... over 3 more climate-change-awareness-packed days to an actual march at the end

Yes, I realise it's not the snappiest of titles. But when you read how much has been going on, you'll probably understand that my brain's not working as well as it might just at the moment...

On Thursday, I did manage to bring in the stuff for a miniature flooded London and desert. I was aided in this by the cancellation of my lecture: the lecturer didn't make it in till 9.30 because he'd been stuck on the tube, and when he did arrive he said that as the lecture was timed to fit in one hour we'd have it next week and just leave it there for this time. So I was able to get down to a souvenir shop, where I purchased a bus, a taxi, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Tower Bridge, and a phone box, and still make it down to the Quad to help set up the stall at 10. Everybody seemed to like the scenes, though I'm not sure they had as dramatic an effect at pulling in the crowds as I'd calculated- still, I think they got us one or two.

Thursday was of course also the UGM, so we all left the stall to itself to attend that. In some ways it could be considered the best UGM so far this year: all the motions were voted on (and all passed, which was good as they were all ones I supported), and there was still time to have the executive officers up on the stage again for some more questions, and then there was even an extraordinary motion (from one of the chief paper-throwers) to have the sabbatical officers sing a song- though they didn't actually get to sing it as the meeting had to be stopped due to people throwing paper (to a greater extent than they had been all along, that is). And there was still something like another 20 minutes before the official ending time after all that. I thought it said something quite interesting about student politics (and maybe politics in general?) that, were it not for the paper throwing, we would have been able to make our elected officers sing to us on a whim, purely by voting- ie in order to achieve proper democratic control, it has to be a side effect of the constitution that we can do random and not hugely usefull things like that- and it is up to us to excercise the responsibility not to be abusing that power, rather than it not having been granted in the first place. Though in this case I thought it was quite nice to have them sing- it would have been different if we hadn't got through all the business by that point. Of course, some elements of the audience aren't that great at the whole responsibility thing, and so in the normal course of things we do get a lot of time-wasting due to this power (not to mention paper-throwing which of course is a separate issue not caused by that- though interestingly, it's not possible for the throwers to introduce a motion on paper throwing and get the ban overturned like that, or indeed any other way- the best they could do (but fortunately haven't tried, I think because it was very carefully explained to them a couple of weeks ago exactly why it would be a very bad idea) would be to no-confidence the executive- that wouldn't get rid of the ban though). I'm not quite sure why we didn't get any time-wasting as we went along this time; as far as I remember, there also wasn't a speech against any of the motions, and they all passed quite easily, so maybe it's just that the right wing elements were not out in such numbers this time: you would expect them to be against the motion to affiliate the Union with London Citizens (which the Living Wage Campaign wanted to do in order to help with their battle for fair treatment and pay of the cleaners working at LSE- affiliation was a key step in the successfull campaign at Queen Mary and Westfield*) since it would cost money, and at the least not for, if not against, the motion to make double sided printing cheaper than two single sheets**- though I'm not quite sure what I would have guessed about the motion against the government's proposals that lecturers should survey muslim-looking students for signs of extremism.

So it was good because we got a lot done. But it was also bad because the Returning Officer resigned- I imagine because of the problem that caused the no-confidencing of C & S last week (the decision was either his or he had a large part in it, I 'm not sure which), though a contributing factor could also be that he was particularly unpopular with the paper-throwers*** (who of course were pretty vocal about it and certainly let him know their feeling through the questions they asked among other things), and now that we know the turnout for the election was less than the previous year, his position is weakened. I don't think he needed to resign- and in fact it was only a couple of sentences before the end of the speech that I realised that's what he was doing. The first part of the speech just sounded like a strange thing to be getting up and saying- unfortunately I can't remember what it was, but he was being critical about something. I think paper throwing was mentioned. And he did say towards the end that what was tragic was that due to the low level of student involvement, when he walked off the stage after resigning, most LSE students wouldn't even know (or care). I think that's a fairly pessimistic view: LSE has the only remaining weekly quorate**** UGM in the country, and you can't expect everyone to get involved. Which in some ways is just as well- I can't see 7000 students fitting into the Old Theatre, never mind trying to imagine how much time-wasting would occur (and how much paper would be thrown) with those numbers...

