A renowned thinker and writer will present a prestigious annual Lancaster University lecture.

Jeremy Rifkin will deliver the John Urry Lecture this month, presenting his latest book, Planet Aqua: Rethinking our Home in the Universe, an exploration of the current planetary crisis through a shift in perspective from one that prioritises earth/land to one that is centred on water/seas.

The book was one of Nature’s Science Books of the Year for 2024.

The University’s new Vice-Chancellor, Professor Steve Decent, will open the online event which will include a question-and-answer session with the speaker.

The John Urry Lecture, marking, this year, the 10^th anniversary of Distinguished Professor Urry’s death, will be delivered online on Thursday 26February from 4.30pm GMT (11.30am EST).

Organiser Professor David Tyfield, from the University’s Centre for Mobilities Research (CeMoRe), said: “It is especially pleasing and fitting for this major anniversary that the speaker this year is a thinker for whom John himself had the greatest respect, allowing us to celebrate the work of these two great thinkers together.

“Please join us online for this special event, and please circulate the invitation widely to anyone you think may be interested: staff, students or members of the public - wherever in the world, since the event is online.”

The annual John Urry Lecture was established following Professor Urry’s untimely death in March 2016 to commemorate the life and work of one of Lancaster University’s foremost researchers.

Professor Urry, a leading sociologist, was the co-founder of the CeMoRe (in 2003) and co-author of an article on the 'New Mobilities Paradigm' (2006) which laid the foundations for the future of mobilities scholarship worldwide.

In his lecture, Jeremy Rifkin will argue that we have misjudged the very nature of our existence, believing that we live on a land planet when, in reality, we live on a water planet, and now the Earth’s hydrosphere is taking us into a mass extinction as it searches for a new normal.

The great reset, says Rifkin, is rethinking the waters as a ‘life source’ rather than a ‘resource’ and learning how to adapt to the hydrosphere rather than adapting the hydrosphere to us.

Registration (which is free, but needed, to get the meeting URL) and further details can be found on the Try Booking website.