Students learned more about the ever changing landscape on Monday night as the College of Letters and Sciences held their first lecture of the year on Oct. 3, at 7 p.m. in the Young Auditorium, with guest speaker Craig Childs.

Childs is an award-winning, New York Times best-selling author who has written more than a dozen books that explore the relationship between humans and the earth. In his lecture, “The Everending Earth or How the World is Always Ending,” Childs shared his journey from the oldest desert in the world to the Greenland Ice Sheet, in his desire to “uncover the workings of this planet.”

Childs took the audience through his adventures across the world as he explained issues of climate change. He shared pictures and videos of his travels through the Atacama desert, Hawaii and even an Iowa cornfield. Childs expressed an optimistic outlook on the future of the world.

“Even at the end of the world, there was life,” Childs said. 

Childs discussed his belief that the world will never end.

“The apocalypse is always going on, the end is a constant process, it’s not a moment, it’s not when everything is reduced to nothing,” Childs said. “It’s a process, it’s a pattern, and we’re in the pattern, we can still change the course of the future of our world.” 

Afterwards, Childs held a brief question and answer session.

The lecture was insightful for many students, including senior Karl Brandstaetter, who described the lecture as ‘a positive reflection on climate change and human ability to adapt and our moral responsibility to preserve the special places of this planet.’

The next guest lecturer will be Tim O’Brien on Nov. 7 at 7 p.m. in the Young Auditorium. The event is free to attend and everyone is welcome.