Cyclox and the Oxford Pedestrians Association (OxPA) will be welcoming representatives of the bus companies that serve Oxford to a meeting to discuss the relationship between bikes, buses and pedestrians on the city’s busy streets.

Richard Mann, an Oxford-based transport and liveable cities consultant, will open the meeting with a presentation on how to make an excellent bus network and lead a discussion with contributions from Phil Southall of the Oxford Bus Company and Martin Sutton of Stagecoach.

There will be plenty of opportunities for questions and discussion from the floor, which will make for a very interesting event for anyone interested in how we move around our city. This is a public meeting so please come and add your voice to the debate.

This book talk is a joint event between the Oxford Martin School and the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict

This book talk will see author Chris Woods discuss his new book Sudden Justice: America’s Secret Drone Wars, an exposé of the little-understood yet extremely significant world of drone warfare. His work is based on insights from many of those intimately involved – the pilots and analysts, US and UK intelligence officials, Special Forces and Pentagon commanders.

Chris Woods is an award-wining investigative journalist who specialises in conflict and national security issues. During almost a decade at the BBC, he was a senior producer for both Panorama and Newsnight.

The event will be introduced by Dr Alex Leveringhaus, a James Martin Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict and lead author of the recent Oxford Martin Policy Paper Robo-Wars: The Regulation of Robotic Weapons.

The book talk will be followed by a book signing, all welcome

This book talk will be live webcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdE9AJrZ_Fk

How can the human economy become more sustainable in the face of a rapidly changing climate? Professor Cameron Hepburn, Director of the Economics of Sustainability programme at The Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, will discuss new ways of assessing climate and economic risk, how to stimulate innovation in greener technologies, and the impacts of climate policy on the economy.

Join in on Twitter #2015climate

Alongside global warming, the destruction of the world’s biodiversity and natural capital threatens to undermine economic growth. Another 3 billion people and a world economy some 16 times bigger by 2100 threatens environmental destruction on a scale which would make the twentieth century look positively benign. On current policies, natural capital – those assets nature gives us for free – will be massively depleted and undermine economies. To put growth on a sustainable basis requires that natural assets are taken seriously – in national and corporate accounts, on balance sheets, and by providing compensation for damage, pollution taxes and a nature fund. This lecture sets out how to do this, how to start restoring natural capital, and why it is necessary for sustainable economic growth.

Speaker: Prof Dieter Helm. Dieter is an Official Fellow in Economics at New College, Oxford, Professor of Energy Policy at the University of Oxford and Professorial Research Fellow of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. He is Chair of the Natural Capital Committee and a Director of Aurora Energy Research Ltd. The revised edition of his most recent book, Natural Capital – Valuing The Planet, is due to be published in May by Yale University Press.

Earth System scientists believe the Earth has entered a new epoch in the Geological Time Scale, the Anthropocene or ‘the Age of Man’, in which humans now rival the great forces of nature in determining the geological trajectory of the planet. The new epoch, driven mainly by human-induced climate change, represents a rupture in Earth history with profound consequences for humankind and the Earth System itself. The concept grew out of the new discipline of Earth System science, a ‘paradigm shift’. A number of scientists and social scientists have put forward interpretations of the Anthropocene that, mostly unconsciously, deflate the significance of the new epoch and the threat it poses to humankind and the Earth. It has variously been equated with the Holocene, interpreted as just another instance of ecological or landscape change, rendered banal by the discovery of historical ‘precursors’, and framed as a welcome opportunity for humans to remake the Earth. Each of these can be shown to be a misreading of Earth System science.

Clive Hamilton is an Australian academic and author. His books include Growth Fetish (Pluto Press), Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth About Climate Change (Earthscan) and Earthmasters: The Dawn of the Age of Climate Engineering (Yale UP). He is the co-editor (with Christophe Bonneuil and Francois Gemenne) of the just-released The Anthropocene and the Global Environmental Crisis: Rethinking modernity in a new epoch (Routledge). Clive is currently writing a book on the larger meaning of the Anthropocene. He is currently Professor of Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University in Canberra. He has held various visiting academic positions, including at Yale University, Sciences Po and the University of Oxford.

