A 13-week lecture series on global challenges launches Tuesday, Sept. 15, at the Nassau County Council on Aging in Fernandina Beach, with seats for $5 a session.
The Critical Issues series runs every Tuesday at 3 p.m. through Dec. 15 at the Janice Ancrum Senior Life Center, 1901 Island Walk Way. The room holds 50 to 55 people, and reservations are required through the Council on Aging's website.
Richard Scribner, a physicist who served as founding director of a counter-terrorism research institute at Dartmouth, facilitates the planning team. He and a group of volunteer presenters winnowed 20 to 30 topic ideas down to 13 sessions organized around the theme "Our Future: Challenges and Opportunities."
The series grew out of the spring Great Decisions program, which follows a national curriculum set by the Foreign Policy Institute and is offered by about 200 organizations across the country. Critical Issues is different. Presenters choose their own topics and develop their own material, according to the Fernandina Observer, which first previewed the series.
When Fernandina Observer columnist Linda Hart Green joked that the season's two guiding questions, "Do we know who we are?" and "Do we know where we're going?", had an obvious theological answer of "No," Scribner said "the team came up with pretty much the same answer."
They pressed forward anyway.
Robert Weintraub, a longtime presenter whose journalism career spans the New York Times, the Atlanta Constitution and the Fernandina Beach News-Leader, opens the series Sept. 15 with a talk on the South China Sea. Other sessions cover AI and American power structures, rare-earth minerals, cryptocurrency, nuclear energy and climate change.
One session hits especially close to home. On Oct. 20, presenter Paul Pierson will examine Nassau County's moratorium on data centers, developer interest and the choices local leaders face.
Each session ends with a 30- to 40-minute question-and-answer period. Residents interested in becoming a presenter can contact Scribner at [email protected].
Upcoming Critical Issues dates:
- Tuesday, Sept. 15 — "The South China Sea," Robert Weintraub
- Tuesday, Sept. 22 — "AI and the Disruption of American Power Structures," Paul Pierson
- Sept. 29 — "Our Perceptions of Global Progress," Brian Dieffenbach
- Oct. 6 — "Rare-earth Elements and Critical Minerals," Greg Doyle
- Oct. 13 — "Advanced Nuclear Electric Generating Plants," Tom Polito
- Oct. 20 — "The Data Center Debate," Paul Pierson
- Oct. 27 — "From Drought to Dinner Tables," Peter Adams
- Nov. 3 — "The Future of Cryptocurrency," Jack Corgel
- Nov. 10 — "Missed Opportunities: When Diplomacy Failed," Nicholas Kuchova
- Nov. 17 — "EU and Ukraine: Impact of the War on Iran," Tom Smith
- Dec. 1 — "Public Health Preparedness," Jackie Dorst
- Dec. 8 — "Examining American Education," Ruth Watkins
- Dec. 15 — "Coping with Climate Change Impacts," Richard Scribner
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