A question of trust

This indifferent photograph from near the back of the Town Hall's Pillar Room was taken at the end of last night's fracking discussion, part of the Cheltenham Science Festival. It shows the main participants, energy economist Paul Ekins and (right) Andrew Quarles, Cuadrilla's exploration director.

Ably though Richard Bacon chaired it, the self-styled "debate" could have done with being a little more adversarial. And of course it needed longer than an hour, to allow more of the audience's expertise, and I suspect concern, to make itself heard.

The context of climate change and the neglect of the 5th Fuel (energy conservation) needed bringing out more too, IMHO; but the speakers both did well to prevent it just becoming an emotional tussle.

Cuadrilla is asking for "a social licence", but Prof. Ekins queries whether the public trusts the energy companies to tell the whole story, let alone the Government to regulate them effectively: fracking would have no impact on gas prices; 50 wells need to be dug to see what the fugitive emissions would amount to, and whether UK fracking was viable at all - and then 300 new wells a year to meet industry expectations. On top of all this, it's likely to become a substitute for nuclear or renewables, rather than coal. Wouldn't we be better off looking for energy security through renewables? Precisely.

Cheltenham Green Doors

Last year and the year before we called it Eco Open Homes or ECOHAB: this year, we were Cheltenham Green Doors, to chime in with the Bristol model. And we brought forward the openings to June, rather than September, as they were previewed by an event in the Cheltenham Science Festival earlier in the month.

So I had an enjoyable time this weekend cycling around the fifteen venues - houses, a shop and gardens demonstrating a more sustainable way of life - and took some photographs. In most places, there were visitors at the time I called in, and they were eager to know what was on offer and to engage in conversation: our increased efforts at publicity seem to have reaped some dividend. We shall see what others, more closely involved, have to say at the meeting that's fixed for 2nd July: it's a lot of work, but is it worth going on with it year in, year out?

America in Cheltenham

Out of the blue, an old school friend contacted me last month. He had found me via this blog, and in particular a post I put up following the death of our housemaster last year. Yesterday, he came to lunch, and we then walked some of the town's streets looking at Regency and Victorian buildings - he is an architectural historian, who has worked for three decades or so in the United States. In spite of this, he has not lost the Irish accent I first became used to hearing at Ampleforth in September 1956.

Both of us seem to have worn quite well, thank God: I had been to the doctor earlier in the day, who gave me a more or less clean bill of health. A waxed up ear is hardly cause for complaint, even though it now means I have some form of medicine for every orifice of my body apart from my tummy button.

Last evening, I spent in the company of two more Americans: the almost legendary James Watson was supposedly in debate with Charles Jencks at the Science Festival, "The scientist and the landscape designer." There wasn't much debate, sadly, but the hour was informative for me, who knows nothing about DNA - let alone RNA, its sister molecule.

Most of the talking was done by Charles Jencks, in the role of artist. He acknowledged his debt to Watson and Crick for their pioneering work and subsequently to Watson for the patronage which enabled Jencks to complete his recently-unveiled sculpture for Dublin Botanic Garden. Jencks however criticised the negative metaphors surrounding so many recent discoveries – “the selfish gene,” “the big bang” (“Pentagon language”, he said) and “black holes”, to name but three. As an artist, he was trying to come up with better metaphors, “more challenging, beautiful, seductive.” His landscape designs echo the thought of the late Ian Hamilton Finlay: “A garden isn’t just a retreat, it’s an attack.”

This time last year, Caroline and I joined in a Festival visit to a Cotswold garden crammed full of scientific references: I think I learnt more last night, though, from Charles Jencks' excellent images. What I found hard to accept was the need to distinguish between the mediaeval idea of the Creator, sitting on a cloud, and what Jencks called “cosmogenesis,” the continuing unfolding of creation in which we are all playing a part. For a person of faith, these are just two ways of looking at the same thing, namely the work of God.

The need for elegance in scientific expression was recognised by both speakers. Is there an objective aesthetic? I wondered afterwards. Or does it, as with wind turbines, depend on your point of view: renewable fanatics (me included) more incline to look favourably upon them than do climate sceptics.

Imagine three days without water

This was what stuck in my mind listening to Paul Younger's Cheltenham talk today. After those 72 hours, we die. It's a frightening thought. Yet Professor Younger stressed his Jeremiad - for it sounded like nothing less - was not moral preaching; just grim warning.

