Climate and Civilisation: Channel 4 screening and debate at The Dana Centre

Monday, 7 December 2009, 19:00 - 20:45

Tony Robinson and experts are at Dana for an exclusive preview of a Channel 4 series, 'Man on Earth', that looks at the role of climate change in past civilisations. Join the post-screening debate: what can we learn from the past to help us with our own climate challenge?

Event organised by: Channel 4 and The Science Museum

Speakers
Tony Robinson, TV presenter
Joy Singarayer, lecturer, climate modelling, Bristol University
Jago Cooper, School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester

Chair
Ralph Lee, Head of Specialist Factual, Channel 4 Television

Bravo, Renzo!

I had an interesting, uplifting experience this afternoon. Whilst wandering through the wet streets of London having visited my favourite shop, Stanfords Map Centre in Long Acre, I crossed a few roads on my way to Cambridge Circus and was stopped in my tracks by the new Renzo Piano building next to Tottenham Court.

It’s a curious construction. Stuck into a plot that is too small for it and mainly surrounded by West End side streets, it erupts into facades of different colours, dwarfing the majority of buildings surrounding it. Its faces are bright and cheerful; the horizontals of its windows and louvers crisscross the verticals to feel symmetric despite the contrasts of its angles and dimensions. Odd. I’m not that accustomed to being stopped in my tracks by modern buildings these days. Very rarely does a new development have this effect and, usually, only because it is a) neck breaking in scale, particularly height; b) a folly of humorous proportions, juxtaposed and marvellous in true surreal fashion; or c) original, groundbreaking, maybe contextualised into its environment. Central Saint Giles is not one of these but a slight combination of all of them.

It was also helped by the weather. It had been typical this weekend – the kind that receives a collective all zones moan (but secretly I adore it, like so many Londoners do of course): strong wind in gusts that blow the greasy auburn leaves around the streets, accompanied by grey rain at varying degrees of intensity. Yet the moment I saw Piano’s brainchild the sun momentarily peeked through the gloom to illuminate the south facing facade against a sodden and thunderous backdrop (reminiscent of the contrasts in Giorgione’s Tempest).

I’m sure others will begrudge it but I think it both titillates and titivates, and as such is a superb achievement. What with London Bridge’s Shard of Glass soon set to be a growing feature on the Southbank skyline, Lords Foster and Rogers will be looking over their shoulders and clasping their mantles of London leading architect tight.

What's in the November/December issue of Lucid Magazine?

Hot off the Press? The first ever Lucid Debate will be held at the
Science Musuem. Join us and leading jounalists from top news
organisations to discuss the media and climate change

This month, Lucid Magazine comtemplates Religion Today. Read about
Humanism, The Invisible Muslim and the lives of three very different
Britons in our faith themed feature.

Dust storms, flash floods and bush fires. Is it the end of the
world as we know it? Sylvia Arthur asks if recent climate extremes
signal the beginning of the end.

Paul Knipe visits Mongolia and finds tradition and modernity amid
the wilderness in a country that’s embracing the Western world after
decades of communist rule.

While the mainstream media wonders what to do about declining
newspaper sales and the internet, there’s a revolution going on
elsewhere which they’d do well to join. James Willsher looks at a
new frontier for news and advertising.

Athena Kugblenu investigates what we’ve got to look forward to if
David Cameron maintains his momentum.

Stephen Maughan travels to Romania and discovers that, although
there are positives, more still needs to be done to improve child
care.

And finally...

Lucid's gracious hots in Ghana, Afrikids, are holding their annual
pub quiz on Tuesday, 15th December. Why not get together with a group
of friends and have fun while raising funds for charity?

Support Afrikids

Lucid's favourite charity, Afrikids, is holding two events that need your support:

• Do you like the thought of an investment where your returns are not in money but in the joy you will get, year after year, in helping some of the world's most vulnerable children?


• Are you keen to give back to the community but not sure where to trust your funds?
  

Then come and join a syndicate of likeminded people and enjoy the launch of the Afrikids Social Investment Club on 19th November in Canary Wharf, London.

Then, next month, Afrikids is holding their annual Christmas Pub Quiz on Tuesday, 15th December. Why not get together with a group of friends and have fun while raising funds for charity?

For more on Afrikids, visit their website at http://www.afrikids.org/.

From the new issue of Lucid: Nature's Revenge

Dust storms, flash floods and bush fires. Is this the end of the world as we know it? Sylvia Arthur goes on the road with the men and women determined to alert the world to the gravity of climate change. Read more

Maldives calls attention to the threat climate change poses to island nation

By: The Associated Press 17 Oct 2009 08:26 AM ET

GIRIFUSHI, Maldives - Members of the Maldives' Cabinet donned scuba gear and used hand signals Saturday at an underwater meeting staged to highlight the threat of global warming to the lowest-lying nation on earth.

President Mohammed Nasheed and 13 other government officials submerged and took their seats at a table on the sea floor — 20 feet below the surface of a lagoon off Girifushi, an island usually used for military training.

With a backdrop of coral, the meeting was a bid to draw attention to fears that rising sea levels caused by the melting of polar ice caps could swamp this Indian Ocean archipelago within a century. Its islands average 7 feet above sea level.

"What we are trying to make people realize is that the Maldives is a frontline state. This is not merely an issue for the Maldives but for the world," Nasheed said.

As bubbles floated up from their face masks, the president, vice president, Cabinet secretary and 11 ministers signed a document calling on all countries to cut their carbon dioxide emissions.

Urgency
The issue has taken on urgency ahead of a major U.N. climate change conference scheduled for December in Copenhagen. At that meeting countries will negotiate a successor to the Kyoto Protocol with aims to cut the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide that scientists blame for causing global warming by trapping heat in the atmosphere.

Wealthy nations want broad emissions cuts from all countries, while poorer ones say industrialized countries should carry most of the burden.

Dozens of Maldives soldiers guarded the event Saturday, but the only intruders were groupers and other fish.

Nasheed had already announced plans for a fund to buy a new homeland for his people if the 1,192 low-lying coral islands are submerged. He has promised to make the Maldives, with a population of 350,000, the world's first carbon-neutral nation within a decade.

"We have to get the message across by being more imaginative, more creative and so this is what we are doing," he said in an interview on a boat en route to the dive site.

Nasheed, who has emerged as a key, and colorful, voice on climate change, is a certified diver, but the others had to take diving lessons in recent weeks.

Three ministers missed the underwater meeting because two were not given medical permission and another was abroad.

A Liberal Leader of the Opposition?

Ipos-Mori conducted a poll asking people who they were most likely to vote for at the next general election. The triumph of the Conservatives (36%) was no surprise to me, but the progress of the Liberals had me choke on my morning coffee. Ipsos-Mori has them in 2nd place (25%) ahead of Labour (24%). This represents an 8 point gain for the yellow party, whilst Labours figure evidences a stagnation in support, showing no change at all.

What does this mean? Until now, Liberals would find themselves voting Labour so as not to waste their vote on also-rans. Nick Clegg, how ever much he wants it, will probably not be Prime Minster this time next year. But maybe they've set their sights to high. A Liberal leader of the opposition has not been touted as a possibility in the popular press so far. On this evidence, if Liberal supporters dare to dream, it should be.