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• Science + Politics x Denmark = Chaos. What happened in Copenhagen ?

  Science + Politics x Denmark = Chaos. What happened in Copenhagen ?

  Monday, 01 March 2010, 08:00 PM

  Dr. Simon Lewis

  Article 2 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change states that its goal is to ‘prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system’.  Understanding how human actions change the climate system, and the impacts of these changes on people and their life-support systems is a role for science, whereas deciding what is dangerous (to whom?), and how to avoid it (at what cost?), is within the realm of politics. This logical mix of science and politics had led to much confusion. The 15^th UN meeting on climate change was no exception, despite unprecedented media scrutiny.

  Dr Simon Lewis is a Royal Society research fellow at the Earth & Biosphere Institute, University of Leeds , and an expert in the role of tropical forests in the changing Earth system.  He was in Copenhagen advising a central African government and took time out of doing science to get involved in the negotiations. He will give a brief summary of how we got to Copenhagen via the IPCC and CRU email hack and what the outcome of the UN talks might mean.

  
  This talk was suggested by Dominic Rayner, so he will chair the meeting and there will be  short presentation by Phil Exell, who manages our website, which has been upgraded.

  The issue of Climate Change faces humanity with a huge dilemma which cannot be ignored. One horn of the dilemma is the obvious danger Climate Change poses to our present civilisation and to all future generations - Earth itself will survive since after all it has passed through many such changes before. The other is the realisation that the present phase of Climate Change may well be due to recent human activity, which was largely built on the exploitation of fossil fuel. The choice we are faced with is that either we modify our activities or we are doomed (as one 'Catastrophe Theory' listener put it).
  But how do we modify our human activity? The answer to this question is by no means easy, as was demonstrated by the Copenhagen conference. Utter chaos, by the account of our speaker, and understandably so. On the one hand, how can we ask developed countries whose fossil fuel civilisation has brought so much benefit (as well as evil) not only to their own population but to humanity at large. Think of the advances in science, medicine, transport, communication and standard of living to name but a few. Do we want to sacrifice all this? On the other, how can developed countries ask developing ones to halt or even slow down their rate of progress towards achieving similar goals? No wonder Copenhagen failed, as well as all other fairy schemes of carbon trading and the like.
  But Climate Change is HERE, and the argument between the environmentalists and vested commercial interests is not helpful. Whether we are wholly or partly responsible for this phenomenon, we simply cannot afford to stand idly by and do nothing - we owe it to future generations; our children and their children.
  Educating the public has done wonders; there is now widespread acceptance of the concepts of recycling, energy conservation, renewable energy sources, cleaning industrial emissions and halting the disastrous activity of deforestation. At one time these were fringe far left views. With increasing public awareness will come increasing pressure on governments and industry to act in a collective manner. Nations will in turn proceed at different rates commensurate with their local conditions and economic circumstances.
  However, all this may not be enough to save us in time. We are in desperate need for innovative solutions. Innovative and bold government schemes to encourage energy conservation and localised power production. Above all, we need an innovative technology to harness the abundant energy radiated daily to Earth from the Sun. Only 0.25% of that energy is trapped by the biological world through photosynthesis, and upon this tiny fraction the whole of life has evolved. (Ultimately, over many millions of years some of this was stored in the form of fossil fuel upon which the present civilisation depends.) There will be some false hopes in this quest for clean power, such as the nuclear option (fission reactions replace one evil with another, and the harnessing of fusion energy is a dream many scientists now doubt if it will ever be realisable on Earth - only stars are the seat of fusion).
  We come back to photosynthesis and the quantum way it harnesses light energy. In the end, it is science and technology driven by massive popular pressure that will provide the solution to our civilisation's hunger for energy. This is where we should channel our resources; into the science and technology of clean energy, not into wasteful political activities such as Copenhagen.

     >> Continue

• Alice’s Secrets in Wonderland

  Alice’s Secrets in Wonderland

  Monday, 15 February 2010, 08:00 PM

  Melanie Bayley

  What would Lewis Carroll’s ‘ Alice ’s Adventures in Wonderland’ be without he Cheshire Cat, the trial, the Duchess’s baby or The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party? These famous characters are missing from the original story the author told Alice Liddell and her 2 sisters during a boat trip near Oxford . What inspired these later additions?

