Why energy conservation isn't working and the plight of sexually abused children will be the topics of two University Forum lectures at UNLV in September and October.

Herbert Inhaber, a senior risk assessment expert for UNLV's Harry Reid Center for Environmental Studies, will explore "Why Energy Conservation Fails" in his lecture Sept. 16.

According to Inhaber, energy conservation has been suggested as the remedy to the world's energy and electricity problems. However, he says he will show that energy conservation is not a cure. Instead, greater energy efficiency often has led to greater energy use, he says.

On Oct. 1, Sue William Silverman, an author and free-lance writer, will lead a presentation titled, "I Was a Domestic Prisoner of War," in which she will discuss the horrors of being a sexually abused child.

Silverman, who was sexually abused by her father when she was a child, will give a speech and a reading in which she will assert that crimes against children in their own homes must be acknowledged as human rights violations and opposed as diligently as the crimes committed against innocent hostages held in overseas prisons. She will be reading from her book, Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You.

Both lectures are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium of UNLV's Marjorie Barrick Museum of Natural History. All University Forum lectures are free and open to the public.

The University Forum lecture series is sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts and underwritten by the UNLV Foundation. Silverman's lecture is cosponsored by UNLV's English, sociology, and women's studies departments. For additional information on the series, call 895-3401.