As Anthony would say, "people send me things". Most recent has been this document, the agenda for a seminar at St Anne's College, Oxford later this week. Strangely, this doesn't seem to have been advertised anywhere, but you might realise why when you have finished reading this. You will need to put down any coffee cups you are holding before reading on.
Yes folks, the seminar is about "Communicating Risk and Uncertainty" with the emphasis very much on climate change. Yet again, a bunch of underutilised academics is going to sit around with some media folks trying to work out why it is nobody believes a word they say. We can all admire persistence and determination, but I think we may just have reached the point at which persistence teeters over the line into mule-witted stubbornness.
Oh yes, and it's the same bunch of underutilised academics and media folks it always is.Take a look:
Communicating Risk and Uncertainty
Thursday, 15th November, 0900 - 1700
Location: Tsuzuki lecture theatre. St Anne's College. Oxford.
http://www.st-annes.ox.ac.ukfaboutfhow-to-find-us.html0900 Registration
Welcome by Professor Sir David Watson, principal of Green Templeton College
0930 Opening Address - Professor David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor of the Public
Understanding of Risk, Cambridge University:The challenges of cammunicating risk and uncertainty'
10.00 - 11.00 Public Understanding of Risk and Uncertainty
• Professor Nick Pidgeon, Cardiff University
• Dr Emily Shuckburgh, BAS/DECC
• Chair: Bob Ward, Grantham Institute, LSE
11.00 Coffee11.15 - 12.15 The experience of different sectors in communicating risk and uncertainty
• Wendy Jarrett, Associate Director, Media Relations, National Institute for Health and
Clinical Excellence (NICE)
• Elliot Varnell, Consulting Actuary, Milliman
• Dr Roger Street, Green Templeton College, Oxford12.15 -13.15 Communicating risk and uncertainty in climate science
• Professor Chris Rapley, UCL
• Peter Stott, Met Office
• Professor Rob Wilby (Loughborough)
• Chair: Richard Black, former BBC environment correspondent
13.15 - 1400 Lunch14.00 - 15.00 The IPCC's communication of risk and uncertainty
• Professor Myles Allen, ECI, Oxford University
• Professor Arthur Petersen (Chief Scientist of the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment
Agency)
• Chair: Cecilie Mauritzen, Director CICERO (Center for International Climate and
Environmental Research), Oslo15.00 - 16.30 The media's reporting of risk and uncertainty
Panel discussion with:
• Roger Harrabin, BBC Environment analyst
• Fiona Harvey, Guardian environment correspondent
• Kate Kelland, Health and Science Correspondent, Thomson Reuters
• Chair: Tom Sheldon, Science Media Centre16.45 Close followed by drinks reception
Convenor: James Painter, james.painter@politics.ox.ac.uk
Same time next month?