Posted in Environment, Technology on Mar 28th, 2012 Comments
Ever wish you could hear about some more positive ideas on how to tackle climate change? Well, here is your chance. At this event on energy game changers organised by Intelligence² in partnership with Shell and the International Herald Tribune, we will put aside for a moment the gloomy predictions about climate armageddon and look into the exciting solutions being offered by the world of science.
We're bringing you five brilliant technical innovators who will be describing a scenario decades into the future when the desert will bloom with solar panel farms, nuclear reactors will produce energy from their own nuclear waste, people will travel in low-emission driverless car trains, coal will have been made clean and green, and high-tech, small-scale homesteads will be feeding the 10 billion.
Not that we have to take the experts’ word for it. This is Intelligence², where debate and challenge are sovereign. But whether you’re a believer or a sceptic, this is the event to be at if you want to learn about our energy future.
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Posted in Politics, Ideas, Environment on Oct 20th, 2011 Comments
If a windmill is about to blight your cherished view of the green English countryside, you might start to wonder why on earth the Department for Energy and Climate Change thinks it is a good idea to subsidise the monsters at vast cost to the British taxpayer. Why not retune some boilers in Guangdong instead? Or encourage the booming cities of China to power themselves with gas, not coal? There’s a whole raft of practical, carbon-saving steps which can be more cheaply achieved in the growing, bustling emerging world. After all, a ton of carbon saved in China is as good in global terms as a ton saved in the UK. So why ever spoil our green and pleasant land?
Hang on, though. Wasn’t the “green new deal” all about creating jobs in a new sort of economy? Making Britain a leader in an industry of the future? Not to mention making us just a little less dependent for our energy on geopolitically unstable regions of the world. Make China the focus of all our policy effort, and it will be China that reaps the knock-on benefits. Why would we realistically agree to that?
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Cast your mind back five years to 2006, to when environmentalism gripped the world. We were all shocked into buying different lightbulbs by the apocalyptic forecasts of the Stern report, and Al Gore, with the aid of an array of impressive scatter charts, was King Green. It seemed that we were all on course to become bona fide tree huggers.
But it hasn’t quite happened – not yet at least – and if anything, the public appetite for the fight against global warming seems to be waning. In the current economic gloom, everyone seems to have reverted to their more immediate priorities; we’re happy to wallow in the reassuring belief that consumption drives growth, as we click “confirm” on another short haul flight.
So perhaps we’re now suffering from environmental fatigue, and perhaps we’re fed up with being lectured to by a bunch of lentil-munching cyclists. Have the eco-warriors pushed us too far in their attempt to amend our ways? Have we discovered that, when all is said and done, we’re just not that bothered about rising tides in the Maldives? Of course, there are those who dissent from the consensus that we’re headed towards a catastrophe, and advise us to ignore the people they feel are doom-mongers peddling pseudoscience.
How then, should the threat of global warming influence our behaviour? Should we heed the warnings of floods, droughts, burning forests and a world of environmental refugees and change our ways? Or should we maintain that we’re not going to allow the polar bears and our grandchildren to ruin our lives while we rev up our engines and revel in and the pleasures of unabated consumption?
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Posted in Politics, Environment on Jun 2nd, 2011 Comments
http://www.intelligencesquared.com/events/tales-from-the-deep
This event, part of the Project Ocean series, took place at Selfridges, on 2nd June.
An evening of true stories of passion, adventure and disaster told by four very different ocean-going explorers. David de Rothschild will talk about his mission on board Plastiki, Surfers against Sewage champion Chris Hines will relate his journey from beach bum to MBE, Philip Hoare, author of Leviathan or, The Whale will explain his fascination for the giant mammals of the ocean, and Willie MacKenzie will tell stories from the frontline of Greenpeace.
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Posted in Politics, Environment on Dec 22nd, 2010 Comments
The Canadian Oil Sands, located primarily in the prairie province of Alberta, are the world’s largest oil reserves outside of Saudi Arabia. Counting 170 billion recoverable barrels of oil, they are in Canada the embodiment of a global debate: how do we balance the economic boons of oil production with its environmental impacts?
Canada is the largest importer of oil to the United States, shipping 2.5 million barrels across the border every day. These shipments alone account for close to 5% of all global oil exports. And with Oil Sands production expected to grow to almost four million barrels per day by 2020, Canadian citizens are having to evaluate the worth of the Oil Sands to their country’s development, just as the world grapples with the place of oil consumption in its future.
