We would like to make conference material permanently available. We will do this by using the original programme format. We asked contributors to submit any slides and written commentary and you will be able to access these items. In some cases we were also able to record presentations on video, although the sound quality was erratic. The process will take some time to complete, so this section will develop over the coming months.
There are two ways you can watch these films:
- To watch a specific speaker you can watch the film under their name (the image you see is the same for all films, but once you press play it jumps to the speaker).
- Watch the full version of the session available at the end of this section.
Event 4: Visions and Re-Visions
Peter Harper: Three schools of thought:
Joe Ravetz: Scenario methodologies:
A surprise-free innovation scenario – Ian Roderick:
…a pathway in which fairly free innovation unfolds fast enough to cope with emerging problems. It is where most of society is, most of academia and most of the money. It’s also the most likely. It assumes that there will not be uncontrollable discontinuities of the Limits to Growth type, but a long slow series of containable problems, many of which can be modelled and anticipated. Innovation and investment is very vigorous and optimistic. Globalised market forces are accepted as inevitable, and there might well be a tendency for technically advanced regions and polities to separate from the rest.
A low-tech decentralist scenario – David King:
… a deliberate degrowth or ‘energy descent’ scenario emphasising resilience rather than efficiency. It captures the many neo-Luddite strands in thinking about technology and seeks a stable, relatively the seventies, and what we should do in the 22nd century, and is the best hope of avoiding major discontinuities. It also represents the survivalist or ‘collapsist’ tradition, which asks what are the best ways to maintain key technologies through dark times. It would have to ask what is the minimum level of industrial production necessary, and what, where, how this would be organised.
Essay by David King
A rapid-transition scenario – Paul Allen:
…assumes that major discontinuities are inevitable given the present trajectory, and sets out the conditions necessary to prevent them without sacrificing the essentials of ‘modernity’. It is a proactive, massive, rapid transformation with no technological holds barred at the outset. Several studies have demonstrated the technical feasibility of such a deliberate transformation, and they can be surprisingly attractive. It is of course unlikely, although there might be an extremely rapid emergency version of it if there is an unmistakable ‘signal’ event that aligns and galvanises global policymaking.
Slide presentation. See also http://zerocarbonbritain.com/
Stories of Change narratives & stories approach to energy and resources – Joe Smith:
Final discussion:
Whole session in one film:
Extra lunchtime events:
- Doing the Numbers: Critiques of Fluffy RT: Nick Grant. John Cantor, Paul Jennings, others
- Really Radical Technology: The Lucas Aerospace Story: Mike Hales, Dave Elliott.
- Trips in the Riversimple Hydrogen car: Hugo Spowers.Link to site
- Songs and Stories of the Anthropocene: Rut Blomqvist. Link to site
- Whatever happened to the mystical and occult aspects of RT 1.0?
- Richard Elen, Godfrey Boyle.
OTHER EXTRAS:
Some of the tweets during the conference https://twitter.com/hashtag/rtrevisited
Comments from participants:
Photographs (coming soon)