5x15 Stories | Rathbones | The Earth Convention: Fire (The Four Elements)| 5x15 @5x15stories3 | Uploaded June 2023 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
Fire can be devastating. As we have seen across the world in recent years, wildfires are often fatal, destroying ecosystems and displacing entire communities, and they will only increase in frequency and extremity as the planet heats up. But fire can also be life-giving. It might even seem counterintuitive that fire, which burns plant life and endangers animals within an ecosystem, could also promote ecological health in other ways.
The final webinar in 5x15's Four Elements series with Rathbones gets to the heart of fire’s complexity, illuminating its perils and its benefits. From volcanic hazards and the relationship between fire and migration, to the energy transition and global heating, our expert panel will unpack the crucial issues presented by this elemental force.
Speakers
Juliet Davenport OBE founded Good Energy, one of the UK's first 100% renewable electricity suppliers, in 1999 at the age of 31. The first female CEO of a UK energy supplier, at a time when only 2% of the power on the UK’s electricity grid came from renewables and the entire industry could fit into a room above a pub, Juliet was going against the grain. Stepping away as CEO in May 2021, Juliet remains a director of Good Energy and sits on the boards of a string of companies that are helping tackle the climate crisis. She is chair of solar innovator Atrato Onsite Energy, whose flotation in November 2022 made it the first company with an all-female board to list on the London Stock Exchange. Her book, The Green Start-Up: Make Your Business Better for the Planet, is an essential toolkit for the modern-day entrepreneur. The very first book of its kind that blends environmentalism with entrepreneurship, The Green Start-Up leads us through the most pressing questions facing any company: from how to fuel the business to how to hire ethically; from how to market sustainably to delivering your product in an environmentally friendly way.
Bill McGuire is an academic, activist, broadcaster, and best-selling popular science and speculative fiction writer. He is currently Professor Emeritus of Geophysical and Climate Hazards at University College London. Bill is a volcanologist by inclination and training. His later work has focused on climate change and its impacts, particularly upon the solid Earth, and he was a contributor to the 2012 IPCC SREX report on climate change and extreme events. Bill now works full-time as a writer and activist. He writes for many newspapers and magazines including The Guardian, The Times, The Observer, The Independent, New Scientist, Science Focus and Prospect. Bill presented two BBC Radio 4 series, Disasters in Waiting and Scientists Under Pressure, along with the End of the World Reports on Channel 5 and Sky News. He has also contributed to many other television and radio programme. His latest book is Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant's Guide.
Design scientist and systems theorist Melissa Sterry, PhD is recognised as a world-leading authority on the science, technology and thinking that could help humanity to build a brighter future. Her career has been spent working with leading-edge ideas, individuals, and institutions worldwide. She is known for creating projects that chart unprecedented conceptual, creative, and commercial potentialities. Her current activities include Founder/Director of biofuturism consultancy Bioratorium®, and of biodesign research and publishing projects Bionic City® and Panarchic Codex®. A recipient of several national and international innovation, creativity and enterprise awards, including the Mensa Education and Research Foundation International Award for enhancing intelligence that benefits society, she is listed in the 'Libertine 100’ women with complex, beautiful and potentially world-changing ideas.
Gaia Vince is an honorary senior research fellow at UCL and a science writer and broadcaster interested in the interplay between humans and the planetary environment. She has held senior editorial posts at Nature and New Scientist, and her writing has featured in newspapers and magazines including the Guardian, The Times and Scientific American. She also writes and presents science programmes for radio and television. Her research takes her across the world: she has visited more than 60 countries, lived in three and is currently based in London. In 2015, she became the first woman to win the Royal Society Science Book of the Year Prize solo for her debut, Adventures in the Anthropocene: A Journey to the Heart of the Planet We Made, and she is also the author of Transcendence: How Humans Evolved Through Fire, Language, Beauty and Time. Her latest book, Nomad Century, is an urgent investigation of the most underreported, seismic consequence of climate change: how it will force us to change where – and how – we live.