Evening with Sami Awad of the Holyland Trust http://www.holylandtrust.org
Monday 15th June – Impossible to Possible: what does nonviolence mean in Palestine today?
Palestinian Christian Sami Awad, the Executive Director of the Holy Land Trust will lead discussions about nonviolence and its role in bringing a just and lasting peace to all who live in the Holy Land.
Holy Land Trust exists to lead in creating an environment that fosters understanding, healing, transformation, and empowerment of individuals and communities, locally and globally, to address core challenges that are preventing the achievement of a true and just peace in the Holy Land.
6.30pm for 7.00pm start; Friends Meeting House, 43 St. Giles, Oxford.
“It is encouraging for us to know that people have realised that you can stand up for the human rights of the Palestinians without compromising the rights of Israelis to also live in peace. You do not have to pick a side. I invite you ..to continue praying for peace for both communities that live in what we all call the Holy Land.”
Sami Awad.
“We have to not only understand those people who are oppressing us, but try to walk in their shoes, and ultimately to really engage with what it means to follow Jesus’ call to love our enemies.”
Sami Awad.
Sami will be visiting the UK with the Amos Trust. As well as the event on 15th June, Sami will also give a sermon in St Giles Church on Sunday 14th June. These events contribute to the Oxford Palestine Unlocked festival (4th – 20th June) . More details on the website http://palestineunlocked.com and also http://www.amostrust.org

Human-caused global warming has been making headlines for over two decades, but people’s opinions on it often depend on what headlines they’re reading. How is it that a scientific theory has become so politicised? Join us to hear Adam Levy (Nature, University of Oxford; @ClimateAdam), a climate change scientist and YouTuber, discuss the key scientific evidence behind climate change, and explain why perspectives on climate change shouldn’t be a matter of belief.
twitter @oxfordscibar
facebook ‘British Science Association Oxfordshire Branch

This is a special workshop hosted by the Refugee Studies Centre as part of Oxford Refugee Week.

Programme:

Chair: Professor Dawn Chatty, Professor of Anthropology and Forced Migration and former Director of the RSC

Speakers:
Dr Jeff Crisp, independent consultant, RSC Research Associate, and former Head of Policy Development & Evaluation at UNHCR

Dr Maria Kastrinou, Lecturer, Brunel University

Dr Sara Pantuliano, Director of Humanitarian Policy Group, Overseas Development Institute

Dr Patricia Sellick, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Trust, Peace & Social Relations, Coventry University

Professor Roger Zetter, Professor Emeritus of Refugee Studies, RSC

Since 2011, the on-going conflict in Syria has had an enduring and devastating impact. According to the latest inter-country report of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the humanitarian crisis has reached an unprecedented scale: 7.6 million people are internally displaced in Syria, while more than 3.9 million are seeking protection in neighbouring Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.

Against the background of this unprecedented humanitarian crisis, what are Syrians’ aspirations for their futures? What kind of futures do they want to build? And what measures have EU Member States taken in response to the crisis?

This workshop will draw on ethnographic accounts from work directly with Syrian communities in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. The workshop will bring together experts and academics that have had direct fieldwork experience and can speak about the concerns, needs and aspirations of Syrians who have fled Syria.

This event is open to all. No registration is required.

A wine reception will follow afterward.

A one-day free exhibit featuring powerful children’s drawings from Burma and Sudan.

The event is co-sponsored by Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART) and Waging Peace. The drawings from Burma were collected on visits by HART to their partners. HART works with these partners and others in conflict or post-conflict areas, often facing persecution and oppression and trapped behind closed borders. The areas in which HART’s partners work are often not reached by larger organisations and Government support.

The pictures from Sudan were collected by Waging Peace, from Darfuri children living in refugee camps in Chad. Waging Peace is a non-governmental organisation that campaigns against genocide and systematic human rights abuses and seeks the full implementation of international human rights treaties.

These drawings are commanding and moving, providing an insight into the lives and minds of children living in these contexts.

A lecture in aid of the British red Cross services in Oxfordshire and beyond kindly given by award winning journalist Peter Taylor and entitled ‘Terrorism from IRA to Al Quaeda and ISIL.’ In his lecture Peter will describe his 40 year journey from reporting the IRA to investigating Al Qaeda and, latterly, assessing the Islamic State. He will discuss how successful – or otherwise – governments and states have been in countering the threats and addressing their root causes.

Droughts threaten societies, economies and ecosystems worldwide. Yet our ability to characterise and predict the occurrence, duration and intensity of droughts, as well as minimise their impacts, is often inadequate.

