Thank you London

As I have given up my job I have taken up going to lectures. London hosts an abundance of free lectures every evening at universities, and so far I've at LSE heard distinguished lecturers speak on the subjects of climate change, the sociology of space and global health. I've decided to review the lectures I go to - to help me remember (which is pretty much a necessity!) and to spread the word.

David King spoke on the interrelated challenges the world faces. Population increases (the world's population is projected to be 9 billion in 2050, a 50% growth from current levels) will put pressure on energy security and supply, water resources, health and education, conflict and terror, biodiversity, food production and factors influencing climate change. These are all closely related, as for example an increased population will need more food, there will be less land to produce it on, which will lead to conflicts over water/land/food resources.

The US's choice to use food produce for bio-fuel has already had a considerable global effect in that there is less food available for global food aid, i.e. people are starving that were previously recipients of maize and other crops. Another example was the unwillingness to accept GM rice that can withstand being submerged for up to 3 weeks ("normal" rice can only survive about 6-7 days). The slower, traditional gene-enhancing selective purification has taken 18 years, whereas he postulated that GM could have yielded the same result in just 2 years.

His main points seem to be that science should be used intelligently to solve the global problems mentioned above through focused scientific development, and that regulation and government leadership is imperative to ensure development and innovation. Finally, "the most important change needed is a mental and ideological change" regarding the acceptance and use of science to ensure human life and comfort. His focus on scientific advances as the crux of development and decisions is perhaps a bit questionable, but nevertheless an interesting and challenging position.

Next lecture was Robert Sampson from Harvard speaking on the sociology of spaces, and how perceptions on places are shaped by the degree to which places are (un-)kept/disordered (which is a fairly common conception) and also by the influence of demographics and poverty levels. These factors determine not just the current situation, but also the future through a perceived understanding of the place. It may sound banal, but the way a place is perceived has a strong influence on the development of that place over long periods of time. (I can't find my notes from this one, so I might plump this review up when I locate my notebook!)

Tonight I intended to go to a lecture on urban spaces and representation of social issues through the media of film. It was however cancelled, and instead a random selection landed on another lecture, this one on global health inequalities. It was really interesting and with a great lecturer, Michael Marmot, who's at the forefront of his field (he lead the WHO Commission on Social Determinants on Health).

He showed through a variety of research that health inequality (or inequity, as he called it) is closely related to the economical situation of the population being examined. Furthermore, the economical situation is (as you would expect) closely linked to educational achievements. He gave the example of how medical advances had over a number of years saved 180.000 lives in the US. Educational improvements in the same period and context held the potential to save 1.4 mio. lives.

He said that it had been suggested that this cause, improving the living conditions and health of the world's poor, would be heard more if it was possible to quantify the benefits of improving the education/economy/health of vulnerable communities. His response was in that situation to say that social justice, fairness and empowerment of people should be enough of a reason. I really respect him for this, and wish that more people would accept and value human decency to a further extent than what is currently the case. Politicians rarely make any decisions that don't (presumably) lead to improvements to the economy. But is it not more important to consider the quality of life of people, and to rethink our current infatuation with the "development-is-good mantra"?

An investment of 100 billion USD could give 1 billion people living in slums running water, cooking facilities and toilet facilities, improving their quality of life immensely and reducing the health and economic inequalities (by freeing up time spent queuing for water, less people sharing toilets, etc). This is generally considered an unrealistic pipe-dream of well-wishing do-gooders. In contrast 900 billion USD has just been pumped into failing banks.

I find it interesting that all three lectures focused on the way we perceive the world as important to the development. Again, it seems banal, but these guys, who are all important in their field, stress it, so I don't feel too stupid repeating it.
Positive change is not impossible, it's simply a question of will. Idealist as I am (and I'm actually a bit proud of my "slightly" naive outlook on life in this regard) I believe that it is possible for all of us to make a difference. Things only stay the same as long as we stay the same.

I intend to keep it up. In particular I hope to maintain the statistics of hitting a free reception after 2 out of 3 lectures.