I have just completed the final 2 weeks of the University of Exeter's Climate change on Futurelearn. The first part of this MOOC was a bit of challenge with quite a considerable amount of technical and scientific information and lots of re-reading on my part. Surprisingly I did not do too badly with the online tests but I'm still a bit uncertain how much of the fine detail I have retained. However, I can honestly say my knowledge of climate change is far more informed than it was at the beginning of January.
The last part of the course reverted to more practical considerations on how we can act now to deal with climate change, by looking at the design of our cities and buildings, engaging communities in renewable sources of energy rather than taking a pedantic top down approach. Working in HE, as I do, you notice smaller incremental but important changes to address climate change. These range from well organised groups, promoting green working and sustainability that carry out work place audits, to recycle bins, motion sensor lights, green roofs and transport schemes encouraging, cycling and car sharing as well as less paper handouts in meetings.
For my part in the last 2 years I have exchanged a 100 mile circular work commute for a half an hour walk to my place of work and I follow #walktowork on Twitter where you can see tweets and pictures from around the world of other doing the same. Having a tablet has considerably cut down my paper consumption - possibly at the detriment of my handwriting some may say, so I still like to scribble the occasional note. I am also a fan of sustainable fashion and thrift purchasing. I also live near to town so do not have to travel miles to shop. Personally, one of my main challenges is cutting my air miles, I don't travel excessively but I do fly about 4 times a year because I like travel and I also have family that lives in States. I know my regular use of public transport does not offset this.
So what I have taken away from this MOOC, I think NIMBY lecture made a very provoking point, that the whole of the world is our back garden, so we all have collaborative responsibility to take care of it. We know that weather is unpredictable but climate models do show and can predict that climate has changed and will continue to change because of the anthroprogenic impact, on the atmopshere, the lithosphere, cryosphere and hydrosphere. And without sounding cliched we need to act now. It will be interesting to see what place the environment has on the political agenda in this economically challenged, fast food, fast fashion, next tech. devise upgrade culture we live in with the UK elections looming.
Monday, March 23, 2015
Friday, March 6, 2015
JIBS Event 26th February Technology Will Not Defeat Us
I attended this event at the Chambers of Commerce which was hosted by JIBS, which is an organisation that serves the interests of e-resource users in Research, Higher and Further Education Libraries. My blog on the event can be found at blogs.staffs.ac.uk/askteam.
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Week 6 Climate Change MOOC Food and Heat Islands
Just a quick reflection on week 6, which focused on the impact on human systems, Dr Tristan Kershaw presented on Health and the Built Environment and Professor Sarah Gurr on Climate Change and Food Security.
With respect to health and the built environment it was disconcerting to find out that in Europe in 2003 70,000 people died as a result of the hot weather, most were victims in high rise buildings at night, and died as a result of hyperthermia (elevated body heat), dehydration and stroke. Why was this? It appears that apart from an unwillingness to open windows and heat being absorbed because of flat roofs, heat islands exacerbate this situation. So what is a heat island? An urban heat island, is when the urban area is hotter than the surrounding rural area, caused by the size and closeness of the buildings. Buildings in urban areas are efficient at absorbing and reflecting heat, the larger and taller the building, the more heat traps at street level, which bounces between buildings. Air conditioning can help but this has a big impact on CO2 emissions, so there is a vicious circle. So how can we address this Tristan Kershaw says more green spaces, painting buildings white and green roofs, even less flat roofs, which is rather thought provoking as we see cities expanding both upwards and outwards.
With a predicted global population increase from the present 7 billion to 9.2 million in 2050 Sarah Gurr says that 86% could be living less economically and the majority will be in developing countries. Presently 40% of the global agriculture is 3 types of essential crops, wheat, rice and maize. Rice is the most crucial crop as it is responsible for the main calorie intake of 50% of the world's population, although potatoes are growing in popularity, making this a 4th crop. The food supply chain needs to double in the next 50 years but it is under threat from climate change in particular the threat to water supply and also the threat of disease, pests and pathogens e.g. ash dieback disease and fungi, as a result of mooculture. In an attempt to deal with this scientists are looking at how to boost the immune system of plants to defend themselves against pathogens, for example bioprotection.
So the challenge is what can we do to address this increasing challenge, apart from possibly, use less water, waste less food, eat seasonally and move away from monoculture. The Global Food Security web site argues that to protect against catastrophic events the UK should produce over half of its own feed and import the rest, which also maintains the trade balance sheet because we export food. The web site also states possibly somewhat controversially that climate change may be good in some ways for food production as extra CO2 in the atmosphere will lead to plants fixing more carbon, resulting in increased yield. However, the increase in the amount of desert and drought may cause further problems in places like Austria and in particular Africa, which already faces major challenges with
respect to food supply. Sarah Gurr in the feedback video for this week also suggested that we just grow wheat for food, rather than using it for biofuel and feeding animals, which means we need to eat less meat. She also suggested that more research needs to go into GM.
Food security is a complex area with conflicting pulls of producing more food and protecting the environment. Within the UK 18% of UK greenhouse gas emissions are related to food production, half from farms, mostly methane from livestock and nitrous oxide from fertilisers, in addition to this 60% of nitrates, 25% of phosphorous and 70% of sediments polluting water bodies come from farms. Now that's food for climatic thought!
