Working together to deliver a low carbon future for Scotland
I gave a key note speech at a conference on Scotland’s clean air initiatives last week and it got me thinking of the hierarchy of travel options. I have used as my guiding principles the need to reduce both carbon emissions and air pollution, particularly in our cities. I have come up with a travel pecking order of 7 Ps: PEACE. It is always best if we can avoid actually having to travel in the …
I was sent an interesting article by Ron Kasabian about big data. He talks about the stages in typical technology developments where, after a ‘peak of inflated expectations’, we usually enter something called the ‘trough of disillusionment’. He argues that, as far as big data is concerned, “there is fact substance behind the hype”. I would agree. The amount of data that is available is growing every day and we are finding increasingly creative uses …
The road to true sustainable development really depends on two things; what we build (the engineering challenge) and how we behave. It is this second one that many of us struggle with. Last week the Scottish Government published its report on the ten key behavioural areas that should be addressed. There is a wealth of data in the report. The behaviours cover four topics, energy, transport, food and waste. A few of the statistics I picked …
Having read the raw material from the UN’s IPCC 5th assessment report I also had a look at some of the comments that various people have made following its publication. Generally, the majority of the comments were supportive. A good example would be the Scotsman’s editorial which in a lengthy and thoughtful piece said “Even if not totally convinced by the scientific evidence, surely the prudent course of action for us all is to act …
At the end of last week the UN’s IPCC fifth assessment report on climate change started to see the light of day with the publication of the Summary for policy makers. During an idle hour or two I decided to try and read it. I’m afraid I struggled with some of the science. One issue that strikes you, however, is that even the scientists have struggled to get across the concepts of levels of certainty …
We had the second 2020 Climate Group lecture last week. This one was on the science around climate change. We had two boffins, Stephen Belcher from the Met Office and James Curran from SEPA, who did an excellent job in explaining the current scientific views and evidence on climate change. For example a lot of work is now being done to understand what climate change means for the occurrence of extreme weather events. The one …
Wearing my 2020 hat I met IBM recently to discuss how the digital revolution is affecting public services. Their central thesis was that the agenda of most governments, at most levels, is on three things: cost efficiency. Austerity and value for money are hitting almost every country to varying degrees and the bigger the pressure, the greater the need for innovation in the provision of public services. transforming services. As digital revolutionises the customer experience …
In my role as Chairman of the 2020 group I attended a dinner on peat. Not normally the subject of meal time conversation, I know, but a vital and largely unknown topic. Peatlands are one of the world’s greatest natural stores of carbon but in the past man’s activities have generally caused this landscape to degrade substantially. The UK, and Scotland in particular, has a lot of peatland with an estimated three million hectares or …