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Steak and kidney pie. The Sunday roast. Mmm, delicious. In fact more than delicious, part of our way of life. Part of our common humanity, too, since eating meat is probably what allowed our brains to grow big enough to become fully human in the first place. So how could anyone be persuaded to give up eating it? Easy, say the vegetarians. Go to an abattoir. Listen to the shrieks, look at the fear in the eyes of the cow. Then go to a supermarket and look at the results of that bloodfest all neatly packaged up to disguise the cruelty and suffering that preceded the shrink wrap. No one with a streak of compassion, no one who calls themselves human could then stretch out their hand, plonk the slaughter in their shopping basket and feel they were doing right. Or could they? Come to the debate and find out.
Speakers for the motion - Abbas Daneshvari, Heather Mills and Peter Singer
Speakers against the motion - Julian Baggini, Robin Dunbar and Paul Levy
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Posted in Travel, Environment on Oct 28th, 2010 Comments
Is the great age of exploration over? Has the modern traveller swapped Ulysses’ quest for the Happy Isles for a short break at the Holiday Inn? Maybe. But most of us still yearn for the rough, rugged and romantic places of the explorer’s imagination, places where no travel company has been before us…. And some of Britain’s greatest explorers and travellers will be taking us there, in mind if not in body, as they examine the past, present and future of great exploration.
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Posted in Media, Environment on Oct 7th, 2010 Comments
10:10, the climate campaign group, have been forced to apologise after their No Pressure video, which was scripted by Richard Curtis and featured guest appearances from David Ginola and Gillian Anderson, attracted widespread complaint. The video showed children, workers and footballers being exploded for refusing to cooperate in making lifestyle changes to reduce their carbon emissions, and 10:10, a group trying to persuade individuals, schools, businesses and organisations to take simple measures in a bid to cut their carbon emissions by 10% in a year, were forced to admit that they'd overstepped the mark and issue a public apology. The affair has become known as Splattergate.
The intention of the film was to use slapstick comedy (the exploding children die in a blaze of ketchup-like gore) to shock viewers into reassessing their lethargy on climate change. Headed by Franny Armstrong, the documentary filmmaker behind The Age of Stupid, 10:10 are concerned that climate change is no longer receiving the emphasis that it should from either the media or the public, and they wanted to get people talking about it once again.
Global warming sceptics, who claim that the media is saturated with stories on climate change, have seized upon the video as a spectacular own goal by the environmental movement, and claim it betrays the underlying anti-human sentiments of 'eco fascist' green leader. One of the criticisms levelled at the video is that, in a few years time, there may well be an eco-terrorism movement. On the other hand, many environmentalists, often accused of failing to see the funny side themselves, believe that with the world teetering on the brink of ecological calamnity, No Pressure is both funny and deeply necessary.
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Posted in Economics, Environment on Sep 3rd, 2010 Comments
Scottish fisherman have barricaded their fishing ports in protest at Iceland and the Faroe Islands' decision to drastically increase their mackerel catch. It feels like the Cod Wars of the 1970s. Iceland has increased its catch from 363 tonnes in 2005 to 130,000 tonnes this year. The Faroese have increased their take from 26,000 tonnes to 85,000. A 20 year-old agreement between Norway, the Faroes and the EU to limit mackerel catch has fallen apart. Norway banned Icelandic and Faroese trawlers from its ports. Scottish fishermen prevented a Faroese boat from landing its catch at Peterhead, and Alex Salmond, Scotland’s first minister, denounced the mackerel grab as “anarchic”. But is Iceland really endangering mackerel stocks? Have the mackerel moved to Icelandic waters, where they are properly Iceland's property? And is the EU really such a good guardian of the ocean's fish stocks? Ian Gatt, fisherman and chief executive of the Scottish Pelagic Fisherman's Association, argues the case against Iceland.
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As scientists continue to debate the severity of the Deepwater Horizon spill and the likelihood of lasting damage to ecosystems in the Gulf of Mexico, questions are being asked about how politicians have responded. Some have accused Barack Obama of wild over-reaction to the spill, and of using it as a vehicle for anti-corporate propaganda. They argue that he was playing to the gallery in order to win back some popularity ahead of the mid-term elections.
The finger has also been pointed at green groups who, some say, are deliberately playing up the scale of the spill in order to discourage us from using oil at all. Others argue that it was a huge catastrophe, and that the Gulf of Mexico and the Louisiana coastline have been devastated by the spill, and will continue to be so for years to come.
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