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CORVALLIS, Ore. – A prominent environmental author and scholar will be interviewed in a panel discussion at Oregon State University on Thursday, Jan. 25, exploring the topic “What Are Our Obligations to Future Generations?”

David Orr, a pioneer of environmental literacy in higher education, author of five books and a distinguished professor of environmental studies at Oberlin College, will be the featured speaker at the event, which will be from 2-3 p.m. in the Memorial Union, Journey Room. The discussion is free and open to the public.

Panelists posing questions to Orr include Charlie Tomlinson, mayor of Corvallis; Courtney Campbell, chair of the OSU Department of Philosophy; Cristina Eisenberg, OSU graduate student and president of the Graduate Student Association of the OSU College of Forestry; and Kathleen Dean Moore, OSU philosophy professor and author of “The Pine Island Paradox.”

The event is sponsored by the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature, and the Written Word; and the Starker Lectures in the OSU College of Forestry.

Orr and the panelists will explore such topics as the fossil fuels we burn or conserve; the toxins we choose, or choose not to introduce into the air and water, the natural resources we mine or steward, and the carelessness or creativity brought to important decisions that may affect future generations.

Orr is the author of five books, including “Earth in Mind” and “The Last Refuge: Patriotism, Politics, and the Environment,” and editor of The Campus and Environmental Responsibility.

Orr will also deliver a Starker Lecture, "To Ourselves and our Posterity: Climate Change and the Rights to Life, Liberty, and Property," at 4 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 25 in the CH2M-Hill Alumni Center, Cascade Ballroom 110.