"Water is not an island," he told the large weekday morning audience; and yet so often we ignore the nexus - water and food; water and house building; water and energy. Collaboration is the only way forward:. "See how Iceland is about to become a net exporter of bananas!"

As he was talking, I thought back on that chilling Film Society offering we saw six months ago, about the water wars in Bolivia - and then he mentioned it. Even the rain. "That there has yet been no major international conflict is down to the power of virtual water." Read about it!

"Surviving the century"

Our annual Science Festival kicked off today, and we went along to hear Martin Rees. As before I found him brilliant, but infuriating. It consoled me to know that, like the rest of us, he's "a worried member of the human race." But are we all? I do wonder.

The first half of the lecture analysed cogently - though some of his conclusions stuck in my throat - our present situation and the immediate future outlook. But then Lord Rees took off into the way ahead ("... if we  get through this century"). "The post-human era beckons," he told us, and we were asked to consider whether we should feel guilty about exploiting robots.

You - or was it just me? - were left feeling what's the point of seeking to improve our present situation, by (inevitably) so very little... Late though it is, like Voltaire, I should perhaps just be off to cultivate my garden. (I photographed this peony of Caroline's there this morning, using my new whizzo camera: the family presented me with it for my birthday!)

"God-awful"

My ears pricked when I heard this word escape the lips of Adam Rutherford this afternoon: he uttered it in the course of a lecture defending the theory of evolution. It served as a timely reminder for me of my core belief: that God exists, and the more I heard about synthetic biology and energetic disequilibrium, the more sure I became of it.

Our lecturer, aptly-named for a talk on the origins of life, has little time for Craig Venter's Synthia. There was an embarrassing moment at the end, when Adam asked a member of the audience whether he was Craig Venter. "No," came the response. (Perhaps he was a clone.)

Oh, and my claim to fame is that I volunteered to sing (on one note) - becoming part of "the world's first human repressilator circuit." After which I paid a quick visit to Cheltenham's Food and Drink Festival: give me a chocolate heart instead of primeval soup any day.

"What has nature ever done for us?"

Tony Juniper spoke on the above theme today, Day 3 of the Cheltenham Science Festival. He sought to highlight the choice we face between protecting natural systems and growing the economy in conventional terms. George Osborne, for instance, talks about "green tape" (environmental regulation) as a drag. No value is placed upon nature, and yet our economy is dependent on its much-threatened diversity. Bio-mimicry, pollination, water all came under scrutiny, but he would perhaps sum it up like Arthur Fallowfield: "I think the answer lies in the soil." An excellent talk, if a little short on jokes.

These were however in regular - if infrequent - supply in the National Theatre's "Frankenstein". I missed the live relays earlier in the year: to tell the truth, science fiction isn't my usual cup of tea, but having heard praise for both production (Danny Boyle) and acting from so many quarters, I plucked up courage to go along to the repeat this evening (with Benedict Cumberbatch as the Creature).

First and foremost this is a triumph of production - both in the theatre itself and in relaying it to a cinema audience. Since Phèdre almost three years ago, the RNT's technique has improved dramatically, in both senses of that word.

Then there's the cast, led by the amazing Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller, but with excellent support from amongst others Naomie Harris (one to watch).

And finally, underlying it all, the imagination of Mary Shelley: truly, a remarkable achievement on her part to prophesy so acutely on the theme of Tony Juniper's lecture: we interfere with nature at our peril.

The photograph shows the entrance to The Screening Rooms, Cineworld's recently-hatched boutique sibling - to go there is certainly a luxury experience when compared to ascending the escalator to the popcorn-infested multiplex next door.

Egg box on wheels

Robert Llewellyn used my post title to describe the Renault Twizy in which he drove to Cheltenham today, to speak at our Science Festival. His was one of the three "environment" events I sat through, my enjoyment decreasing as the day wore on.

Taking wind power as a subject for debate, the day began really well. The "motion", that this house believes that Britain should be a fan of wind energy, was proposed by Andrew Garrad, supported by Jonathon Porritt: it was opposed by blogger Ben Pile, aided capably by John Constable. The audience's view (two-thirds in favour) was monitored both at the outset and at the conclusion: only a couple of minds were changed, but the debate's chair, science journalist Vivienne Parry, conducted proceedings very fairly and with some degree of flair - going amongst the audience, for instance, to elicit questions created a much more level playing field between us and them on stage.