The resignation means that we now have neither a Returning Officer nor a C & S. This is problematic as those are the positions that run elections... and we need elections to get new ones. It's apparently not the first time it's happened, but it is the first time it's happened during the time any of the current students have been here. The old C & S have been appointed to carry on by the executive officers untill the new ones are elected- which is why we were able to have the meeting at all, and the executive are going to appoint a temporary Returning Officer too. There seems to be some slight uncertainty about all this as I'm not sure it's actually written down anywhere what the proceedure is in this case, but I don't think anyone's actually going to suggest this is unconstitutional (though the paper throwers could surprise me next week; after all they generally manage to).

There was a daytime Climate Change Awareness Week event on Thursday as well as Wednesday. This time it was an LSE lecturer called Dr Simon Dietz, and the room was full (though it was quite a small room). I'm guessing he must have promoted it to his students- I can't imagine we could have got that turnout ourselves given our success rate with the other events. It was an interesting talk though a little too technical in places for me (in terms of economics). And in spite of my best efforts, I dozed off a few times (subtly, I hope)- not because it was boring, just because I was so tired. At least I wasn't the only one- the Residences officer was, I thought, also asleep at times- and she was at the front so it must have been a lot more noticeable. She told me later that she had indeed drifted off several times- but the subject came up because she commented that I had, and considering that she was at the front and I was at the back I don't find this too reassuring as far as being inconspicuous goes!

The evening event was the only one without speakers. It was a showing of a couple of episodes of a documentary on global warming narrated by Alanis Morisette and Keanu Reeves. I brought Ginger along, because she texted at the beginning of the week suggesting meeting up for lunch (having been in Italy last week so we couldn't do anything- I think her college must have had a reading week or something) and I texted back to say I was too busy with Climate Change Awareness Week, but if she wanted to come along to one of the events... Thursday just happened to be the best day for her, but I think it was probably also the best event to invite her to. Unfortunately, though, the free wine was rather potent*****- after just one glass I was definitely feeling the effects, to the point where I couldn't refuse another glass and another (spread over the whole evening though, I hasten to add) though this would normally only happen to me after four or five glasses. It did make the whole thing rather more fun though- which was possibly just as well as the documentary was a little silly. I have to say that I'm afraid the only thing I remember from it is that more Canadians die falling out of bed than from something else that I forget******, which, even though it's obviously tragic, is also in a worrying way quite funny at the same time. The wine was even more necessary for the entertainment by the Live Music Society that followed as, with the exception of one act who just sung things like Fly me to the Moon and was pretty good, it was dire.

Ginger came back to stay the night, and we popped into Tesco's on the way back- still rather drunk- and went a bit mad buying stuff for a belated supper (I thought there was going to be proper food at the event but it was actually only nibbles) including tinned macaroni cheese (something we both have a strange fondness for though we realise that we should be ashamed of this- and which brings back the UCL student days (when we would occasionally indulge, by no means always together)) and a chocolate roulade that really was an extravagance buy that probably wouldn't have happened without the alcohol... it was very nice though, and being a whole one rather than a couple of slices has lasted me a couple more days and been very enjoyable to finish up.

Friday started with a Principles and Methods mid-term test. I had tried to do some revision while manning the stall on Thursday- but it wasn't really possible to do practice questions so I was just trying to learn the notes, and didn't do badly in terms of quantity and accuracy of memorisation, but then it turned out that, contrary to what he'd suggested before, we were actually allowed to use our notes while we took the test, so that was basically a waste of time (unless you look at it as advance revision for the summer exams). I didn't do very well; it was harder than the excercise questions (which of course doesn't tend to be the case with exams so came as something of a surprise), and I still haven't got one or two key concepts or at least how to use them in practice, but I kind of knew I wasn't going to do great at the beginning, and because the test isn't assessed (in the sense of counting towards our final mark) and it wasn't even compulsory to hand it in, I actually relaxed rather and looked on it more as some more examples of practice questions that I was working my way through (I'm going to have a go at the ones I didn't get to as well at some point) than a test.

