New Optimists - Kate Cooper on the Semantic web, food and Birmingham
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the new optimists Centre for Sustainability and Innovation welcome! forum Monday, 11 June 12
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Transcript of New Optimists - Kate Cooper on the Semantic web, food and Birmingham
the new
optimists
Centre for Sustainability and Innovation
welcome!
forum
Monday, 11 June 12
possible food futures forBirmingham 2050
the new
optimists
Monday, 11 June 12
a radical change to the food supply chain?
Monday, 11 June 12
a radical change to the food supply chain?
Centre for Sustainability and Innovation
Monday, 11 June 12
forum sponsors
Monday, 11 June 12
The New Optimists & the Forum
• Began with the simple question What are you optimistic about to over regional scientists
• Over 80 responded . . . a book launched at the 2010 British Science Festival (through a not-for-profit company)
The New Optimists: Scientists View Tomorrow’s World & What It Means to Us
• New Optimists Forum: a space for regional scientists to bend their minds to help meet the big challenges of the 21st century . . .
Monday, 11 June 12
the big challenges
• climate change, resource depletion, population pressures
• but . . . BUT . . . BUT
• yet “doing nothing is not an option” (Sir John Lawton, 2006 Lunar Society Annual Lecture)
Monday, 11 June 12
• Carolyn Steel: Hungry City . . . food as a means to understand the complexity of cities . . .
• scenario planning as a thinking tool . . .
• grounded in space (my home city) & time (2050 is beyond today’s planning systems but within our psyche) . . .
• scientists bending their minds in facilitated conversations with live social media reporting . . .
• computational and youngsters’ analytical brainpower (their skin as well as their DNA is in the game)
• all under the watchful brief of a random grandmother . . .
working within our human cognition
Monday, 11 June 12
Monday, 11 June 12
the forum: where we’re at
Monday, 11 June 12
the forum: where we’re at
Monday, 11 June 12
• Introductions & scene setting
• Understanding the nature of the technologies
• How these technologies could make a difference to Birmingham by 2050
• What that means for now . . . and what next
what we’ll be doing this evening
Monday, 11 June 12
Birmingham & its immediate environs
Monday, 11 June 12
Birmingham & its immediate environs
• Birmingham is at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, roughly 60K hectares (232 square miles).
Monday, 11 June 12
Birmingham & its immediate environs
• Birmingham is at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, roughly 60K hectares (232 square miles).
• The city’s population is about 1M people (density 9,450/m2), part of a conurbation of over 3.6M people.
Monday, 11 June 12
Birmingham & its immediate environs
• Birmingham is at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, roughly 60K hectares (232 square miles).
• The city’s population is about 1M people (density 9,450/m2), part of a conurbation of over 3.6M people.
• Formerly a few hamlets, it grew explosively during the Industrial Revolution; it’s an 18th, 19th & 20th century city.
• Swathes were badly bombed in WW2, redeveloped in the 1960s.
• Its economy collapsed in the 1980s; it is still heavily dependent on the public sector. There has been significant investment in the central parts of the city over the last 20 years.
Monday, 11 June 12
Birmingham & its immediate environs
• It sits on the Birmingham Plateau, rising 500-1000 ft (150-300m) above sea level, between the basins of the Rivers Severn and Trent. It is served only by minor brooks and streams . . . & canals.
• Water is pumped in from the Elan aquaduct built in 1904.
Monday, 11 June 12
Birmingham & its immediate environs
• It sits on the Birmingham Plateau, rising 500-1000 ft (150-300m) above sea level, between the basins of the Rivers Severn and Trent. It is served only by minor brooks and streams . . . & canals.
• Water is pumped in from the Elan aquaduct built in 1904.
• Originally part of the ancient Forest of Arden, there is still dense oak tree cover, aided by policies of our Quaker philanthropist forebears — there are 94K street trees. Many district names end with “-ley”; others have the name “heath”.
• There is 3.2K hectares of parkland, plus the 1K hectares of Sandwell Valley.
Monday, 11 June 12
Birmingham & its immediate environs
• Originally part of the ancient Forest of Arden, there is still dense oak tree cover, aided by policies of our Quaker philanthropist forebears — there are 94K street tress. Many district names end with “-ley”; some have the name “heath”.
• There is 3.2K hectares of parkland, plus the 1K hectare of Sandwell Valley.
• The city has over 7K allotments, several community orchards, wildflower meadows, Bourneville and Moorpool garden estates, sizeable gardens aplenty.
Monday, 11 June 12
Birmingham & its immediate environs
• Originally part of the ancient Forest of Arden, there is still dense oak tree cover, aided by policies of our Quaker philanthropist forebears — there are 94K street tress. Many district names end with “-ley”; some have the name “heath”.
• There is 3.2K hectares of parkland, plus the 1K hectare of Sandwell Valley.
• The city has over 7K allotments, several community orchards, wildflower meadows, Bourneville and Moorpool garden estates, sizeable gardens aplenty.
• The shire counties of the West Midlands has some very fertile agricultural and horticultural land.
Monday, 11 June 12
Birmingham & its immediate environs
• Geologically, the city is dominated by the Birmingham Fault, running from the Lickey Hills in the south-west to Sutton Coldfield in the north-east.
• SE of the fault, the ground is largely Keuper Marl (layers of siltstone and mudstone) . . .
• To the NW, there is a long ridge of Keuper Sandstone.
Monday, 11 June 12
Birmingham & its immediate environs
• Geologically, the city is dominated by the Birmingham Fault, running from the Lickey Hills in the south-west to Sutton Coldfield in the north-east.
• SE of the fauly, the ground is largely Keuper Marl (layers of siltstone and mudstone) . . .
• To the NW, there is a long ridge of Keuper Sandstone.
• Similar to other UK cities, Birmingham has considerable urban heat effect.
• Relative to other built-up areas in the UK, it is a snowy city due to its inland location and comparatively high elevation.
Monday, 11 June 12
Birmingham & its immediate environs
Tyseley Plant
•366K tonnes of household waste burnt per year
•providing 166MW electricity (average individual consumption is 5.85MW pa)
•& 282K tonnes of CO2
Monday, 11 June 12
Birmingham & its immediate environs
Tyseley Plant
•366K tonnes of household waste burnt per year
•providing 166MW electricity (average individual consumption is 5.85MW pa)
•& 282K tonnes of CO2
Possibility . . . a distributed energy generation system
Monday, 11 June 12
Birmingham & its immediate environs
Tyseley Plant
•366K tonnes of household waste burnt per year
•providing 166MW electricity (average individual consumption is 5.85MW pa)
•& 282K tonnes of CO2
Possibility . . . a distributed energy generation system
•fuel: the detritus of 1-3.6M people
•mini-plants: on currently non-productive former industrial land
•heat by-product: fed into the city’s existing CHP system
Monday, 11 June 12
Monday, 11 June 12
Monday, 11 June 12
Monday, 11 June 12
Monday, 11 June 12