This symposium brings together global experts and will showcase multidisciplinary research being undertaken on droughts from across the world. There are three themes:

-UK Drought Science and Policy
-Understanding the social dimensions of drought
-Drought Science and Policy from around the world

Confirmed speakers:

-Professor Jim Hall, University of Oxford, UK
-Professor Lee Godden, Melbourne University, Australia
-Professor Casey Brown, University of Massachusetts, United States
-Professor Christopher Duffy, Penn State University, United States
-Professor Greg Garfin, University of Arizona, United States
-Dr Peter Wallbrink, CSIRO, Australia

In conjunction with The Angus Library and Archive’s exhibition, ‘Navigating the Congo’, Bandi Mbubi, will be joining us to speak about conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo and his work in demanding the development of fairtrade technology which uses conflict-free minerals.

Bandi Mbubi is a founder and director of Congo Calling, an organisation who are working to bring the world’s attention to the atrocities being committed in the Congo and for a peaceful resolution to the ongoing war. Bandi writes and speaks nationally and internationally to create a mass movement of consumers who demand the development of fair trade technology which uses ethically-sourced, conflict-free minerals from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The exhibition will be open to visitors before the talk from 1pm-5.30pm on 22nd September.

The Oxford Architecture Society lecture series

Lisa Finlay is coming to speak to us from Heatherwick Studio.
Established by Thomas Heatherwick in 1994, Heatherwick Studio is recognised for its work in architecture, urban infrastructure, sculpture, design and strategic thinking. At the heart of the studio’s work is a profound commitment to finding innovative design solutions, with a dedication to artistic thinking and the latent potential of materials and craftsmanship. In the twenty years of its existence, Heatherwick Studio has worked in many countries, with a wide range of commissioners and in a variety of regulatory environments.

The first OxArch workshop of the series ‘Behind Architecture: The Essentials’ is set to bring us back to the analogue process of representation. ‘Architecture in Watercolours’ presents an opportunity to begin the year with a little experimentation.

Anisha Meggi (currently studying her PhD) works with watercolour to capture the essence of a project with the physical and theoretical layering of watercolour paint and model making.

Come join us on the 4th floor of Abercrombie on Thursday at 4pm, if you’re interested in learning a new skill or pushing further what you already know about watercolour.

We will be providing some watercolour trays, watercolour paper and brushes. However, if you have you’re own watercolour sets, please feel free to bring them in.

Prices:
£7 for members
£9 for non members

Part 3 of a three-part mini-series on notation: Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic.

Part 1 was Reading Slough and London Paddington: the persistent lure of spelling reform (July 16th). Part 2 was Writing little messages in Italian: the social origins of music notation (August 20th).

Free entry, no need to book. You’re welcome to come along just to listen, or to take part actively in the discussion. The meeting room will be indicated on the display screen just inside the Town Hall entrance lobby.

Join us for the Oxford launch of the new NoNonsense series

Panelists:

Maggie Black, author of NoNonsense International Development

A former co-editor of New Internationalist, Maggie has written numerous books on development subjects. She has worked as a consultant writer and editor for UN and other international organizations and for NGOs including Save the Children, WaterAid and Anti-Slavery International. She is also the author of the No-Nonsense Guide to International Development.

Peter Stalker, author of NoNonsense The Money Crisis

Peter is a former co-editor of the New Internationalist who now works as a communications consultant to UN agencies. He has edited the global Human Development Report, and produced many other UN reports on economic and social issues. He is also the author of the No-Nonsense Guide to International Migration.

Danny Chivers, author of NoNonsense Renewable Energy

Danny is an environmental writer, carbon analyst and performance poet. He is actively involved in climate justice groups such as Art Not Oil, Reclaim the Power and No Dash For Gas. He is also the author of The No-Nonsense Guide to Climate Change.

The launch will begin with a panel discussion, introduced and led by Chris Brazier (New Internationalist Co-editor) along with special guest Danny Dorling (Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford, and author of many books including the No-Nonsense Guide to Equality and Inequality and the 1%).

The discussion will be followed by an opportunity for questions from the audience, drinks and a chance to buy copies of the new series.

About the NoNonsense Series:

The all-new NoNonsense books cut through the noise and hype surrounding today’s big issues. Concise, comprehensive and critical, they get to the heart of the matter.

FAQs

What are the transport/parking options getting to the event?

Ruskin College is easily accessible by car with ample free parking on site.

Local buses: 280 and U1 — exit at Headington Shops.

Conceptions of Enlightenment is a one-day conference concluding in a public lecture at 5pm. The lecture will be delivered by Dennis Rasmussen (Tufts University, Boston), author of The Pragmatic Enlightenment (CUP, 2014).

