Sunday Evening Talks

Seven Roads in Summertown promotes a series of talks by local experts.

All talks are free to attend. There is a retiring collection for a cause of the speaker's choice.

Lindsay Turnbull on Aldabra: A World Out of Time

Plant scientist and ecologist Prof Lindsay Turnbull showed us some of the marvels of Aldabra Atoll in Seychelles, the world’s second-largest coral atoll. She has worked there with other scientists and Seychelles government agencies on conservation, plastic pollution cleanup and her own research activities.

Donations

Prof Turnbull asked for donations to go to the Seychelles Islands Foundation.

Chris Goodall on What We Need To Do Now

Chris Goodall

Economist Chris Goodall examined the possible contribution of technology in our struggle to reach net-zero by 2050, and concluded that although society and technology can help, we must also make individual choices.

You can find more about Chris Goodall’s work on his website carboncommentary.com

Donations

Chris Goodall asked for donations to go to Cutteslowe Community Larder.

Dr James Painter on climate change and the media

Web links to resources mentioned in the talk

About the talk

Dr James Painter

There is growing concern about the climate and whether governments can rise to the challenge in time. They need to agree radical policies at the COP26 conference in Glasgow this November. So what can we expect and what role should the media play?

Dr Painter works at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) and the Environmental Change Institute of Oxford University. His main research interests are the portrayals of climate change in legacy, digital-borne and social media around the world, and environmental communication in general. He worked at the BBC world service for several years before becoming director of the journalism fellowship programme at RISJ in 2008. He has been visiting professor at the universities of Zurich, Pamplona and Perugia in environmental communication. He has written extensively on climate change and the media and carried out consultancies for various NGOs and UN bodies.

Oxford Zero Carbon Transport

Dr Brenda Boardman

Oxford Zero Carbon Transport: What is being proposed, and reactions to it

Local transport is an important topic in the City at the moment: with plans and proposals on new bus gates, quiet zones, zero emissions zones and emerging plans for the Banbury and Woodstock Roads. Will the City air become cleaner and healthier? Will we become healthier? Will we get the carbon savings we need?

Dr Boardman is an Emeritus Fellow at the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, following her retirement in September 2008. She has published widely on fuel poverty and since retirement she has focused on transport and its connection to pollution and health. She co-founded CoHSAT (Coalition for Healthy Streets and Active Travel), whose website you can find at this link.

You can read more about Dr Boardman and her work here on the University of Oxford website.

Further information

Dr Boardman has kindly provided some additional resources from the City and County Councils that you may find interesting:

Previous talks

Earlier talks have covered topics including:

The Silk Road
Mughal art and culture
The history of glass
Cuba through the eyes of a former British Ambassador
The Paris student uprising of 1968 (watch on YouTube)
Jean-Luc Barbanneau reflects on the 50th anniversary of these momentous events in France that he experienced first-hand.
The Bhopal gas tragedy
The expansion of Oxford (click for details and video)
Prof. William Whyte describes the consequences of changes in the second half of the 19th century that created the Oxford we know today.