Climate Change Awareness Week marches on...

Today was more Climate Change Awareness Week stuff- after the morning's three hour time series lecture, that is. In spite of my best efforts, I found it hard to keep awake towards the end was drifting off for a second or two every now and then (though luckily not slumping at all)- not because it was boring, which it wasn't at all, but because I haven't got as much sleep as I should lately! But as always, the lecturer finished half an hour early, and this time, rather than going off to do some work or other stuff, I took advantage of the fact that the room was booked till 12 o'clock to take a quick nap.

At 12, I went to the Quad to get leaflets about Climate Change Awareness Week to hand out- stopping at a stall selling cakes to raise money for the New York marathon or something (I didn't ask too closely as the cake was the main thing!). I managed to give them all out pretty quickly and went to man the stall, with CMCC (for some of the time) and various other people who also came and went, including P, whom I had a pretty interesting conversation with, and the People and Planet President.

At 1 there was an event, the first of the week to be during the afternoon. It was a DVD about how Cuba coped with its peak oil around 1990, with speakers from quite high up in the Green Party, and it was really interesting. I was surprised to learn that the area which uses most energy around the world is food. In Havana, they created many urban vegetable gardens when the drop in available oil made it harder for them to bring food in from outside, and apparently now grow half their vegetables within the city. I thought how great it would be (though sadly impractical) if we could grow vegetables on the roof of LSE and use them in the cafes and restaurants, and sell the rest in Houghton St...

Then it was back to the Quad for more stall-manning. CMCC and P were talking to the speakers from the event (as was only polite- and in any case it would have been a real missed opportunity for them not to), so it was just me. It was really cold as the stall appeared to be placed in a draught and I was glad I had my big woolly jumper to spread over my knees. I think maybe tomorrow I'll bring my towelling blanket...

Eventually the speakers left and CMCC joined me. I took the opportunity to show him my climate change leaflet and say that if he liked it and thought it would be a usefull thing to have on the table that would be great- the President hadn't got round to printing out copies. He thought it was good so I went to print out some copies, and assembled them while he was out leafletting to promote the evening's event.

This was with an economist rather than a politician for a change, but he explained effectively about the science of climate change as well. And he used a graph which showed yearly temperatures for the past 1000 years with a 40 year moving average- moving averages for smoothing being just what we'd studied this morning in Time Series- so I was pleased to see a practical example of it! (The lecturer doesn't really do practical examples...). I was also pleased that eight of the 20 copies of my leaflet that were out with the other literature for people to take as they left managed to find their way into people's bags.

After the event, I went for a drink in Holborn with the President, her brother, CMCC, and the Residences Officer (who hasn't been able to help much with Climate Change Awareness Week because she's been swamped with residences stuff to sort out, and only managed to come for the end of the event this evening). We had an interesting discussion, mostly about politics, but the Beaver also came up and I got to hear the Residences Officer's and CMCC's views on being written about in a rather offensive manner in the Hacktavist* and Union Jack columns- as I thought, it was just that it might interfere with the elections; in a previous conversation I gathered that the Residences Officer wasn't happy about it but she wouldn't do anything in the general way of things, and CMCC doesn't seem quite so bothered, being more concerned with the consequences arising from the complaint during the elections and the no-confidencing of C & S; the Residences Officer didn't seem to mind so much tonight either. And I also found out the the President (and her brother) is a US citizen as well as British and can vote in both countries- something that I hadn't thought was possible (though I knew you could be a citizen of two countries).

As we were all making moves to go, the Residences Officer asked if anyone else was going to the library, and I decided that I would- the initial plan had been to go after the event (to print out the notes for tomorrow's lecture), but as the pub was in Holborn I then thought I wouldn't walk all the way back to LSE but would come in early tomorrow morning. But when she mentioned the library, I had a reappraisal and concluded that, given my recent track record, I couldn't really trust myself to make it out of bed in time for a visit to the library before the lecture. So I went back towards LSE with CMCC and the Residences Officer- via Sainsbury's where the Residences Officer wanted some milk and one or two other things (quite a handfull it came to- I'm guessing she hadn't originally been planning on getting quite so much as she didn't take a basket); I got a sandwich to eat on the bus back as I hadn't had much to eat- I did have a sandwich at around 5 but technically I think that was a very late lunch, and I didn't want to have to even help myself to the leftover salad when I got back**. For some reason, getting the milk meant that she no longer needed to go to the library, so CMCC and I continued to LSE without her (and had an interesting conversation on the way about terrorism and ID cards which came up from talking about safety in London at night- CMCC said there would always be some risk that you had to accept and I compared it to terrorism which there will also always be a certain level of that can't be removed, leading on to the point that things like ID cards would still be a bad idea even if they did actually combat terrorism because you accept a certain chance of dying in return for living in a congenial society: we already do this with cars, since we could eliminate road accidents by banning cars but no-one actually wants to do that).

Tomorrow is of course more Climate Change Awarness Week stuff- two events again, and I'm going to bring in some visual aids, because hardly anyone has been stopping by the stall which I think is because while the leaflets are very interesting, they don't scream 'Look at me!' from a distance. We already had some balloons blown up to different sizes and each one having a label showing how much carbon dioxide different countries emit per capita each year, which was an idea that one of the People and Planet people (also a sustainability champion, and in my group for the discussion in Monday's meeting) had- we got those towards the end of the afternoon, and I think they did make a difference, and we should definitely have them again tomorrow. But what I want to do is to bring in a couple of pyrex dishes, fill one with brown sugar to look like sand, and stick paper cacti in it (already made this evening after I got back; I stuck them to lengths of disposable wooden chopstick to make them stand up), to represent drought, and put some models of Big Ben, a red bus, etc in the other and add water to show London after sea levels have risen. I discussed the idea (or the second part, anyway- the first part occurred to me later) with both the President and CMCC; the President really thought it would be a better idea for next time, but didn't actually object to doing it this time, while CMCC seemed to think it was a fairly good idea and was broadly supportive. I want to do it now because I won't be here next time and I doubt people would remember the idea, or know just how I would implement it if they did.

And I'm bringing Ginger to tomorrow's evening event (showing of The Great Warming (narrated by Keanu Reeves and Alanis Morisette) followed by social with free food, drink and entertainment from the Live Music Society). So she will finally be able to meet CMCC and see what's so great about him (of course, I may find it's just me...).

*Apparently the one that caused the complaint was indeed the first to appear- this year anyway; it's been run in previous years.

**Partly because that would probably mean chatting while I ate to Flatmates 3 and or 7, whom I enjoy talking to very much, but I knew I wouldn't feel like any kind of conversation when I got back, as I knew my brain wouldn't be working... But mainly because it would save time to eat on the bus, and I had a paper to read through for the same course as well as one or two other things to do before bed.