Wednesday 17 June 2009

We're all doomed; death by powerpoint.


A quick stroll across Stanhope Park to the Arts Centre last night to pay £10.50 see former BBC Weather presenter and manager Helen Young giving a talk entitled "Climate Change: Debunking the Myths". Ms Young is a nice, jolly lady who, from the back of the theatre, could be mistaken for Kate Winslet. Unfortunately, the talk seemed to just go over all the old ground about climate change, was presented with somewhat less style and sex appeal than Al Gore managed in "An Inconvenient Truth", and barely touched on the real debate now: how the hell we do anything about it in the short "window of opportunity" which we now have available to us - apart from turning the taps off when we clean our teeth.


But then, this was a Royal Geographic Society lecture, which reminded me why I found geography the most boring subject at school. With sometimes impossible to read Powerpoint slides courtesy of the Met Office, Ms Young's target audience appeared to be a class of myopic 12 year olds. Unfortunately, they would probably have already been taught about this in a more entertaining way by their own geography teacher.


One thing's for sure, the temperature at the back of the Arts Centre theatre confirmed the message about global warming and was sufficient to send at least two of my near neighbours fast asleep.


The most interesting bit was when a member of the audience, desperate to get away from climate change, asked Ms Young if BBC weather presenters had a real map on the wall behind them and if not, how they knew where to point. The answer was....nah, you'll have to find out for yourself.

2 comments:

Mike said...

I think that's a fair review...

It was hot at the front of the theatre as well.

Mike said...

Waiting outside the Arts Centre with my dad afterwards, there was a car sat with its engine running for a good 20 minutes or so. Guess which former BBC weather presenter got into it when they came out?