Here are a couple more dates that may interest readers here. I'm sure all my readers in the Northern Isles will be interested in this courtroom-style confrontation on 10 September between upholders of and dissentients from the IPCC consensus, and featuring Benny Peiser and BH regular, John Shade:
A courtroom format in Orkney next week will tackle the question of climate change.
For many years the debate has raged in newspaper columns and internet blogs – Is the climate really changing? And are we the cause?
Now as part of the Orkney International Science Festival the courtroom method is bring applied. The aim is to get at the truth by bringing the two sides together, gathering the evidence from each, and subjecting it to examination and cross-examination.
The Festival say that despite all the arguments about climate change, they have not heard of this courtroom-style approach being tried before, and on Monday evening (10 September) a team of Orkney lawyers and debaters will get into action.
Solicitors Alistair Bruce of Lows of Orkney and Katharine McKerrall of OIC will marshal their witnesses in a courtroom procedure of strict rules. Each side will call two main witnesses, and then the other side will cross-examine. The audience will have an opportunity to feed in questions and to act as the jury in making a final decision at the end of the evening.
And then there's this valuable opportunity on 26 September to question Peter Wadhams on his Arctic findings:
Arctic Meltdown
With Professor Peter Wadhams, Head of the Polar Oceans Physics Group at Cambridge University and John Vidal (Guardian Environment correspondent) who will just have returned from visiting the Arctic on a Greenpeace vessel...
Organised by the Campaign against Climate Change with the Arctic Methane Emergency GroupThe Arctic ice cap is disappearing before our eyes: this is the first large scale unmistakable impact of climate change, clearly visible from space.
The arctic sea-ice broke an all time record for lowest ever extent on Friday 24th August (after breaking several other records according to other methodologies of measurement by other scientific institutions etc…). This was a bombshell because it was nearly a month before you would expect the ice to reach its seasonal minimum – it is still decreasing now and we can expect it to continue decreasing until around mid September (so we should probably have a good idea of the absolute minimum by the time of this meeting).
What does this mean for our estimates of when the arctic will be completely ice-free at the end of the summer ?
What will be the consequences when this happens ?
Finally, on 2 October the Frontline Club in London is hosting a debate about journalism's ability (or otherwise) to respond to the global warming question.
With the UK's Energy bill on the verge of coming before parliament and world leaders preparing for the latest climate summit, this time in Doha; some are worrying about the ability of a struggling media to play an effective role in the debate on energy and the climate.
As the press struggles to recover from a collapse in advertising during the recession and the damage done by the phone hacking scandal and subsequent inquiry the discussion will examine the challenges facing journalists reporting on an area of great scientific and economic complexity. The event will ask what impact those challenges have on the wider policy debate over energy and climate change and what - if anything - should be done to improve the discussion on this crucial area.
Chaired by editor of the Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, an expert panel will be exploring whether our journalism is up to the debate over energy and climate change.