PUBLIC TALK: The Price We Pay for Straight Line Thinking and the Battle for Beeliar

A public lecture by Carmen Lawrence, Director of the Centre for the Study of Social Change, School of Psychology, The University of Western Australia.

Too often planning decisions are made without reference to their human impact, except in the narrowest sense of projected economic outcomes. Straight line thinkers overlook the deep connections between people and place and are particularly blind to the effects on people and their communities of destroying natural environments, native animals and plants. The decision by the current state government to proceed with the long abandoned extension of Roe Highway and in the process to destroy the Beeliar wetlands, raze the Coolbellup bushlands and dissect communities into polluted enclaves, illustrates just how destructive such decisions can be.

In this lecture, Professor Lawrence will explore research which demonstrates the powerful effects of place and the natural environment on human well-being and conversely what happens when such environments are destroyed. Using illustrations from the campaign to halt the construction of Roe 8, she will also explore the genesis of a powerful community of interest and the many ways people have found to give expressions to their desire to protect people and place.