What Went Wrong in the 1970s in the USA?: A Discussion with Bill McKibben

Summary

In this episode of How To Be Wrong we talk with author, educator, and environmentalist Bill McKibben, founder of Third Act, an organization focused on bringing together people over 60 for action on climate and justice, and also 350.org, a global grassroots climate campaign. Bill’s work regularly appears in periodicals such as Rolling Stone and The New Yorker, and he has written numerous books, the most recent being The Flag, The Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at His Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened, published by Holt in 2022. Our conversation explores what went wrong in the 1970s in the US, ideas about intellectual humility, and the role people over 60 can play in addressing problems in our society.

John Kaag is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at UMass Lowell and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. John W. Traphagan, Ph.D. is Professor and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is also a professor in the Program in Human Dimensions of Organizations.

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John Traphagan

J. W. Traphagan, Ph.D. teaches at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, the University of Pennsylvania, and is Visiting Research Scholar in the Interplanetary Initiative at Arizona State University. He is Professor Emeritus in the Program in Human Dimensions of Organizations at the University of Texas at Austin.

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