Friday's event was another afternoon one. It was a talk by someone called Aubrey Meyer who was one of the earliest proponents of Contraction and Convergence*******, and had been eagerly anticipated, particularly by CMCC. I'd been expecting a scientist, but he turned out to be an ex-professional musician who had founded something called the Global Commons Institute to try and tackle climate change. Actually, I wasn't impressed. I liked the bit where he got out his violin (he was amazing) and played it while projecting a photo/ video montage of natural disasters, but I didn't think much of his science- maybe, having expected a scientist, I hadn't subconsciously managed to take down the bar and was demanding more of him than one should of a non-scientist, or maybe I really do have a point, but although he had some very impressive graphs (with which there doesn't seem to be a problem), he displayed either a lack of clarity or a lack of understanding about science which didn't do much for me. For example, while making a point about how it was important as human beings to be influenced by emotion and not just be rational (after playing the violin to the images), he condemned as callous certain UCL scientists for using a value of 1/15 of a Western life for a developing countries life when calculating the cost of global warming (and comparing adaptation to global warming with preventing it). I agree that it's callous to actually value those lives as 1/15 of Western lives. But I don't agree that it automatically made those scientists callous people- it depends on the context, and they may well have been, but equally there's the possibility that they weren't. If that was their genuine opinion of the worth of those lives, then yes. But what if they cared about those people and wanted to prevent global warming, but knew that would involve businesses, and businesses are not known for their openness to argument based on emotion? If they calculated the cost putting all lives equal, and showed that to banks or whoever, then the banks could easily say 'We're not persuaded; we don't think lives in those countries are worth as much as you've allowed for them and so we expect that if you don't put them equal, you find it's cheaper to adapt than prevent global warming' Whereas if they go to the banks and say 'Even if you value a life in a developing country at 1/15 of one in the West, it's still cheaper to prevent global warming than to adapt to it', then they stand a much better chance of actually persuading them. And supposing they'd done the calculation with the lives at 1/15 and it had come out cheaper to adapt, they (depending on context, ie who's funding the study) probably aren't in fact (as he suggested) obliged to draw the attention of corporations to it. They should still publish it quietly in the interests of academic integrity, and having done that they've done their duty to science, but their duty as caring citizens of the world requires them not to go to the banks and point out that it's cheaper to adapt, and there's no clash there.What he failed to understand, I think, was that, not just in science though it's more formalised there, the most powerfull argument rests on the least debated assumptions. If you're trying to calculate the cost of something, you go for the upper or lower limit of the cost, and you do that by feeding in prices for the component parts that everyone can agree are greater than or equal to the true amount, or less than or equal to the true amount, respectively. Everyone (I'm guessing by the fact that that was the figure they used) can agree that a developing world life is worth at least as much as 1/15 of a Western life- and that includes by definition all those of us who think they're equal. But not everyone can agree that they should be assigned the same value (eg big corporations and banks), and that is very sad indeed, but you would have to do a different study if you wanted to convince business that the lives are equal (and it would probably be a philosophy rather than a science report given that it's about morals not economics), and so in this case you have to accept that if you use an equal value for both, any conclusions you draw won't be considered valid by anyone who doesn't believe in that equality.I asked a question at the end about this point, but whether it was my phrasing or his bad science, he spectacularly failed to grasp what I was getting at and spent a long time telling me about different roles in persuading people of scientists, government etc, which was all very interesting (or would have been had I understood it) but had nothing to do with the scientific method or logic which is what I was questioning.

There was also a bumper booklet that he was handing out that covered the same material as the talk, with the many many graphs, but though it looked good at first glance, that too seemed to have some holes on closer inspection. Not in the science itself, (so far as I know), but in the logic. For example, 'Whatever level of atmospheric C02 is deemed to be the 'ceiling' on what is 'safe', the effort to keep concentrations at and/or below that level will require an inclusive full-term global contraction budget of future emission to achieve it. This by definition means that international shares in this will converge'

Point 1: that would be 'to keep concentrations at or below that level'- I'd like to see them try to keep them at and below the level...