Over the last century, historians and philosophers have used the term ‘Enlightenment’ in diverse ways. Was it primarily a philosophical movement, or did it involve a much wider change of outlook and sensibility in the course of the eighteenth century? Did its origins and centre lie in England, the Netherlands, France, or Scotland? Did it establish the human rights and freedoms we now value, or did it in practice subject humanity to rigidly rational systems of control? Did it give a voice to women and colonial subjects, or did it reinforce male domination and European hegemony over the rest of the world? Did it prepare the way for the French Revolution and the Reign of terror, or is its heritage to be found in the American Declaration of Independence?

To discuss such questions, a number of leading scholars of the Enlightenment will introduce the work of some of the historians and philosophers who have been most influential in shaping this much-debated concept.

To avoid dangerous climate change will require not only very steep cuts in emissions, but also the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Most of the models that avoid dangerous climate change do so by assuming that it will be possible to deploy a technique called biomass energy with carbon capture and storage (or BECCS for short) at a very large scale. But is this realistic?

Please join us for a public discussion to explore this issue. To what extent may it be possible to use biomass as a way of both generating electricity and removing carbon dioxide from the air? What are the likely impacts of such an approach – on climate change, on food supply, on biodiversity and on the will to reduce emissions.

The Oxford Martin School has brought together four excellent speakers with expertise in this field. Dr Craig Jamieson has explored the potential of using waste material from rice production for BECCS, Professor Tim Lenton has modelled how much biomass could be used for BECCS given projected population growth and dietary habits, Professor Nick Pidgeon is an expert on the social acceptability of new technologies and Dr Doug Parr is the Chief Scientist and Policy Director at Greenpeace.

The extraction of oil and the mining of coal are devastating communities across the world. These operations have forced people from their land, polluted the environment, and led to widespread human rights violations.

According to the Colombia Human Rights Data Analysis Group, an estimated 9,000 people were murdered and 3,000 have disappeared in Casanare over the past two decades. One of those kidnapped was Gilberto Torres, who is bringing a case for compensation against BP and other oil companies in the High Court in London with the help of law firm Deighton Pierce Glynn (DPG) in the UK and Francisco Ramirez Cuellar in Colombia.

The Centre for Global Politics, Economy and Society at Oxford Brookes University, and UCU Oxford Brookes would like to invite you to a special event as part of the campaign tour ‘OIL JUSTICE NOW! Stop Corporate Impunity’ led by the NGO War on Want in partnership with the law firm Deighton Pierce Glynn and the organisation Cos-Pacc (see attached poster for further details).

Speakers are:

– Sue Wilman (Human Rights Lawyer, Deighton Pierce Glynn)
– Gilberto Torres (Former trade unionist with Union Sindical Obrera in Colombia)
– Dr Lara Montesinos Coleman (University of Sussex)
– Francisco Ramirez Cuellar (trade unionist and lawyer with the Colombian Unified Trade Union Federation)

Gilberto Torres is a former trade unionist with Union Sindical Obrera, representing workers in the oil industry. He was abducted and tortured by paramilitaries in 1992 and now lives in exile. Gilberto believes his abduction was ordered and assisted by Ocensa, a joint venture pipeline company part-owned and operated by BP.

Francisco Ramirez Cuellar is a trade unionist and lawyer with the Colombian Unified Trade Union Federation. He has been targeted and threatened because of his legal and campaigning work challenging multinationals who have committed serious environmental and human right abuses in Colombia.

Chaired by Dr Maia Pal (Oxford Brookes University)

3D character animation online with Mixamo/Adobe
On June 1st of this year Adobe announced its purchase of the company Mixamo.
This evening John Twycross – Senior Lecturer in Digital Media Production, Faculty of Technology, Design and Environment, Oxford Brookes University – will demonstrate some of the features of the current Mixamo website, look at how this currently integrates into game engines and discuss the implications of this for designers.

The Mixamo online service provides a motion capture library, character generation and automated rigging. It is exciting because it makes character animation accessible to all. It also clearly signals Adobe’s commitment to gain a foothold in the 3D character animation field and expanding Photoshop’s 3D features.

Renewable energy is a strong component in the race to mitigate climate change, and solar power is a particularly cheap and viable green energy option. Considering current technologies, cost, markets and infrastructure, Professor Henry Snaith, Co-Director of the Programme on Solar Energy: Organic Photovoltaics, and Professor Malcolm McCulloch, Head of the University of Oxford’s Electrical Power Group and Co-Director of The Oxford Martin Programme on Integrating Renewable Energy, will debate whether solar is indeed the answer to the urgent question of irreversible climate change.

