the University's Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute's (SPERI) annual lecture which will be given by George Monbiot. The lecture will take place on Tuesday, 29 April 2014 at 6.00pm in the Octagon Centre, University of Sheffield, S10 2TQ.Each year SPERI organises a number of public events at the University, one of which is the annual lecture. The first of the series, given by the Rt Hon Ed Miliband in 2012, marked the launch of SPERI, and Robert Peston, BBC Business Editor, delivered the second lecture last year. We are delighted that George Monbiot, the writer and journalist, known for his environmental and political activism, has agreed to be our third guest in this series.The lecture is entitled 'The Pricing of Everything'. In his lecture George will address what he sees as a growing attempt to reduce political decisions of all kinds to a narrow, financial cost-benefit analysis. He will discuss the threat that he thinks this poses to democracy, considering such issues as privatisation and commodification, payments for ecosystem services, biodiversity offsets and claims by some government departments to have identified 'the true value' of nature and of time.??A He will explore the worrying ways by which core human values get shifted in the framing of political discourse.If you wish to attend please confirm your attendance by registering using the online booking system athttps://universityofsheffield.sym-online.com/registrationforms/speristd/For general enquiries about this event, other than bookings, the Events Team can be contacted via email at eventsteam@sheffield.ac.uk,alternatively, telephone 0114 222 8893/0114 222 1030.Information related to this message is available at http://speri.dept.shef.ac.uk/events/.