Point 2: Unless it's just my non-existent knowledge of economics leading me to make a mistake, I can't see that the last sentence follows. After all, just because the total level of emissions is fixed at a certain, lower level, there's nothing whatever to stop the proportions of emissions from the various countries going to make that up fluctuating wildly from year to year- one year France emitting half of the total while the next year it's down to 0.1% while Venezuela is emitting 2/3. This would not be likely or sensible (and such a swift dramatic switch probably wouldn't be physically possible)- but it's not excluded by definition. I'm not suggesting they should add a sentence explicitly saying that fluctuating levels would be daft (though for levels that only fluctuate slightly it does perhaps need proving), but that they should use a different phrase to 'by definition'.I actually agreed with Contraction and Convergence before the talk- but if I hadn't, the talk and leaflet wouldn't have been doing as good a job as they should to persuade me.I'm not sure what most of the others there (and embarrassingly for such a big name, there weren't many, maybe 10 of whom about half had to leave after an hour) thought of it, but CMCC was full of admiration, and I think Flatmate 7 (who was one of those who had to leave early) liked it too though I'm not sure she'd criticise if she hadn't; all she specifically mentioned was the violin playing, and she said she hadn't understood from it what Contraction and Convergence is (he may not have started explaining that bit till she'd gone). So maybe it was just me, and my background in terms either of a presence of science or a lack of economics.

I couldn't believe it was all over as we packed up the stall for the last time. In spite of it having taken me away from my work, I'm really going to miss it- for itself but also I'm ashamed to admit because the stallholding provided several opportunities for conversations with CMCC over the week. Though I'll miss the others- the President of People and Planet, P, R, and the ex-male co-chair- too. It's not like I won't see them- there'll be a Green Party committee meeting and a People and Planet committee meeting each week, but I won't see them so often, and I won't be able to chat to them during meetings.When everything had gone away, I went to join the others (CMCC, EMCC, Residences Officer, President and maybe someone else I've forgotten) sitting around chatting for a few minutes, and had a rather embarrassing misunderstanding. CMCC was saying something about going out for a meal later on, on him. The last part was clearly a joke, but everyone seemed to be reacting to the part about the meal as if it was a genuine proposition, either with enthusiasm or to say they couldn't (though there may not have been any who said they couldn't, I can't quite remember). I didn't say anything because they're all friends and I wasn't quite sure if I was included, but then EMCC turned to me and asked me if I wanted to come, so I said yes. But they all had a meeting they had to go to (to do with the Beaver newspaper), so as they were going, I asked EMCC where I should meet them. He said he was busy and couldn't go, so I should ask CMCC. Which I did- but he didn't understand what I was talking about at first, and when he realised said that it had just been a joke, though he had promised to take the Residences Officer out for a meal and was going to do that. So of course I hurriedly apologised for getting the wrong end of the stick- actually I was already backpedalling a bit when it was clear he didn't know what I was talking about at the beginning, but it was pretty horrific because it made me feel I looked clingy (to be asking for more time with them given how much we'd spent over the week, and at a point when they probably all just wanted to get home) and slow on the uptake (for not having seen they weren't serious), as well as distancing me from them (for not having understood them). But most of all, there was no way to show that I had at least realised he wasn't actually intending to pay for all of us. So that made me look like I'd been hoping for (maybe even claiming as my due for a week's hard work) a free supper, and possibly as though I had an extravagant attitude to money (to think any student could afford that, coupled with a few other incidents such as my large donation to CMCC's sponsored fasting and traditional muslim dress wearing a couple of weeks ago). And of course there was the possibility he might think I was thinking he was stingy for not taking us all out... It took me all evening to stop remembering the incident from time to time and cringing. But it's just as well they weren't serious, because I spent the evening finishing off (ie adding a bit of structural support to and painting) my butterfly wings, and amazingly it took from 6.30 pm to 5 am, with a break for supper. They ended up quite good, though I hadn't been able to paint a neatly as I would have liked.

