Integral links

I pity Chris and Mark, up on our roof in the rain today. They are fixing the Genersys panels, which should enable us to meet 70% of our hot water needs from sunlight. Even on a day like today, the dial would show some return, we are assured. I asked about maintenance, and there is none - further, the life expectancy is 35 years (which should see us out).

I suppose it's worth it, not just financially, but because it's a small step towards a new, low-carbon future. John Beddington, the chief government scientist, was talking this morning about the impending global food crisis, in the light of the latest Foresight project Global Food and Farming Futures report: half the world is even now being failed by the food system, he said. "We have to think very seriously about taking together climate change, food, water, energy: they are integrally linked."

2030 targets

Last June, Professor John Beddington spoke at the Cheltenham Science Festival - fairly soon after taking up his appointment as the Government's chief scientific advisor. I mentioned his talk in one of my early blogposts. Last night he was back in his birth county, addressing a surprisingly sparse audience at the Oxstalls Campus of the University of Gloucestershire. His theme was The Challenge of Global Sustainability. It was a stimulating hour.

Professor Beddington listed the threats, and how they would grow over the coming 21 years - that is, by 2030. By then, the Arctic would be ice-free every Summer, and the world will need 50% more food, 50% more energy and 30% more water. A frightening prospect. His comfort? We can commission more nuclear power stations and look forward to fusion; and we can embrace GM foods. Bad news for many then.

Sustainable world?

Besides the sessions on photography and population, mentioned in preceding posts, we attended a number of other Cheltenham Science Festival events - and my back has yet to recover from those agonizing chairs. By the time Stephen Pinker and Anthony Grayling embarked on a discussion of what language reveals about ourselves, I had had enough. On a sunny Sunday afternoon in June, there were better things to be doing than sitting in a tent in the dark with the air conditioning whirring.

My concentration had begun to stray earlier yesterday during a survey of the technological fixes available to counter the effect of climate change. (The distinguished panel of three wise men was unanimous in giving this approach the thumbs down.)

However, two talks by the recently-appointed and the recently-retired Chief Scientific Advisors to the Government, David King and John Beddington, impressed hugely in their rather different ways. David King side-stepped the nuclear issue, on which he is famously bullish: John Beddington, speaking with tempered optimism in spite of recent food price rises, advocated smart interventions on the supply side (in the words of Jonathon Porritt's summing up). "You are a conucopian!" "Well, I'm certainly not a Utopian," John Beddington responded.

At another point during the Festival, Jonathon observed that we still need our “Pearl Harbour” moment on climate change. After the Japanese attack on the US base at Pearl Harbour, Hawaii, in December 1941, President Roosevelt talked about there now being “only one reality, namely winning this war.” The result? Within nine months, 80% of the US’s industrial capacity was being used for weapons manufacture.

Just as impressive as any of these events was a fringe talk given by botanist Ghillean Prance at the University of Gloucestershire. He urged his predominantly Christian audience - the meeting was convened by the Rector of Cheltenham, Andrew Dow - to wake up to the environment. Christians tended to see their duty as converting others and involving themselves in social issues, but not caring for God's creation. The speaker's unaffected modesty and his patient and direct handling of a wide variety of questions impressed everyone. What a pity space could not be found for a lecture as good as this in the main Science Festival programme!