University of Queensland talk wrap-up

I emerged from my blogging dungeon today to give a talk at the University of Queensland. Afterwards, a few people asked if they could get a copy of the slideshow so I've uploaded the files here. There's a low-rez PDF (1.7Mb) of all the slides along with my notes (which I forgot to refer to on the day anyway). There's also a hi-rez powerpoint file (zipped to 1.7Mb) which I may leave online for only a short while depending on how data transfer goes.

Apart from a few hiccups, the event went well (I think). For starters, I demonstrated my extensive public speaking experience (twice now!) by putting two microphones close together, causing a massive feedback loop to reverberate through the lecture theatre. This may have caused a ringing in the audiences' ears for the first few minutes. The main thrust of my talk was outlining the empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming. Despite the claim that there is no evidence, I had trouble fitting all the content into 20 minutes. In fact, the ruthless editing meant I had to jettison my Greenland ice cubes and global warming components which was a great shame (I have much fondness for those graphics). Mental note: make sure I'm allocated enough time to include my superfluous but pretty graphics next time around.

Following me was Ove Hoegh-Guldberg who is a fantastic speaker. He took us on an emotional rollercoaster, outlining many of the dreadful impacts we have to look forward to then firing us with hope and excitement in taking on the challenge of finding solutions. It was a bit like that Mel Gibson speech in Braveheart but with powerpoint slides and less face paint.

Then we had a short question time which was dominated by discussion of policy, human psychology and over-population (not my areas of expertise). Unfortunately, there was only time for a couple of questions which was a disappointment. I'd been anticipating tickly skeptic questions for weeks and in the end, we ran out of time.

Many thanks to the UQ Climate for Change for organising the whole event, plus everyone on the panel (Ove, Chris McGrath, Jessie Wells from Oxfam and Megan Evans from UQCfC). I also appreciate the feedback from Stephen Lewandowsky, Doug Bostrom, Chris & Megan as I prepared the talk. But now,  back to my blogging dungeon as I have many website features I've been planning which now have my full attention.

Oh and feedback, nitpicks and suggestions on my talk are welcome - I figure one day I'll have to present some form of it again so feel free to sink your teeth into the PDF notes and post a comment.

UPDATE: Many thanks to Jeffrey Levine who managed to compress my 10Mb powerpoint file to 2Mb.

Posted by John Cook on Friday, 7 May, 2010


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