The demo today was good- though to our shame, LSE only mustered 20 or so people in spite of being in London- but it would have been better with a longer march and less of the gathering at Trafalgar Square at the end- though they had famous musicians like K T Tunstall and Razorlite playing live as well as people speaking, including Miranda Richardson, it wasn't that great, and I was mostly bored and hungry and my feet hurt whereas on the march I was having a great time. Yes, I realise that's not what it's actually about... The Trafalgar Sq thing wasn't helped by a truly dire compere who was making bad taste and irrelevant jokes between announcing people- he even brought Princess Diana up. He managed to combine bad taste with what I hope was a slip of the tongue rather than bad logic when he said he had a solution to climate change, asked us if we wanted to know what it was, and then claimed that the 'solution' was that there were too many people in the world, before going on to suggest we spit in the face of anyone who tells us they're pregnant, though not in the case of smokers who have already realised their mistake.

Though I went to the event with the contingent meeting outside LSE at 10 (in theory), I actually left with the other LSE people, who were the ones who went to the People and Planet conference, and joined us in Malet St, as everyone else had gone separate ways: EMCC and the Students' Union Treasurer******** who had been standing not far from us just left straight away whereas we had to wait for someone, so we lost them, CMCC and the Residences Officer had gone to join his parents when we first got to Trafalgar Square (they'd also come on the demo but from one of the other starting points)*********, and I'm not quite sure what happened to the others. I walked down to King's with them, where they had to sign up for the bits of the conference they wanted to go to tomorrow, then we went and got something to eat, before going back to King's (the signing up hadn't been open when they tried before going to get sandwiches) where I went with them and had a look round the various stalls that were set up in the signing up room. It was the first time I'd been in King's. I'm jealous of their river view :-)

*That's just one place, another college of the University of London

**The motion can't bring this about, as it's not something decided by the Union but by LSE, so it actually just makes certain of the executive officers try to persuade the School to do it.As far as the guess that the right wing elements would be against it goes, it would possibly give them a chance to print more cheaply (if, assuming the Union was actually successfull in getting LSE to make this the case, the price for two singles remained constant and the price for a double dropped, rather than the price for two singles rising and that for a double staying the same), but on the other hand, it might make it more expensive for them (if they resisted double sided printing or only had one sheet to print, and the cost for single sided went up), and there is a fair bit of anti-green feeling among them, so I would have expected some kind of a speech against, even if not entirely heartfelt or serious (especially as quite a few of them are into debating and have in the past shown themselves to like making speeches against simply for the sake of having a bash at arguing the point)

***As well as, in company with CMCC and the Residences officer (and many others), being written about in a pretty negative way in Union Jack- though the author seemed to have more of a problem with him than almost anybody else.

****For those who don't know, 'quorate' means that enough people attend for any votes on motions to count according to the constitution- there's something saying that at least a certain number of people have to vote to pass a motion

*****Or that's what I thought at the time, but due to the effects I overlooked the other possible explaination that occurred to me after I'd sobered up the next day: that it was just that I was drinking on an empty stomach

******This was what one of the people interviewed said, but in the context they may have meant 'die in ordinary everyday situations that we would judge safe'- it wasn't clear if it was an actual statistic or just rhetoric

*******Total world carbon emissions are reduced, and the new level is shared out so that each person on the planet gets to emit the same amount (though it works within a trading scheme so they may not actually emit the same amount). Emissions are reduced gradually year by year to get down to that point, rather than a sudden drop (contraction), but equal shares per head are achieved before the final reduced level is reached (convergence)- which means that developing countries actually increase their emissions before reducing with the rest of us (this is fair as we've been able to develop so much by emitting much more carbon than them in the past, and so not to let them have their own chance to develop to a certain extent would be hypocritical)

********Who is actually really nice, though my first impression of him just seeing him give his report at the UGM each week was not that favourable (or unfavourable). He's CMCC's predecessor as Environment and Ethics officer, and is pretty into environmental stuff (a lot of the environmental motions at the UGM are proposed or seconded by him (with CMCC usually being the seconder or proposer respectively though EMCC also does sometimes)), and so I saw him for the first time in a different context during Climate Change Awareness Week. He was marching next to me.

*********The Residences officer apparently hadn't met his parents before and also hadn't realised they were going to be here today. I refrained from mentioning that I'd remembered CMCC saying they were coming some weeks ago, and that I met them when I was manning the stall on Monday evening... but I still felt a little smug inside. This was considerably muted though by the knowledge that she's actually got the important thing...