Intelligence Squared

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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Two wheels, a frame, and two pedals. Nothing could be simpler than a bicycle. People start cycling for practical reasons or for fun but before they know it, it's become a passion, an obsession, a career, an instrument of self-torture.

It's an antiquated mode of transport, and yet hundreds of thousands take it up every year in Britain. Clean, green and cheap, it can turn your journey from A to B into a flight of inspiration, give you a sense of speed, grace and limitless potential, and add a frisson of danger to your otherwise humdrum existence.

Intelligence² are bringing together the most articulate amateurs and professionals from the world of cycling to celebrate the endeavour and endurance, the risk and reward of this extraordinary partnership between man and machine.

Taking part will be:

Bella Bathurst, author of "The Bicycle Book", who will introduce us to the diverse and unpredictable world of the bicycle with stories from the past and quirky anecdotes from her more recent observations.

Vin Cox, record holder for circumnavigating the globe by bike, will argue that the bicycle is the fastest and slowest form of transport you'll ever need.

Geoff Dyer, novelist and keen amateur cyclist, will discuss how photography can capture the romantic allure of two-wheeled bliss – and nowhere is that bliss more ecstatically displayed than at the Burning Man festival in Nevada.

Patrick Field, founder of the London School of Cycling who’ll be proposing a city cycling manifesto for the 21st century.

Graeme Obree, Scottish cyclist who twice broke the world hour record on a home-made bicycle who'll be talking about design and innovation.

Will Self, writer and keen amateur cyclist who’ll expand on his love of the bicycle’s purity and simplicity.

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We live in a time when the Internet and a forever flowering industry of gadgets and machinery has allowed humans to interact and share ideas with untold speed, reach and intimacy. Technological innovation is not only the bedfellow of the economic growth which we need, but also offers our best shot at tackling today’s biggest challenges: climate change; poverty; despotism.

At least, this is what the tech-topians and cyber-lovers would have you believe. But whilst they’ve been queuing to get their hands on the latest iPad, another breed – of slow cooking, off-grid, deep-thinking back-to-basics types – have been pushing their vision of how the world should work.

They feel that people today are too busy staring at the computer screen to see what’s going on around them, that children are ignoring the real world in favour of computer games, that family and work life is being blurred by BlackBerrys, that our ability to focus has been corroded by endless tweets and ‘Urgent’ emails.

So, do we live in a world which is dangerously addicted to being ‘switched on’? Are Twitter and Facebook a threat to our privacy? Should the unbridled advancement of all things robotic, electronic and web-based be reigned in before it tears at the very foundations of civilisation?

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The pioneering work done by the scientists at the Oxford Martin School promises to transform our world – to prolong our life-spans, enhance our brains, conquer food scarcity and solve the climate change problem. How do they propose to take us to this Brave New World and what nasty surprises might they unleash as they prise open Pandora’s box?

In this conference, organised jointly by the Oxford Martin School and Intelligence Squared, four of the school’s most brilliant experts will be showcasing their vision of the future before addressing challenges from you, the audience, about the potential perils that such visions may bring with them.

After a scene-setting presentation by Dr Ian Goldin, in which he will lay out a vision for the world in 2020, the evening will be divided in to two halves:

TRANSFORMING HUMANS

Why accept frailty as part of the human condition when science is poised to keep us healthy and sane? Dr Bennett Foddy will present the case for biological enhancement of the human body. Should we embrace therapeutic cloning and genetic manipulation so that we can live longer and healthier lives, or is this eugenics by another name? As for the human brain, Professor Gero Miesenböck will tell us how his cutting-edge work in the new science of optogenetics – developing genetic strategies for observing and controlling the function of brain circuits with light – can help us understand our brains and potentially manipulate them. What are the ethical problems we’ll be facing if these visions of ‘mind control’ are fulfilled?

TRANSFORMING THE ENVIRONMENT

No less revolutionary are the ideas being put forward to transform the world in which we live. Professor Liam Dolan will be arguing that new techniques for manipulating crop genes hold the key to increasing yields and alleviating concerns about global food security. Professor Gideon Henderson will explain how the global warming problem could be solved by manipulating the natural system of the oceans to make them take up more carbon. GM crops. Altering the patterns of nature. Are these our route to survival or will we be unleashing unstoppable changes in the environment that we – or future generations – may live to regret?

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Be careful what you tweet. This week, the law come down on a Twitter user who'd jokingly threatened to blow up an airport. The site is reshaping what it's acceptable to say in public. Shouldn't we, in Britain, so famed for our reserve and restraint, be doing more to resist it?

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“You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies.” So goes the strapline of David Fincher’s new movie The Social Network, the dramatisation of the birth of modern social networking that chronicles the rise of Facebook from Harvard bedroom to globe-straddling corporation.

It’s not quite the same message as Google’s “Don’t be evil” motto but then Facebook never claimed to have a personality. It was just a vessel for users to interact through supposedly allowing each of us to impose our personalities on the site.

The Social Network movie portrays the birth of Facebook as a Shakespearian tragedy, with love, betrayal, greed and more than a few bodies left on the stage. But as we become more and more entwined with the fabric of our Facebook existence are we really being exposed to the brave new world where everything and everyone is there at our fingertips? Or are we being distracted from true engagement with the world and simply herded into appropriate marketing boxes? Are we working for the machine, turning our social lives into the greatest Tupperware party in history, or are we learning to use a freedom-enhancing tool?

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