Chaired by Rosie Boycott, Crossbench Peer, Food Campaigner, and co-founder of 5x15.
Fire can be devastating. As we have seen across the world in recent years, wildfires are often fatal, destroying ecosystems and displacing entire communities, and they will only increase in frequency and extremity as the planet heats up. But fire can also be life-giving. It might even seem counterintuitive that fire, which burns plant life and endangers animals within an ecosystem, could also promote ecological health in other ways.
The final webinar in 5x15's Four Elements series with Rathbones gets to the heart of fire’s complexity, illuminating its perils and its benefits. From volcanic hazards and the relationship between fire and migration, to the energy transition and global heating, our expert panel will unpack the crucial issues presented by this elemental force.
Speakers
Juliet Davenport OBE founded Good Energy, one of the UK's first 100% renewable electricity suppliers, in 1999 at the age of 31. The first female CEO of a UK energy supplier, at a time when only 2% of the power on the UK’s electricity grid came from renewables and the entire industry could fit into a room above a pub, Juliet was going against the grain. Stepping away as CEO in May 2021, Juliet remains a director of Good Energy and sits on the boards of a string of companies that are helping tackle the climate crisis. She is chair of solar innovator Atrato Onsite Energy, whose flotation in November 2022 made it the first company with an all-female board to list on the London Stock Exchange. Her book, The Green Start-Up: Make Your Business Better for the Planet, is an essential toolkit for the modern-day entrepreneur. The very first book of its kind that blends environmentalism with entrepreneurship, The Green Start-Up leads us through the most pressing questions facing any company: from how to fuel the business to how to hire ethically; from how to market sustainably to delivering your product in an environmentally friendly way.
Bill McGuire is an academic, activist, broadcaster, and best-selling popular science and speculative fiction writer. He is currently Professor Emeritus of Geophysical and Climate Hazards at University College London. Bill is a volcanologist by inclination and training. His later work has focused on climate change and its impacts, particularly upon the solid Earth, and he was a contributor to the 2012 IPCC SREX report on climate change and extreme events. Bill now works full-time as a writer and activist. He writes for many newspapers and magazines including The Guardian, The Times, The Observer, The Independent, New Scientist, Science Focus and Prospect. Bill presented two BBC Radio 4 series, Disasters in Waiting and Scientists Under Pressure, along with the End of the World Reports on Channel 5 and Sky News. He has also contributed to many other television and radio programme. His latest book is Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant's Guide.
Design scientist and systems theorist Melissa Sterry, PhD is recognised as a world-leading authority on the science, technology and thinking that could help humanity to build a brighter future. Her career has been spent working with leading-edge ideas, individuals, and institutions worldwide. She is known for creating projects that chart unprecedented conceptual, creative, and commercial potentialities. Her current activities include Founder/Director of biofuturism consultancy Bioratorium®, and of biodesign research and publishing projects Bionic City® and Panarchic Codex®. A recipient of several national and international innovation, creativity and enterprise awards, including the Mensa Education and Research Foundation International Award for enhancing intelligence that benefits society, she is listed in the 'Libertine 100’ women with complex, beautiful and potentially world-changing ideas.
Gaia Vince is an honorary senior research fellow at UCL and a science writer and broadcaster interested in the interplay between humans and the planetary environment. She has held senior editorial posts at Nature and New Scientist, and her writing has featured in newspapers and magazines including the Guardian, The Times and Scientific American. She also writes and presents science programmes for radio and television. Her research takes her across the world: she has visited more than 60 countries, lived in three and is currently based in London. In 2015, she became the first woman to win the Royal Society Science Book of the Year Prize solo for her debut, Adventures in the Anthropocene: A Journey to the Heart of the Planet We Made, and she is also the author of Transcendence: How Humans Evolved Through Fire, Language, Beauty and Time. Her latest book, Nomad Century, is an urgent investigation of the most underreported, seismic consequence of climate change: how it will force us to change where – and how – we live.
Chaired by Rosie Boycott, Crossbench Peer, Food Campaigner, and co-founder of 5x15.