Centre for Global Politics, Economics and Society seminar series

Professor Nick Bostrom, Director of the Future of Humanity Institute, will explore the huge technological, scientific and environmental shifts that have led to humanity’s current state, and consider the choices that will determine our long-term future.

Over the last few decades there have been many initiatives to bring about the recovery of populations of scarce or declining bird species in the UK. This has resulted in some notable successes, with species such as Red Kite and bittern. However such schemes do not always meet with immediate success. Having been involved in many recovery projects over many years, Ken Smith will look at some of the successes and also examine why it is not always easy or possible to bring about recovery

Speaker: Professor Walter Kälin (Envoy of the Chairmanship of the Nansen Initiative, and Professor of Constitutional and International Law, University of Bern)

Disaster displacement is one of the big humanitarian challenges of our times and is likely to significantly increase in the context of climate change. Building on the work of the Nansen Initiative on disaster-induced cross-border displacement, the lecture will explore different tools available to address displacement and other forms of disaster-related human mobility.

About the speaker
Professor Walter Kälin is a Swiss international human rights lawyer, legal scholar, and advocate. Currently, he is professor of constitutional and international law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Bern (Switzerland), and Envoy of the Chairmanship of the Nansen Initiative. He served as a member of the UN Human Rights Committee until the end of 2014. From 2004 until 2010, he was the Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on Internally Displaced Persons. Professor Kälin is the author of numerous works including The Face of Human Rights (2004) and The Law of International Human Rights Protection (2009). He received his doctor of law from the University of Bern and his LL.M. from Harvard University.

Free and open to all, but registration is required.

“This is a good day for businesses…” says Dan Kelly, President, CEO and Chair, Canadian Federation of Independent Business. Maybe so, but CETA, like other trade-deals, is bad news for equality, democracy and the environment.
In early 2016, CETA, the Canada-EU trade deal is due to be debated and voted on in the European parliament. Like TTIP, CETA allows corporations to sue governments in secret courts over decisions they don’t like.
As part of the growing movement against corporate trade deals and to try to stop final agreement of CETA, we’re planning a speaker tour.
The speakers will be:
• Maude Barlow, chair of citizens’ group the Council of Canadians
• Yash Tandon, Ugandan trade expert and author of Trade is War
• Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now

Oxford Fashion Society is delighted to bring you our first speaker of the year, FELICITY HAYWARD! Join us on the 12th November for a very special event with the international model, ASOS stylist and artist. There will be top style tips, insights into her amazing world of fashion, and a chance for any questions, as well as a (FREE!) drinks reception following the event!

Felicity has had an amazing and varied career, from being ASOS’s go-to gal for all things CURVE, to gracing the cover of I-D and Noctis magazines (and countless others), to her nearly 40k followers on Instagram, and she’ll be joining us to tell us all about it! For anyone interested in modelling, styling, fashion, or just a great evening out, this event is an absoloute must!

Tickets are £3 on the door and include FREE DRINKS afterwards!
Join the Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/990444424351368/

See you all there!

OFS love X

Adobe specialists Richard Curtis and Niels Stevens are coming to Film Oxford for a special presentation on the new features of Creative Cloud for photographers, designers and film makers.

Don’t miss this opportunity to see the latest features in the new release of Adobe Creative Cloud 2015, including Photoshop, Lightroom, Premiere, After Effects, Speedgrade and more. Learn about what’s new in this 2015 release that will help you do everything you do more efficiently using the latest innovations and modern standards. Get answers to your questions and get inspired by film makers and photographers who are creating amazing work.

Join your colleagues, friends and mentors at this event to see teams present their projects and find out who will be awarded funding!

The Carbon Innovation Programme is an opportunity for students and staff at the University of Oxford to generate unique ideas for carbon reduction across the University’s Functional Estate. Teams or individuals have the opportunity to receive full funding to deliver their innovative carbon saving projects over the coming academic year (2015/16) whilst also receiving mentoring from industry experts. Successful candidates may have the option to discuss internships and career opportunities.

Prof. Harberd will discuss the writing of his book ‘Seed to Seed’, in particular, the fusion of the experimental scientific approach to nature with more traditional ‘natural history’ writing. ‘Seed to Seed’, which shows how science can enhance our vision of the world, was published to international critical acclaim by Bloomsbury in 2006.

Nicholas Harberd was a project leader at the world-renowned John Innes Centre in Norwich for many years. In 2008 he became Sibthorpian Professor of Plant Science at the University of Oxford, and was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2009.