Seminars

Converging Crises, Policy Responses – Feasta seminar series

Converging Crises, Policy Responses – Feasta Seminar Series

Date and Time: 12 noon, 1 Friday followed by 4 Thursdays in June and July 2008
Venue: Irish Architectural Archive building, 45 Merrion Square, Dublin 2
This series of seminars was aimed primarily at policymakers, however Feasta members were most welcome too.

The five seminars are as follows:

The Future’s Not What it Used to Be, Friday 13th June
David Korowicz


Many of our civilisation’s key resources have become more tightly coupled and are under increasing strain. We look at the systemic interactions of energy, greenhouse gasses, food, and the macroeconomy; …

Public Meeting: How thinking about the climate crisis needs to change

Chaired by Emer O Siochru of Cap-and-Share Ireland

Speakers:

The problems

David Wasdell of the Meridian Programme

The pace at which climate change is already taking place has not been taken into account by politicians, policymakers and even the UN. Many feedback mechanisms have been ignored.

Richard Douthwaite of Feasta

Peak oil and climate change both mean that the use of fossil fuels has to be rationed in some way. Unless this is done, the income gap between those who can afford to use energy and those who can’t will widen considerably. Millions will starve.

The solutions

Peter Barnes of …

‘Bringing about Change’ – seminar with Peter Barnes and Mark Garavan

How can the political-economic regime be reformed to ensure that the environment and future generations are effectively represented? And what can we do to bring about the needed changes?

Feasta Seminar 13 November 2007, 11am-2pm

Venue : ENFO, 17 St. Andrew’s Street, Dublin 2.

Peter Barnes, author of Capitalism 3.0 and the 2007 Feasta lecturer

Mark Garavan, lecturer at Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology and author of A democracy for an ecological age in the Feasta Review issue ‘Growth the Celtic Cancer’

Introduced and moderated by Senator Deirdre de Burca

Format :

Peter and Mark summarised their main ideas. …

‘The Downside of Up’ – A Short FEASTA Course

Tuesdays 25th Sept & 2nd Oct 2007| Cultivate Centre | 7.30-9.30pm | €40 |

A short FEASTA course with David Korowicz on how economic growth eats itself, the environment, and makes society poorer. Explores the idea and operation of the global economy in the context of the wider eco-system in which it is situated. The continuing desire for economic growth, by its nature, will require ever more inputs of materials and energy. At the same time, it generates more and more waste such as greenhouse gasses. Is such an economy sustainable? Does it make us more content? Indeed, what is …

Members-only Seminar: Danny Day, founder and president of EPRIDA, on Creating a Virtuous Circle

How new biotechnologies can increase crop yields, extract a wide range of fuels, foods, chemicals and materials from the plants themselves and sequester perhaps a third of their carbon in the soil.

13.45 for 14.00, Friday, 27th July, 2007
at the Teagasc Ashtown Food Research Centre

In association with the University of Georgia, Eprida has developed a method of producing biofuels and valuable coproducts which also allows greenhouse gases to be removed from the air and sequestered in the soil. See www.eprida.com. There is no charge for the seminar but to enable detailed discussions to take place afterwards, attendance …

Feasta Energy and Climate Group – Public meeting

Date: Friday, 27th July, 7.30 pm, sharp.
Venue: Central Hotel, Exchequer Street, Dublin 2.
An evening of presentations and discussions on the theme:

climate change, peak oil and global equity
by members of the group.

Members of the group, including those visiting from Britain for the annual meeting at Glencree, presented the latest information on the timing of the peaks in oil, gas and coal production and how this relates to the climate crisis. Other topics included a discussion on whether the EU’s target of limiting the rise in global temperatures to 2 degrees C above the pre-industrial level is …