"Australia has seen the effects of climate change"
The first talk I went to was by Tim Flannery, author of 'The Weather Makers", chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council, and Australian of the Year in 2007. The talk was titled something unassuming like "Climate change: current state of science and what we can do about it", which had me worried it may be a boring run-of-the-mill climate change talk. But he talked a lot about the controversies: the UEA leaked emails (talking a lot, of course, about how they were cleared of any wrongdoing) and the Copenhagen Summit (linking it naturally to the unique timing of the leaked emails). All of this, he concluded, made it seem as if the Copenhagen meeting was a failure. But he was keen to point out to us that even the simple Copenhagen Accord was a great step towards getting major CO2 emitting countries to commit to cutting their output. Still, he says, we are a long way from making those agreements accountable. Many countries will be over their Kyoto targets, but will they pay up for it? Unlikely.
More likely to succeed are single country-enforced things. When asked whether he thought cap-and-trade or a straight carbon tax would be better, he said it depended on the country, where its economy and development were at.
The final interesting point was that he talked a lot about how the Green Party in Australia is now part of their coalition government, and how this came about from a lot of grass-roots action. People wondered, as Canada and Australia seem to have similar cultures and personae, why has a similar thing not happened in Canada? Flannery reasoned that in Australia the effects of climate change are painfully evident: 10-year droughts, wildfires and the bleaching and destruction of the great barrier reef.
"Hi, my name's Julie and I'm a Catholic computer programmer"
This was the rather surprising introduction to a question on probably my favourite night of the Festival: an astrobiology debate titled "Are We Alone in the Universe?" The debate featured a University of Alberta professor and the head of the Vatican Observatory. For most of the evening they gave a presentation, explaining everything you need to know about the Drake Equation (plus an impressive display of our place in universe from the star theatre the debate was held in). I had always had a basic idea of the variables that made up the Drake Equation, but the presentation gave more detail into some of the possible numbers involved in each factor. For example, stars that are too massive don't burn for long enough to allow the evolution of complex life, and stars with too low mass would need planets to be very close in order to be in the habitable zone, and at that close range the gravity of the star would cause unimaginable tides and a slowing of the planet's rotation so that only one side faces the star. Not much chance then for life to evolve.
The way life began on our own planet is still somewhat a mystery, but one of my favourite likelihoods is that it actually got started many times and was wiped out many times in the beginning, during the time of heavy bombardment, when meteor strikes from the still-forming solar system were abundant. An interesting idea raised in the debate though that made the beginning of life seem astounding again. In order to get enough mobile materials for the 'primordial soup', a lot of erosion of the early Earth surface was required. This seems to have been achieved by the greater power of the oceans, as the newly-formed moon was closer and caused tides up to 1000x higher.
Regardless, the conclusion is that simple life is probably abundant in the universe, but complex, intelligent life needs more of a leap. Thus far then, the evening had been informative, but the debate started a little more in the question period. The first was discussing the theory of panspermia; extraterrestrial material brining life to Earth through space, which wasn't so interesting except the Vatican father explaining how they have a piece of Mars, and a photo of the Pope with the fragment was under the headline "Mars in the hand of the Pope" in the local press.
The next question though asked that if we do discover intelligent aliens, do they need 'salvation', in the way missionaries needed to save the savages? The answer from the father was interesting then. He clarified that if they were intelligent, then they would have the possibility to commit sin. But, he said, they may not necessarily have done. In which case they wouldn't need salvation. But they are still creatures of God. Which is where he ended his answer, which really still leaves the question, if they had never had God, but had 'committed sin', would they all need some missionaries to show them the way? Because that's always been for the best in the best...
The next interesting question involved life's tendency towards complexity, whereas the universe tends towards entropy. Does the hand of a deity push life in the complexity direction? The prof. defined life as the ability to use energy constructively: to metabolise, and that is the process that creates complexity. The father said he didn't believe God is an engineer, but rather a father to the universe, allowing it to grow as it will, and yet knowing how it would turn out. "God doesn't play dice, but he knows the dice are loaded."
"One in three Americans is as fat as the other two"
The last event I went to at the Festival was an evening with David Sedaris. This one I was covering for The Gateway, it was a good way to get a free pass to the show and also expand my news writing beyond just sci and tech. Sedaris is a popular semi-autobiographical writer with a wicked sense of humour. I'd never read any of his stuff, but it was a good job I have quite a dark sense of humour! (It comes with being British, I think). His tales were full of shameless death and depravity, but he had the audience in stitches, as well as being very clever and satirical. Through the CFI I've met a guy called Ryan Bromsgrove who writes opinion pieces for The Gateway and he writes simply fabulous parody and satirical pieces. I feel I'm much better at the straight-up news currently, but I want to branch out into opinions and features for The Gateway next year.
Anyway, for now you can read my David Sedaris piece here.
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