Crisis Forum :climate change workshop Nov. 12
Where do we go from here?
Thanks again for all your thoughts and suggestions (even if you weren't
there) some of which are incorporated into the text below. In as succinct
note form as possible, we have attempted to put together some possible
follow-through. We've decided not to write up notes the day but hope that
what follows encapsulated the salient points coming of both plenaries and
the afternoon workshops. The result is Crisis Forum-centric i.e. it concerns
primarily the role of this entity and how it might develop but also in that
process trying to imagine' how it might involve and engage with an
increasing range of researchers and campaigners in a viable, ongoing network.
Please feel free to respond to any or all of the sections as you feel
appropriate.
By the way, the update on the originally THES letter is that the Guardian
also have problems with its length and content but will accept a 1000 word
comment piece along similar lines providing its does not end up (and I
quote here) 'an environment piece masquerading as an HE piece' (!). I'm
happy to have a go at this(trying to get Contraction and Convergence in as
well) but if anybody feels they'd like to have a go I'd be delighted to be
unburdened of the responsibility (but get in touch in first instance).
Alternatively, if anybody want to ply me with any practical examples of how
carbon reduction is already working or could work in a campus environment do
let me know. What we lose by this route, of course, is all your names..
manifold apologies....let's keep our fingers crossed that 'Nature' will come
up trumps on that score.
all best to you all,
and do please feel free to comment
mark
01926 641026
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First we propose two basic axes of development :
university-centric/society-centric
1. The university
Within the university frame of reference: what can Crisis Forum do within
the academic community:
a) to develop broad crisis forum - and more specifically applied climate
change - research?
b) to bring about a greater university awareness of the issues at stake and
how this ought to to impact upon the future role and practice of
universities themselves?
c) is there any linkage between these two elements a) and b) ?
2. The broader community
As a group of academics (operating within a broad range of universities)and
independent researchers what can we do to assist NGOs and campaigners to
alert wider society to the nature of the 21st century crisis - with
climate change as key pivot - in order to bring about practical amelioration?
3. Structural issues
Each of these axes and the potential agendas which they imply also raise
practical, operational issues as to Crisis Forum structure, resourcing etc.
4. Mission
Additionally, is there some further frame of reference by which the
inward-looking academic research is melded with the outward looking social
agenda? i.e. is there some special rationale to what we are proposing to
do, or could this be better achieved through existing, or some other
organisational outfit, or network?
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So, to possible outcomes in response to these questions
University
1. a) The continuation of projects as previously stated:
Climate Change and Violence/Climate Change and Public Opinion to be pursued
by relevant teams.
Action: Mark L. to organise a further meeting with Dave Webb, Steve Wright,
other interested parties including any prospective Ph.D students to see if
we can hammer out coherent research project formula for submission to
relevant research councils
David C. likewise to consult further with John Theobald, David Miller,
Justin Lewis etc
Assistance; anybody who can offer possible contacts/names for these specific
ventures welcomed. And anybody who would like to participate directly in
these teams please contact ML or DC directly. Any aspiring Ph.D students
especially welcomed (with the proviso that no funding exists until we have
cracked the research councils!)
Funding: requires research funding at some level
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1 b) acting as a pressure group within universities : working on the
assumption that a group of Crisis Forum academics has a legitimate role to
bring issue of climate change/crisis to broader university attention with a
view to lobbying universities for change - as sign-posted by the (yet to be
published!) letters to THES/Nature - the Crisis Forum remit might include an
ongoing information campaign on climate change geared specifically to a
university-based constituency (academic and other staff)
Action: creation of discipline by discipline information/database on
relevance of climate change to curricula of each and developed through
website.
Assistance : a preferably university-based individual or small group
required to volunteer to organise a small team of academics and/or other
researchers from broad disciplinary range to write relevant information
collate, (also liaise with trade unions) and then to disseminate widely
Funding: likely to require substantial, ongoing funding
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c) project and protest might find synergy through a series of
research-council funded
feasibility projects exploring how individual universities could be most
effectively 'greened' in the most broad sense.
Action/Assistance: Purely an idea as of this moment. Your views on value
of ideas solicited. Might best be developed through a series of Ph.D and/or
other collaborative graduate dissertations.
Funding: likely to require some very serious research council or EU funding
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2. The broader community
a) book : ML/DC to develop a Crisis Forum book proposal on basis of core
workshop presentations (and additional contributions) geared to a
progressive publishing house.
Aim: to assess current elite responses to climate change and counter-culture
response (offering a variety of different perspectives but with Contraction
and Convergence signposted as the coherent pan- global resolution)
Action: ML/DC to follow-through via key participants. but if anybody else
has a potential contribution to offer, please contact ML.
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b) Crisis Forum as Clearing house
Aim: The notion of Crisis Forum as a think-tank or clearing house has
already been
mooted in abstract terms. :leaving aside the think-tank concept, that of a
Crisis Forum group acting as a conduit between specialised university
researchers (with a holistic approach) and NGOs/other bodies who might be
able to utilise and act upon their expertise, has been further developed to
us by workshop participant and FOE chairman, Sam Clarke, who argues for it
as an informal basis for 'a two-way flow in ideas and information.' As Sam
also notes, the clearing house would not have to be confined to specific
climate change or environmental issues per se. Indeed, Crisis Forum's
broader agenda could act as umbrella for a wide range of potential
participants in such a list.
