Tag: Hot Topic

Writer’s minor holiday

That's Neil Finn behind the hatVery last minute, this post. I’m about to fly out of NZ for the longest holiday I’ve had in a long time — celebrating an important milestone for she who must be obeyed (I’m not allowed to mention what age she was last birthday, but it was more than me…). We’ll be flying to Europe, walking in the Dolomites, cycling round the Rhone Valley, sojourning near the Worthersee, visiting friends in Bologna and touring SW France and Barcelona, then catching up with friends and relatives in the UK, with a final stopover in San Francisco on the way home. Back at the end of September with a lot of trees to plant to make up for the air miles. Bryan’s in charge in the interim, and will endeavour to keep things ticking over. I’m hoping that that at least a few of the people who have promised guest posts will keep their word (you know who you are!), plus I’d welcome offers of guest contributions. I’ll be popping in from time to time to see how things are getting on, and may muster a post or two when the novelty of a proper holiday begins to wear off. 😉 And you can’t escape email these days, even in little hotels under Mt Ventoux. Good luck to you all…

[Calexico, not so minor really]

Four years on…

Today marks the fourth anniversary of the first post at Hot Topic — four years since the blog’s birth, and as my mum would say, hasn’t time flown? This birthday post is number 1,080, and it will be read by many, many more people than those first brief paragraphs announcing the book and blog. I’m not one for tootling my own trumpet (at least, not loudly), so I won’t be making great claims about how far we’ve come and how much we’ve achieved, but I will take this opportunity to muse a little on what I’ve learned. A lot, but not perhaps enough… 😉

Continue reading “Four years on…”

Te Papa (got a brand new climate bag)

I’m off to Wellington next week to take part in the NZ Climate Change Research Institute‘s Climate Futures Forum being held in Te Papa on Thursday and Friday. The forum’s organised around four themes:

  • Climate change and society’s challenge
  • Communication between the science community and society
  • Human behaviour and the capacity to change
  • Towards durable decision-making

There’s a great line-up of speakers and participants: scientists David Karoly, Martin Manning and Dave Frame, science writers Fred Pearce and Erik Conway (Naomi Oreskes’ co-author on Merchants of Doubt) and many others. I’m taking part in a “café” session on the Thursday evening (giving a short 8 minute talk) and then on Friday evening joining Pearce and Conway on stage at the Soundings Theatre in the museum at 6-30pm to discuss climate communication (Sean Plunket in the chair, tickets are free). I’ll be trying to grab a few interviews for future Climate Shows, but most of all I’ll be listening and learning (and perhaps tweeting/blogging a bit, if I have time). Promises to be a fascinating few days, even if I don’t go to see the colossal squid.

Just in from the RSNZ newsletter: Professor Martin Manning, Founding Director, NZ Climate Change Research Institute, invites members of the public to attend two events which are part of the climate change forum on 31 March and 1 April.

  • Café session (free) – What can we do as individuals? – panel hosted by Ian Wedde with Gareth Renowden, Sir Lloyd Geering, Professor Bob Gifford and Dr Bronwyn Hayward. 31 March, 6.30 – 8.00pm, Te Papa.
  • Breakfast session (free) – Responding to big risks – panel hosted by Chris Laidlaw with Martin Kreft, Fred Pearce, Colin James and Professor David Karoly. 1 April, 7.00am – 8.30am, Te Papa.

For more information, and to register for the forum and these events, visit www.confer.co.nz/climate_futures – email Liz Thomas, or phone 04 463 5507.

[Update: Thursday evening Café Session and Friday business breakfast events are now free, thanks to sponsorship by the British High Commission. You’ll still need tickets though, so contact Liz for more info.]

[James Brown, of course]

Speakin’ out

Over recent months I’ve been getting increasingly frustrated at the efforts by a tiny minority of commenters to derail discussions by trolling or wandering off-topic. I have always wanted Hot Topic to be a place where a wide variety of views can be canvassed and discussed, but unfortunately the actions of a few have the effect of making civilised conversation all but impossible. I have therefore decided it’s time to have a formal comments policy: outlined below, and on the Comments Policy page (in the menu under About at the top of the page).

Readers wishing to post at Hot Topic will now have to create an account and log in before commenting. Many regular readers will already have accounts. Please don’t create duplicates if you can avoid it — if you can’t remember your log-in details email me (gareth at hot-topic etc) and I’ll reset them for you. This will, with luck, reduce the incidence of sock-puppetry and drive by trolling, as well as help to control spam.

The most important feature of the new policy is that comments must be relevant to the subject of the post below which they appear. Off-topic comments will either be moved to the most recent open thread, or to a new repository for the effluvia of the terminally bemused, The Twilight Zone. I will only delete comments that are obvious spam, legally dubious or obscene.

The intention of the new policy is not to stifle debate, but to make honest and intelligent discussion possible in the face of efforts to derail it. All views are welcome here, but if you want to question the basic science of climate change, do it in an open thread or under a relevant post, and do it in good faith.

Continue reading “Speakin’ out”

Talk in the town

Last night’s session with the Skeptics in the Pub in Christchurch was an interesting experience (some nice feedback too, thanks). It gave me a chance to develop a few of the thoughts that have been running through my mind recently — and it’s good to do that by presenting them to an audience willing to explore and challenge ideas. The question session at the end ran for about 40 minutes, and the best moment came when one sceptic (no “k”, he was clearly of the “not persuaded” variety) had been pushing me for a worst case. I said that it was conceivable that climate change could end our civilisation. The questioner turned to the rest of the audience and asked them if they really believed that, to receive a chorus of agreement and nods. That’s what happens in the real world: when sceptics leave the comfortable certainty of Wishart-world or Treadgold territory, µWatts or Morano’s depot, they find that the rational world is coming to terms with the real risks.

I promised the group I would make my slides available: they’re here [3.3MB pdf]. The first half of the talk dealt with some basics, and ended with a Katey Walter earth fart lighting session. I then moved on to explore some of the reasons why there is so much manufactured doubt about the reality or seriousness of climate change. The slides are reasonably self-explanatory, happy to discuss in comments.

References/credits:

Many thanks to John Cook at Skeptical Science for making so much of the necessary material so easy to find and use. And for the iPhone app…

[The (older) Pretenders]