The Ohio State University at Marion welcomes author and activist Harvey Wasserman to the Marion campus, Monday, May 19, 12 noon, in Maynard Hall’s Guthery Community Room. Wasserman will present the 36th Annual Norman Thomas Memorial Lecture, “Getting to Solartopia and a Green-Powered Earth.”

Wasserman will discuss the world's energy crisis and how it can be solved by a total conversion to a "Solartopian" economy based entirely on green power and efficiency.

According to Wasserman, the attempt to revive nuclear power is a catastrophic mistake in terms of economy, ecology, and the threat of terrorism.

“We can have a global system that operates in harmony with the Earth, that creates jobs, security, and a bright future by eliminating King CONG (Coal, Oil, Nukes, & Gas) and remakes our technological base,” he explained.

“What it will take is vision, commitment, and the understanding that community-owned wind and solar power are the vehicles by which humankind can attain sustainability on this planet,” added Wasserman.

Harvey Wasserman has been a leader in the movement for safe, renewable energy for more than 30 years. In 1973, he helped coin the phrase "no nukes" and helped lead a movement that has shut scores of atomic power plants, leading to billions of dollars invested in solar, wind, and other renewable developments. He is author or co-author of a dozen books covering U.S. History, energy, the environment, and issues of election protection.

Wasserman writes a regular column for the www.freepress.org web site and the Columbus Free Press. He teaches history at Columbus State and Capital University. He has served as senior advisor to Greenpeace U.S.A. and the Nuclear Information & Resource Service.

In the fall of 2007, he worked with musicians Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, and Graham Nash in a successful campaign to cancel $50 billion in proposed federal subsidies for building new atomic reactors. He edits the www.nukefree.org web site and over the years has written for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Time Magazine, and many more publications worldwide. He holds a Masters Degree in History from the University of Chicago and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Michigan, where he was a senior editor of the Michigan Daily.

Wasserman lives and writes in central Ohio. He is a plaintiff in the landmark King-Lincoln Civil Rights lawsuit, which has helped expose the massive irregularities that accompanied the 2004 presidential election. In 1994, he spoke to 350,000 semi-conscious rock fans at the Woodstock II Music Festival.

Ohio State Marion has hosted a Norman Thomas Lecture annually since 1972, bringing in a speaker to discuss a topic related to Thomas’s ideals. Norman Thomas, a Marion native, was a tireless advocate of pacifism, civil rights, socialism, anti-Communism, and civil liberties. Thomas, a theologian, was the United States presidential candidate on the Social Party ticket six times between 1928 and 1948. By the time he died in 1968, both major political parties had adopted many of the ideas he proposed.

The Norman Thomas lecture is free and open to the public. A seminar luncheon will follow the presentation.