28 March 2005

Wildlife biologist to speak at Longwood on the threat of economic growth

Dr. Brian Czech, a wildlife biologist who is active in issues relating to ecological and economic sustainability, will speak Monday, April 11, at 7:30 p.m. in Longwood University's Wygal Auditorium on What They Don't Tell You About Economic Growth, and Why.

Dr. Czech will speak on how economic growth threatens the environment and national and international security. A reception and booksigning will follow the talk, the second of two Simkins Lectures this year.

A certified wildlife biologist with 15 years' public service, Dr. Czech is currently conservation biologist in the national office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in which his primary duty is developing policies, goals and objectives for the National Wildlife Refuge System. He also is an adjunct professor at Virginia Tech, founding president of the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy, and the author of Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train: Errant Economists, Shameful Spenders, and a Plan to Stop Them All, in which he calls for a "steady state revolution" to replace the national goal of economic growth with the goal of a steady state economy.

He is the co-author, with Paul R. Krausman, of The Endangered Species Act: History, Conservation Biology, and Public Policy. His Ph.D. dissertation (from the University of Arizona) was a policy analysis of this legislation.

Dr. Czech has led the effort to have professional societies adopt policy positions on economic growth and has had some success in getting the U.S. government to acknowledge a conflict between economic growth and wildlife conservation. Also due to his efforts, a plank of the Green Party in 2004 advocated a steady state economy.

"My talk will include a critique of conventional economics, an overview of ecological economics, and a political analysis of economic growth as a national goal," he said. The talk is co-sponsored by the Department of Natural Sciences.

The Simkins Lectures, given by prominent scholars, honor Dr. Francis Butler Simkins (1897-1966), who taught history at Longwood for almost 40 years and was an important scholar in Southern history.