The dialogue was typified by Ben Pile's "complaint", that policy makers seem to think it's their responsibility to get us to change our behaviour. To which all we (in the majority) would reply, "I wish!"

Compared to that for the debate, the audience for Roger Kemp and Robert Llewellyn's talk, "Can we keep warm and still save the world?" was made up of the converted. No tricky questions there. But two amiable speakers, with good wit (Robert) and slides (Roger). Their joint conclusion, that a socialist-type solution is needed (e.g. to convert us to using combined heat and power) felt surprisingly acceptable in Cheltenham.

This evening, we turned out to sit for a further hour in one of the many excruciatingly uncomfortable tents that have taken over Imperial Gardens. (Not only are the rows of seating far too close together, but the temperature control leaves much to be desired - and why turn the lights down so low that it's impossible to take notes?) This final event of the day was possibly the most bizarre ever to have taken place in this Festival. (Interviewer Jonathon Porritt confirmed as much to us over a much-needed whisky afterwards.) The meat of it? Well, several hundreds of us sat there while "charismatic fashion designer and businesswoman" Vivienne Westwood demonstrated, by what she did NOT say, how vital it is to walk the talk. She praised Jonathon for his credibility: there was alas no way he could return the compliment.

Gardens with a statement

It's our Science Festival once again, and I attended the opening event at lunchtime: two academics from UCL discussed whether it's the sun that causes climate change. It was all rather above my head, but I think the long and the short of it was that the cause is not so much the sun itself as our use of fossilised sunlight - coal, gas, oil.

This evening, we were off again - this time out of Cheltenham to see round what the programme described, with its customary self-effacedness, as "a spectacular garden" inspired by scientific facts and theories. My photograph shows the sort of thing we found, its meaning needing to be unpacked for us by our generous hostess. It's set in... Elysium and indeed a garden to make the eyes pop, but overall I can't help preferring mine somewhat more natural. Flowers, shrubs and trees come anyway in so many varieties and with such a riot of structure, what need is there really and truly for all these interpretative extras? In other words, I can do without the thick white line down the side of the winding path, the red stair carpet up the stone steps and the metal gate incorporating barbed wire to indicate the risk of a stock market crash: they get in the way of (in this instance) a stunning display of aliums, poppies - oh, and those vegetables! But so far advanced for 800 feet above sea level! Surely not all organically grown?

To sum up: chacun à son gout.

Jonathon Porritt

The programme for the Cheltenham Science Festival came today. Unfortunately, we are going to miss it all this year, as we shall be in Portugal meeting up with Thomas. A pity, because it is full of good things, including a talk by Festival regular Jonathon Porritt on "The Limits of our Planet". One of Jonathon's earlier appearances was at our Festival of Literature in 1993, when Canadian poet Heather Spears - self-appointed artist in residence that year - sketched him.

I have dug out the sketch to publicise a talk Jonathon is giving on 25th May here in Cheltenham entitled, "A sustainable world: reasons to be hopeful". (7.30 at Friends' Meeting House, Cheltenham, GL52 2NP - admission £3: prior booking needed.) This is under the auspices of Christian Ecology Link, of which he has for long been one of the Patrons.

Did anyone hear him on Any Questions? today: excellent.

"Bad habits die hard"

Yesterday marked the start of this year's Cheltenham Science Festival, which seems to attract bigger audiences year by year: certainly, if the crowd at the event with this title last evening is anything to go by. Jonathon Porritt was talking to psychologist Stuart Derbyshire, of Birmingham University's School of Psychology, and the ESRC's Dale Southerton about why we find it difficult to change our behaviour.

Dale preferred to consider habits, not as addictions we needed to kick, but as essential matters of routine. They are shaped by our daily context. So, the development of deep freezes – which has happened at a rate "faster than that of the internet" – gets us into a dependency on out of town supermarkets: we have become locked into the freezer habit. And power showers lock us into more water use, as few of us use them solely as an alternative to the bath. Our need is to design habits that are more sustainable: what about Tesco's turning into a food delivery service only, and converting their stores into laundrettes? Tesco vans could then return full of our dirty washing when they have delivered the groceries, and millions of home washing machines would never need replacing.

Stuart, however, generally took quite a contrary tack – possibly for the sake of argument, but I rather doubt it. "I refuse to wash my yoghurt pots," he boasted. Che sarà, sarà. But that drip in the background didn't turn into a cataclysm, at least while this hour lasted.

