themselves and the world around them.
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Robert Harris has been a writer and broadcaster for thirty years, primarily with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He has written on music for The Globe and Mail and The Toronto Star, as well as other publications, and hosted his own radio program on CBC Radio 2 from 2000-2008, I Hear Music. He’s the author of two books on music, What to Listen For In Mozart and What To Listen For In Beethoven, distributed by McClelland and Stewart. Currently, he is working on a major radio documentary series on the history of the great North American recording companies.
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Nuclear Energy and Technology
Jan. 14, 21, 28, Feb. 4, 11, 18, 2011
Course Fee: $30
This course will examine the structure of the atom and its remarkable properties that have led to the development of world-changing technologies from nuclear power to advanced medical therapies.
| Jan. 14: |
An Introduction to Atoms & Nuclear Energy
Peter Lang |
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This lecture answers the questions: What are atoms made of? What is nuclear energy? How does a nuclear power plant work? |
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| Jan. 21: |
Nuclear Safety
Dan Meneley |
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Is nuclear energy dangerous? What is being done to reduce the risks of nuclear energy? Can terrorists make a bomb out of nuclear waste? What measures are employed to ensure nuclear energy remains safe? |
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| Jan. 28: |
Nuclear Fuel Cycles
Jay Harris |
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What is nuclear fuel, where does it come from and do we have enough for a sustainable future? What is uranium enrichment and what is it for? What is nuclear waste and is there a solution? Is uranium the only nuclear fuel? |
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| Feb. 4: |
Radioactivity and Radiation
Doug Boreham |
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What is ionizing radiation? What are the biological effects of radiation: How do we use radiation to detect and treat disease? Radiation doses: How much do we naturally receive and how much is too much? |
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| Feb. 11: |
Splitting Atoms – Canadian Style
Jeremy Whitlock |
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How did Canada get into the nuclear reactor business? How much nuclear power is produced in Ontario/Canada? How is a CANDU reactor different from other reactors? Is it responsible for Canada to sell CANDU reactors abroad? Do we really need nuclear energy in a country with the energy resources of Canada? |
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| Feb. 18: |
Nuclear Technology for Better Living
Peter Lang |
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This lecture tours the many industrial, medical, agricultural and scientific uses of nuclear technology and examines how they help make our lives better, safer and healthier. We finish with a brief look into the nuclear future.
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Peter Lang is a member of GTLLI who recently spoke at our AGM on Safe Flight in his capacity as an Air Canada Captain. He is also a long-standing volunteer on the Council of the Canadian Nuclear Society and is currently co-chair of the Education and Communications Committee, regularly conducting workshops on radioactivity and radiation for high school physics teachers.
Dan Meneley has a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering with a specialty in Reactor Physics. He has taught courses in nuclear plant safety design and reactor safety and is a past- President of the Canadian Nuclear Society. In 2006, he co-presented a paper, entitled Nuclear Fission Energy is Inexhaustible, to the Proceedings of the Climate Change Technology Conference, Engineering Institute of Canada.
Jay Harris is a Nuclear Operator in fuel handling at the Bruce Power Nuclear Generating Station. He is a graduate of the reactor technology courses of three international designs of commercial power reactor, and is an active member of the Canadian Nuclear Society and Bruce Power's Native Circle. He was previously a regular member of the RCMP and a technician in the Canadian Air Force.
Doug Boreham has a Ph.D. in Radiation Biology from the University of Ottawa. He has worked as a full-time scientist in radiation biology at Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. Currently, he is a professor in the Department of Medical Physics and Applied Radiation Sciences at McMaster University and Acting Principal Scientist at Bruce Power.
Jeremy Whitlock, with a Ph.D. in Engineering Physics, is a past President and Fellow of the Canadian Nuclear Society. He is a reactor physicist at the Chalk River Laboratories of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. and currently the Manager of Non-Proliferation and Safeguards.
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SOLD OUT
Changing World Order (Part II)
China and India
Bernie Frolic - China
Arthur Rubinoff - India
Mar. 25, Apr. 1, 8, 15, 29 May 6, 13, 2011
Course Fee: $35
| Mar. 25: |
China (geopolitical, historical & cultural issues) |
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China’s size, large population, Confucian heritage, relations with the outside world before 1949, Mao Zedong and the Communist Revolution, building socialism in China, the crisis of Chinese communism. |
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| Apr. 1: |
India (geopolitical, historical & cultural issues) |
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British colonialism, population issues, food shortages, the caste system, the impact of modernization on traditional society, the stresses of ethnicity and diversity. |
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| Apr. 8: |
China’s Economic Development Model |
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Export-led growth, rural and urban economies, doing business in China, migrant labour, one-child policy, youth, aging, social networks, foreigners in China, cultural and ethnic policies. |
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| Apr. 15: |
India’s Development Model |
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From Soviet-style planning, the license raj, a closed economy, and the Hindu rate-of-growth to liberalization. |
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| Apr. 29: |
Political Change in China |
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The Chinese political system, the Communist Party, civil society and human rights, the role of religion, the internet revolution, prospects for democracy. |
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| May 6: |
India’s Fragmented Political System |
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From one party dominance to the emergence of regional and caste-based politics; from the decline of the founding Congress party to the challenge of the communal-oriented Bharatiya Janata Party. |
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| May 13: |
China/India: Two models of political and economic development. |
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China and India as regional and global powers; Sino-Indian relations; from nonalignment to virtual alignment; Canada’s relations with each country; China and India in 2030. |
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Bernie Frolic is Professor Emeritus, York University, Senior Researcher at the Munk Centre, University of Toronto and Visiting Professor at the Beijing Foreign Studies University. He is an expert on China.
Arthur Rubinoff is Professor of Political Science and South Asian Studies at the University of Toronto. He is a frequent commentator for the CBC and CTV and has written for the Financial Post, The Globe and Mail, India Abroad, and the Toronto Star. He is an expert on India.
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