Tom Wessels to speak on The Myth of Progress: Toward a Sustainable Future in five locations around Vermont

Montpelier, Vermont—Over the last 3 billion years nature’s progress has created a world rich in diversity, an immense variety of species and habitats, complex systems to support life on land and in the water, and the provision of everything we need for human comfort and well-being. In a perceptive new book that unearths nature’s laws of sustainability, author Tom Wessels asks the reader to consider the progress of human society. Are we testing the resilience of nature’s systems and challenging the very laws of sustainability?

The Nature Conservancy and Vermont Earth Institute are collaborating to offer a lecture and discussion series in five towns around Vermont based on Wessels’ new book, The Myth of Progress: Toward a Sustainable Future.

With a scientist’s view of the world, characteristic clarity, and a rare ability to communicate the essence of complex scientific topics, Wessels argues that the laws of sustainability have been disregarded since the eighteenth century. He skillfully reveals the workings of the natural world and engages his audience in a stimulating dialogue about nature’s laws of sustainability and their application to economics and natural resource use.

The Nature Conservancy, a national non-profit organization that has been working to conserve forest, wetland and freshwater habitats and their natural processes in Vermont since 1960, and Vermont Earth Institute, dedicated to creating environmental awareness and reducing resource consumption, have joined together to host discussions with Tom Wessels.

“Using nature’s laws as a guide for human systems could help protect the quality of human life, not just the diversity of life on earth,” commented Bob Klein, executive director of The Nature Conservancy’s Vermont chapter. “The Conservancy’s scientific approach to conservation considers not just the species within a particular forest community or wetland, but also the natural processes needed to sustain life over the long term. This approach leads us to conserve buffers along stream banks, to protect wildlife travel corridors and to restore natural communities with native plants.”

“Vermont Earth Institute’s approach of bringing people together for its discussion groups, eco-parties and Sustainable Living Networks,” says executive director Barbara Duncan, “is building an informed, engaged, and motivated network of people who are increasing community environmental stewardship. We’re delighted to join with The Nature Conservancy in giving people the opportunity to engage in conversation with Tom Wessels, a first-rate naturalist and a perceptive, clear thinker.”

Tom is a professor of ecology and founding director of the masters degree program in conservation biology at Antioch University New England, Keene, New Hampshire. He is former chair of the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation which fosters environmental leadership through graduate fellowships and organizational grants. He has conducted workshops on the natural history of landscapes throughout the United States for more than 25 years. When not traveling or teaching, Tom spends his time with his family in Westminster, Vermont, exploring the woods around their home.

Tom Wessels is author of Reading the Forested Landscape: A Natural History of New England and The Granite Landscape: A Natural History of America's Mountain Domes, from Acadia to Yosemite. His most recent work, The Myth of Progress: Toward a Sustainable Future, will be released by University Press of New England in September.

The lecture series includes:
* October 3rd in Manchester, Lincoln Family Home at Hildene, 5:30-7:30 pm
* October 8th in Shelburne, Shelburne Farms Coach Barn, 2-4 pm
* October 10th in Montpelier, Noble Hall, Vermont College, 5:30-7:30 pm
* October 24th in Brattleboro, Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, 5:30-7:30 pm
* November 5th in Middlebury, Congregational Church, 2-4 pm

The program is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served. For more information or to reserve your seat, call (802) 229-4425 or visit us online at www.nature.org/vermont and www.vtearthinstitute.org.