Action: would require a degree of permanence and a worker (in all
likelihood) to develop and nurture a database of academics and NGO
organisations of this kind, assuming feasibility. As Sam adds, ' It would
all need a good deal of research'. Requires creation of a working group to
consider further (any offers?)
Funding: would most certainly require underpinning in some shape or form,
plus possible resources in terms of dedicated computer/possible office etc.
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3. Structural issues
These various possibilities raise quite serious and substantive issues
vis-a-vis input (ie human resource!) in order to develop these remits and
putting a framework in place which can cohere what we are proposing to do in
an inclusive manner. The imagined structure will in turn be critical in
shaping the Crisis Forum persona (and credibility) to the academic
community and outside world. But incremental development of this nature also
carries with it fundamental funding issues.
We emphasise that Crisis Forum was founded as an independent initiative
which currently operates with the goodwill of Southampton University, and
some limited funding for the workshop (Southampton University, Worldwide
University Network (WUN) plus also more limited funding again from the
Lippman-Miliband Trust for initiating the website). Both David C. and Mark
L. have full-time posts in their respective departments.
Jonathan Ward has very properly raised the issue of the creation of a
non-hierarchical steering group as the next step. His proposal is very much
worth exploring:
'a rotating steering panel with positions of specific responsibility could
be useful..
These positions would be paired (i.e. split between two people) to reduce
workload and to ensure the likelihood that tasks will get done. In my view,
this panel could consist of the disparate and necessary different groups
that crisis-forum had at the workshop. So, there would be NGO, governmental,
academic, activist, charity, media and business representation (that is not
to say that this is the full extent, but just suggestions). Within this
panel, people would be paired-up and take charge of organising key areas of
crisis-forum's remit. For example maybe two people could head a fundraising
section, two for media analysis, two for academic knowledge transfer (to
grass-roots)and so on. They are not managers per se, just people to steer
and organise proceedings in these areas. Ideally the pairings would be two
people from different backgrounds. I just think this sort of structure may
be needed to propel things forward. Larger scale decisions should still be
made by common consensus.'
Action: David and I propose that a further meeting is convened of anybody
interested in having a fuller input into the development of Crisis Forum.
This could be
under aegis of the further venue offered by Dave Webb at Leeds but insofar
as 'structure' is concerned would be specifically geared towards examining
resource, funding and personnel issues.
Further action/assistance: we invite any participant to contact us re: a
more direct
commitment to further development : We further ask all participants to offer
suggestions as to where/to whom we can go with a view to developing
long-term independent funding relationships and any other contacts which
might be pertinent to our development.
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4. Mission
The November 12 workshop in itself posed a possible longer-term niche for
Crisis Forum in bringing together concerned and committed individuals with
similar areas of interest and expertise yet who would not otherwise normally
meet in a 'professional' capacity. The workshop in the sense of moving
across both disciplinary and occupational boundaries was novel. But there
is no reason why it has to be limited thus.
A further workshop was already envisaged prior to this one, with a remit
which might
consider more practical and technical issues of response and adaptation to
the reality of climate change; again, this time involving in addition to a
range of academics in for instance, engineering, or preventative medicine,
other hands-on practitioners in local government, builders, architects,
companies working on renewable energy, etc etc - as well as campaigners.
We invite comment on this possibility and throw the question open as to whether
anybody other than David and myself would like to pursue this further
workshop under the approximate aegis of Crisis Forum?
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Similarly, one might argue that a form of university: society cross-over
lies in the pursuit of the Crisis Forum agenda vis-a-vis HMG (Her Majesty's
Government!) itself. We note thus that Defra has been tasked to organise
'an international scientific conference to assess the scientific issues
associated with stabilising greenhouse gases' in February 2005 (Hadley
Centre, Exeter) yet notably with either i) pure science, ii) technological
fixes, not simply privileged but heralded as if these are the only
parameters for discussion. We would propose that one role Crisis Forum has
in the public arena is to refute this narrow bias and argue rather that the
challenges of anthropogenic climate change have passed way beyond an elite
scientific or engineering discourse and are now urgent questions of
societal, political, economic, epidemiological and geo-strategic analysis.
In other words, in conclusion we propose that :
a) Crisis Forum also has a role as a lobby group operating primarily (but
not exclusively) from within an academic frame but challenging the narrow
assumptions and wisdoms under which HMG - and others - are responding to
the crisis of climate change
b) that, to this effect, that Crisis Forum puts together a brief critique
of the Defra agenda (see http://www.stabilisation2005.com/) and requests at
the very least observer status at this event. We also invite in this
capacity workshop participants and others to offer their own papers (or
comments) for submission to the Defra event under a Forum aegis, or an aegis
in which Forum is one critical component.
Please feel free to respond to any or all of the above!
thanks and best wishes,
mark/david
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