Two Cheltenham festivals

This weekend, the high-profile Cheltenham Science Festival draws to a close, and the 2009 Cheltenham Art Festival & Open Studios - a Cinderella in comparison - sparks into life. Yesterday, local MP Martin Horwood (pictured here) nailed his colours to the mast at the Science Festival, in introducing Jonathon Porritt to speak on "The Green Resurgent."

We need a dramatically accelerated change in our lives, Jonathon said in the course of a punchy presentation; that's pretty blindingly bloody obvious. He reported that one of the Nobel prizewinning scientists, who assembled in Britain recently, said 50% of the world's energy needs could come from renewable sources within 10 years if we we were to move onto a war footing: by this, he seemed excited. He also spoke of the Labour Government of the past 12 years as illiberal and authoritarian: this, by contrast, kept him awake at nights. It rather appears that all depends on who the dictator is.

Today, Ann Sohn-Rethel and I opened our joint exhibition of pottery and photography as part of the biennal Cheltenham Art Festival. A respectable number trickled into the house to have a look during the day: one couple were refugees from a rained off bowls match, so perhaps the dismal weather helped. Takings were up on two years ago, when we also combined, but numbers were slightly down.

Cheltenham's new Mayor, Lloyd Surgenor (pictured here with his wife Ann) was able to put in an appearance, amidst a host of other engagements. Sadly it seems that the elegant chain of office was too valuable for him to risk wearing it for a visit to our house. A keen racing fan, he went away having bought a photograph of Kauto Star. The nice bit about being Mayor, he said, was having to do all those things you always wanted to do but could never quite fit in.

Ours is just one of 72 venues, open till 14th June: the Festival website has all the details.

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!

"The world must be peopled!" said Benedick

It's a while since I heard Jonathon Porritt give a lecture of his own (as opposed to interviewing someone): I had forgotten what a devastating speaker he is when he's on top of his subject, as he was last night speaking on the theme "Too many people" at the Cheltenham Science Festival. He held a very large audience in the palm of his hand.

The message he brought was extremely simple: "Save the world! Have fewer children." The Italians had got the idea, he said: their population growth rate was the lowest in the world, indicating that "for them it seems that using a condom is a better guide to life than Papal infallibility." Benedick - yes; but Benedict - no.

Indeed, for a Catholic this was not a comfortable hour's entertainment. Jonathon was asked how the UN could be made more effective: "It has to act by consensus," he pointed out. "The Rio Earth Summit in 1992 was paralysed by the Vatican - a UN member - intervening to oppose artificial family planning." The loudest applause of the evening was for Jonathon condemning the Catholic Church's adherence to the teaching of Humanae Vitae as "immoral".

And yet. "Aren't you depressed at the lack of signs of progress?" asked a questioner. No, came Jonathon's response, because of all the spritual resources that remain untapped. (Here was evidence for Gordon Lynch's analysis, that I mentioned on Thursday.)

A final question was lobbed in. Jonathon had been praising the Chinese for having prevented 400m people from being born through their one-child policy. "Did the end justify the means in China?" a woman asked - the only woman to get a look in. A long pause. "On balance, no," came the eventual reply.

Isn't this the crux of the issue? Do wrong means ever justify good ends? We have since last year a beautiful granddaughter, born after very much soul-searching: how impoverished would our family life be without her! Not to speak of that child's mother, our only daughter - the fourth of our children, born after Caroline's doctor had warned her to have no more.

Burne-Jones' image of the Christ-child in Birmingham's St Philip's Cathedral misleadingly shows a white baby. Had the "necessary" funding for family planning - advocated by Jonathon - been available within the third world community into which Jesus was born, my question is: "Would he have been?"

Pacemakers

This is about two men setting a good pace for someone recently retired. Joe Cornish, the landscape photographer, attracted a large audience at the Cheltenham Science Festival last evening. He travels arduously in search of the perfect picture - a lesson to me that not much comes without a lot of effort. Richard Zhao is less well-known: my dear daughter treated me (as her birthday present) to one of his full body therapeutic Cai-Qiao massages. Little did I know this involved having my head pulled off my shoulders; and then lying prostrate whilst Dr. Richard jumped up and down on my lower back. All of course in the interests of mens sana in corpore sano.