Serendipity

Here’s a whole set of things I can’t make it to. The great thing about being on sabbatical is the ability to travel, visit different labs, and so on. The downside is that there are far more interesting places and events than I can possibly make it to, and many of them clash. Here’s some I won’t be able to make it to this fall:

• Toronto, Sept 15, 2010: Dr James Hansen, of NASA GISS, will be giving a talk in Toronto entitled ”Climate Reality”. It will be followed by a discussion with Naomi Klein and Clayton Thomas-Muller, and it kicks off the Centre for Global Change Science’s annual speaker series. Event details: Sept 15, 5:30pm, MacMillan Theatre, Edward Johnson Bldg (North), 80 Queen’s Park. Free admission. Poster!
• Paris, Sept 20-21, 2010: Workshop on “Climate change controversies in the media: Sociological insights“, Maison des Sciences de la communication du CNRS, 20 rue Berbier-du-Mets, 750013 Paris. (actually, I might be able to make it to this one…)
• Toronto, Sept 22-25, 2010: The Green Building Festival 2010. Location: Direct Energy Centre – Exhibition Place. Toronto. Darn – I missed it last year, and I’ll miss it again this year.
• Toulouse, Dec 15, 2010: Workshop on “Coupling Technologies for Earth System Modelling : Today and Tomorrow“, to be held at CERFACS, in Toulouse, France, Dec 15th to 17th 2010. This is right up my street, but it clashes with the AGU meeting.

Busy few days coming up in Toronto, around the celebration of Earth day tomorrow:

• tonight, the Green Party is hosting an evening with Gwynne Dyer and Elizabeth May entitled “Finding Hope: Confronting Climate Wars“. Gwynne is, of course, the author of the excellent book Climate Wars, also available as a series of podcasts from the CBC;
• tomorrow (April 22) the Centre for Environment has its Research Day, showcasing some of the research of the centre;
• all week, the Centre for Global Change science is hosting Ray Pierrehumbert giving a lecture series “New Worlds, New Climates“. Tomorrow’s (April 22) looks particularly interesting: “Climate Ethics, Climate Justice”;
• next Tuesday (April 27), the Centre for Ethics is running a public issues forum on “Climate Change and the Ethics of Responsibility“;

I won’t make it to all of these, but will blog those that I do make. Seems like ethics of climate change is a theme, which I think is very timely.