Slides from Friday Week 1

Ecological Self Jan2012printversion

Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing

EU Climate Change Commissioner Connie Hedegaard speaking on the launch of the Global Sustainability Panel’s Final Report

http://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/hedegaard/multimedia/videos/2012-01-30_01_en.htm

You can see their website here

http://www.un.org/gsp/

and the report is here

http://www.un.org/gsp/report

Truckers to Protest Over the Price of Diesel

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0130/1224310944733.html

Price Waterhouse Cooper on Material Scarcity

just read the executive summary

http://www.pwc.com/en_GX/gx/sustainability/research-insights/assets/impact-of-minerals-metals-scarcity-on-business.pdf

Climate Change and Agriculture

article from Time

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2105169,00.html?xid=tweetbut

All is one

Yesterdays class reminded me of this video

Rio +20

20 years on from the seminal Earth Summit, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development will return to Rio. Check out the website to see what it is about

http://www.uncsd2012.org/rio20/index.html

Oil’s tipping point has passed (since 2005)

Article by James Murray and David King published in Nature today

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v481/n7382/full/481433a.html

This may be behind a pay wall if you are accessing it from off campus but if you do some searching around on the internet you will find plenty of commentary about it.

Nuclear Power for Ireland

Professor Philip Walton, Professor Ian McAulay & Mr Denis Duff

Date – Thursday 9^th February 2012

Time – 6pm

Venue – Jean Monnet Theatre, Main Building

Abstract

Historically the Irish Government’s policy has been firmly opposed to nuclear energy on the grounds of the risk it poses, yet some argue that nuclear energy is one of the cleanest, safest and economic forms of energy available to mankind today.  Nuclear Power has been employed successfully over the past 50 years by many countries yet Ireland continues to reject it.

 

Three members of the BENE (Better Environment with Nuclear Energy) group; Professor Philip Walton, Professor Ian McAulay & Mr Denis Duff will explain this is the case and also put forward their reasons why they believe Ireland should adopt nuclear energy as an important part of our energy mix.

 

Presenters

Philip Walton is Emeritus Professor at NUI Galway.  Up until his retirement in 2005 he was Professor or Applied Physics at the University. He has served for seven years on the Board of the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland and has also served as Radiological Protection Officer at NUI Galway.

 

Professor Ian McAulay has a background in health physics and has been extensively involved in measurements of radioactivity in the environment and in radiation protection.  He was heavily involved in the nuclear debate thirty years ago and at that time was one of the Irish scientists trying to correct imbalances in the media coverage.

 

Mr Denis Duff is a mechanical engineer currently working in the power generation sector.  He has wide experience of different electrical generation systems both in Ireland and abroad.  These include a wind turbine generation evaluation project as well as solid fuel, oil and gas-fired thermal stations.

 

Refreshments will be served after the presentation.

RSVP:                       Josephine.Hogan@ul.ie        by Monday 6th February 2012

Blogs

Don’t forget to set up your blogs! There are none yet!