With respect to health and the built environment it was disconcerting to find out that in Europe in 2003 70,000 people died as a result of the hot weather, most were victims in high rise buildings at night, and died as a result of hyperthermia (elevated body heat), dehydration and stroke. Why was this? It appears that apart from an unwillingness to open windows and heat being absorbed because of flat roofs, heat islands exacerbate this situation. So what is a heat island? An urban heat island, is when the urban area is hotter than the surrounding rural area, caused by the size and closeness of the buildings. Buildings in urban areas are efficient at absorbing and reflecting heat, the larger and taller the building, the more heat traps at street level, which bounces between buildings. Air conditioning can help but this has a big impact on CO2 emissions, so there is a vicious circle. So how can we address this Tristan Kershaw says more green spaces, painting buildings white and green roofs, even less flat roofs, which is rather thought provoking as we see cities expanding both upwards and outwards.
With a predicted global population increase from the present 7 billion to 9.2 million in 2050 Sarah Gurr says that 86% could be living less economically and the majority will be in developing countries. Presently 40% of the global agriculture is 3 types of essential crops, wheat, rice and maize. Rice is the most crucial crop as it is responsible for the main calorie intake of 50% of the world's population, although potatoes are growing in popularity, making this a 4th crop. The food supply chain needs to double in the next 50 years but it is under threat from climate change in particular the threat to water supply and also the threat of disease, pests and pathogens e.g. ash dieback disease and fungi, as a result of mooculture. In an attempt to deal with this scientists are looking at how to boost the immune system of plants to defend themselves against pathogens, for example bioprotection.
So the challenge is what can we do to address this increasing challenge, apart from possibly, use less water, waste less food, eat seasonally and move away from monoculture. The Global Food Security web site argues that to protect against catastrophic events the UK should produce over half of its own feed and import the rest, which also maintains the trade balance sheet because we export food. The web site also states possibly somewhat controversially that climate change may be good in some ways for food production as extra CO2 in the atmosphere will lead to plants fixing more carbon, resulting in increased yield. However, the increase in the amount of desert and drought may cause further problems in places like Austria and in particular Africa, which already faces major challenges with
Food security is a complex area with conflicting pulls of producing more food and protecting the environment. Within the UK 18% of UK greenhouse gas emissions are related to food production, half from farms, mostly methane from livestock and nitrous oxide from fertilisers, in addition to this 60% of nitrates, 25% of phosphorous and 70% of sediments polluting water bodies come from farms. Now that's food for climatic thought!
Sunday, March 1, 2015
Encouraging Women in Music
On Friday 20th February I went to see an an excellent show at the Band on the Wall in Manchester. As part of Brighter Sounds' Wall of Sounds Artistic Director Series Beth Orton had mentored a group of 14 women musicians and song writers during the week long residency. The event was an extremely impressive showcase of their accomplished work. The performances ranged from acoustic to electro loop interventions. According to the BBC the event was inspired by a shocking statistic from the Performing Rights Society that only 14% of their members are female. Women musicians are often defined by their gender e.g. female drummer, female guitarist, Sleater Kinney the infamous Riot Grrrl Group, who have just released a well received new album No Cities of Love after 10 years, have remarked that they think it is odd that they are still defined as a female band when paradoxically a band of all males is not called a male band. What appears to be lacking for female musicians is encouragement and mentoring, which the Brighter Sound series appears to have been addressing. and hopefully aspiring female musicians in the audience on Friday night, or even more experience musicians, will have been inspired by what they saw. Along with the incredible range of songs and the abilities of the women performing another pleasing aspect was how well they worked together both in their collaborative song writing and performing.
Details of the musicians and links to their soundcloud sites can be found on the the Brighter Sounds web site being particularly interested in electronic music and how technology can transform the human voice I found the work of Elizabeth Vince and Fiona Soa Paing compelling specifically Fiona's looping vocals which were quite hypnotic
I am little surprised that I have yet to see a review of the event in the local or national press, although there was a good overview in the Huffington Press. At the excellent 6 music hosted annual festival at Teeside last weekend I was a little bit disappointed that the top slots seem to have gone to male performers/bands, despite Kate Tempest, Sleater Kinney and Neneh Cherry being on the bill, although it was excellent to see female drummers supporting Hot Chip and Jamie T. The Independent last week ran article Reading and Leeds 2015 line-up: Festival accused of ignoring female artists where 9 out of 100 acts feature female artists so obviously there is a long way to go in the mainstream music world.
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Details of the musicians and links to their soundcloud sites can be found on the the Brighter Sounds web site being particularly interested in electronic music and how technology can transform the human voice I found the work of Elizabeth Vince and Fiona Soa Paing compelling specifically Fiona's looping vocals which were quite hypnotic
I am little surprised that I have yet to see a review of the event in the local or national press, although there was a good overview in the Huffington Press. At the excellent 6 music hosted annual festival at Teeside last weekend I was a little bit disappointed that the top slots seem to have gone to male performers/bands, despite Kate Tempest, Sleater Kinney and Neneh Cherry being on the bill, although it was excellent to see female drummers supporting Hot Chip and Jamie T. The Independent last week ran article Reading and Leeds 2015 line-up: Festival accused of ignoring female artists where 9 out of 100 acts feature female artists so obviously there is a long way to go in the mainstream music world.
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