  ‘Lewis Carroll’ was Charles Dodgson, a stubbornly conservative mathematician at Oxford . He valued Euclid’s ‘Elements’ as the epitome of mathematical thinking, starting with a few axioms and building complex arguments through simple, logical steps in geometry and trigonometry. But the 19^th century was a turbulent time for mathematics with new concepts like imaginary numbers, symbolic logic, projective geometry and quaternions. For Dodgson this was all ‘semi-colloquial’ and therefore parodied in Alice – hence the Cheshire Cat, the Duchess’s baby and the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party – each one a critique of the new mathematics. This is a new analysis of Alice , originated by Melanie Bayley a PhD student from Oxford.

  please see Helen Crawford's review of Melanie's illuminating Alice Conversation.
  http://theculturevulture.co.uk/blog/?p=4903
  
  from my artist's perspective the mathematical formulae conversation gave rise to interesting 3 dimensional imagery in my mental landscape. I think what I liked about this discussion was the combining of creative description with mathematical conclusions - and then referenced contextually historically.
  many thanks @dysconnection (for twitterers)

  katiebrown    >> Respond

• Who needs science communication?

  Who needs science communication?

  Monday, 05 October 2009, 08:00 PM

  Graeme Gooday , Professor of History of Science & Technology at the University of Leeds

  There is a lot of science communication about nowadays, and it is increasingly taught by universities too. But who is it really for, and what is it meant to achieve?  Does the public really "need" to know more about science? Or is it more that scientists need it to ensure that their research can still flourish in an increasingly challenging socio-economic climate? Insofar as the public does need to know more about science, does it actually get the kind of science communication it  deserves? Is it ever legitimate, for example, to present new scientific projects as essential to preserve humankind from apocalypse, or as destined to free us from bodily infirmity? This talk will explore these questions, and suggest that maybe we've been here before...

  Surely, there is no overlap or conflict between the logical territory of human activity and the spiritual. But we must not confuse the spiritual in our lives with religion. I, personally, derive much spiritual enrichment from art or walking in the dales, others may be from music or Yoga, for example. Similarly, morality is an essential part of our human nature as social animals. In the past religion lay claim to both these areas, with the object of exercising power.
  Where science comes in conflict with religion, and there is no point denying it, is over 'dogma & belief'. In science, everything - absolutely, everything - is open to question and proof. Even the laws of thermodynamics have to be proved over and over again with every experiment. Darwin's 'natural selection' is subject to the same test. Doubters rejoice.

  ashelt    >> Respond

• I think Steve Jones must have had his tongue in his cheek. There is no conflict between science and religion but this is not because they occupy separate domains - rather that the domain of religion completely encompasses that of science, which forms a nice logical and (usually) rational corner of the vastly larger domain of faith and human intellectual endeavour.

  PaulV    >> Respond

• Science + Politics x Denmark = Chaos. What happened in Copenhagen ?

  Science + Politics x Denmark = Chaos. What happened in Copenhagen ?

  Monday, 01 March 2010, 08:00 PM

  Dr. Simon Lewis

  Article 2 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change states that its goal is to ‘prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system’.  Understanding how human actions change the climate system, and the impacts of these changes on people and their life-support systems is a role for science, whereas deciding what is dangerous (to whom?), and how to avoid it (at what cost?), is within the realm of politics. This logical mix of science and politics had led to much confusion. The 15^th UN meeting on climate change was no exception, despite unprecedented media scrutiny.

  Dr Simon Lewis is a Royal Society research fellow at the Earth & Biosphere Institute, University of Leeds , and an expert in the role of tropical forests in the changing Earth system.  He was in Copenhagen advising a central African government and took time out of doing science to get involved in the negotiations. He will give a brief summary of how we got to Copenhagen via the IPCC and CRU email hack and what the outcome of the UN talks might mean.

  
  This talk was suggested by Dominic Rayner, so he will chair the meeting and there will be  short presentation by Phil Exell, who manages our website, which has been upgraded.

  It was suggested that politicians should be pushed harder towards greater and faster change. Are not politicians just the voice of the people they represents and if those people do not have at heart the changes that are being asked for then politicians can not be expected to either. If public opinion was whole heartedly behind the changes then the politicians would just follow and not need to be pushed. Can the public be expected to get whole heartedly behind these perceived dangers or set a course towards what many in the developed world would see as a retrograde move in their lifestyles?
  Many big changes seen in the past such as Feminism or Socialism had at their heart a idea or dream of a better life, that in the case of tackling climate change is not there, on the contrary a future of austerity is perceived. Not a great advert for the public to start pushing politicians over. Were is the picture of the future that is Rosie?

  Harrison    >> Respond