Are the problems we are confronting as individuals, societies, and a species becoming more difficult? If so, can we solve them?

Thomas Homer-Dixon will address these questions by drawing on his research on social adaptation to complex change. He will show how and why our requirement for solutions to our complex problems is soaring, and he will explore cognitive, scientific, economic, and political factors that impede the delivery of solutions when and where we need them.

About Thomas Homer-Dixon
Thomas Homer-Dixon is Director of the Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto, and Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto.

He received his Ph.D. from MIT in international relations and defense and arms control policy in 1989. Recently, his research has focused on threats to global security in the 21st century and on how societies adapt to complex economic, ecological, and technological change.

His books include The Ingenuity Gap (Knopf, 2000), which won the 2001 Governor General´s Non-fiction Award, and Environment, Scarcity, and Violence (Princeton University Press, 1999).