Oxford Martin School: Public Lectures and Seminars

Global governance, local governments

March 09, 2012 13:32 - 44 minutes - 40.2 MB

Distinguished Public Lecture. Globalization has created a more interconnected, interdependent and complex world than ever witnessed before. Whilst this openness and connectivity has brought enormous benefits, it has also increased our vulnerability and exposure to global shocks, such as the recent financial crisis. Balancing these dimensions brings significant challenges at the global, regional and local levels. As we face some of the biggest challenges of the 21st century, how equipped are g...

The price of civilization

December 16, 2011 09:59 - 1 hour - 88.1 MB

Sachs argues that for the U.S. to regain sound fiscal health the country must also reform its politics. The lecture is immediately followed by a panel discussion with: Professor Valpy FitzGerald, Department of International Development, Professor Ian Goldin, Oxford Martin School (chair), Professor Peter Tufano, Said Business School, Professor Adrian Wood, Department of International Development, Professor Sir Adam Roberts, Centre for International Studies (Please note Prof Sir Adam Roberts is...

A Global Community Search for Evidence of Extraterrestrial Technologies

August 24, 2011 13:30 - 37 minutes - 34.4 MB

Dr Jill Tarter, Director, Center for SETI Research, SETI Institute gives a talk for the Oxford Martin School Seminar Series.

Rethinking Geoengineering and the Meaning of the Climate Crisis

August 02, 2011 13:38 - 55 minutes - 51.2 MB

Professor Clive Hamilton delivers a critique of the consequentialist approach to the ethics of geoengineering, the approach that deploys assessment of costs and benefits in a risk framework to justify climatic intervention. Professor Hamilton argues that there is a strong case for preferring the natural, and that the unique and highly threatening character of global warming renders the standard approach to the ethics of climate change unsustainable. Moreover, the unstated metaphysical assumpt...

Who speaks for climate?

July 28, 2011 10:05 - 53 minutes - 49.2 MB

Mass media serve vital roles in communication processes between science, policy and the public, and often stitch together perceptions, intentions, considerations, and actions regarding climate change. This talk will touch on salient and swirling contextual factors as well as competing journalistic pressures and norms that contribute to how issues, events and information have often become climate 'news'.

A new capitalism for a big society

February 03, 2011 15:54 - 38 minutes - 35.1 MB

Bishop and Green led a discussion based on their recent book, "The Road From Ruin: A New Capitalism for a Big Society". Together, they will take a look at what set us on the road to the recent financial crisis, whilst also highlighting the signs to guide us back to prosperity. Matthew Bishop is US Business Editor and New York Bureau Chief of The Economist. Michael Green is a leading independent economist and writer.

Assessing the economic rise of China and India

February 03, 2011 13:26 - 29 minutes - 26.8 MB

The recent economic rise of China and India has attracted a great deal of attention--and justifiably so. Together, the two countries account for one-fifth of the global economy and are projected to represent a full third of the world's income by 2025. Yet, many of the views regarding China and India's market reforms and high growth have been tendentious, exaggerated, or oversimplified. This talk by leading economist Professor Bardhan will explore the challenges that both countries must overc...

Dealing with The New Normal: Resilience in systems that must cope with uncertainty

February 03, 2011 09:37 - 45 minutes - 41.9 MB

Part of the School's intergrative seminar series. Delivered by Professor Patricia Hirl Longstaff, James Martin Senior Visiting Fellow, Professor, Syracuse University, Research Associate, Harvard Program on Information Resources Policy. Climate change, economic globalization, and many new levels of communication have all made many human, biological and technical systems more unpredictable. This has been called The New Normal: a time of higher uncertainty, with fast and strong disruptions in ma...

Integrating Technology, Science, Law, Economics, and Politics: Development of Practical Policy for Carbon Capture and Storage

November 24, 2010 15:40 - 51 minutes - 47.6 MB

Dr Kenneth Richards, James Martin Senior Visiting Fellow on how carbon capture and storage (CCS) provides a potentially promising approach to mitigating carbon dioxide emissions. However, as with virtually all major new technologies, deployment will require careful consideration of a number of issues - including geology, property rights, transactions costs, politics, and legislative strategy. This discussion will illustrate how multiple fields of study have been integrated to synthesize a pr...

Working with the crowd : 21st century citizen science

October 27, 2010 11:30 - 1 hour - 56.4 MB

Galaxy Zoo PI and James Martin Fellow Chris Lintott will review the technologies available to researchers seeking to rescue themselves from drowning in data by recruiting the help of tens or even hundreds of thousands of volunteers. As well as our own Zooniverse suite of projects (which now includes climate science and papyrology), Lintott will highlight other successful examples including the protein folding game, fold.it, and even an example of collaborative mathematics.

Climate Shocks: Turning Crisis into Opportunity

October 15, 2010 12:52 - 58 minutes - 53.7 MB

Thomas F. Homer-Dixon, CIGI Chair of Global Systems, Balsillie School of International Affairs; full Professor, Faculty of Arts and Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo on Climate Shocks: Turning Crisis into Opportunity. Climate policy is gridlocked nationally and globally, with virtually no chance of a breakthrough under current conditions. Policy makers need to accept that societies will not make drastic changes to address climate change until a climate crisis hits. The recent fin...

Climate change and marine ecosystems: have dangerous changes already begun?

September 07, 2010 16:08 - 56 minutes - 64.6 MB

Special seminar from the James Martin 21st Century School: Climate change and marine ecosystems: have dangerous changes already begun? The Earth's ocean is central to the conditions experienced on our planet, regulating its atmosphere, climate and biology. Recent evidence, however, suggests that the physical and chemical conditions within the ocean are changing in ways that are rapidly moving outside those experienced for millions of years with major changes to ocean temperature, acidity, sea...

The Plundered Planet

June 17, 2010 11:30 - 1 hour - 53.4 MB

Paul Collier, Oxford Professor and author of The Bottom Billion, launched a discussion based on his latest publication, The Plundered Planet. Building on his work in developing countries and the poorest populations, Collier argued for proper stewardship of natural assets as a matter of planetary urgency. His arguments charted a course between unchecked profiteering on the one hand, and environmental romanticism on the other to offer realistic and sustainable solutions to these dauntingly comp...

A Panel Discussion with George Soros

December 17, 2009 09:40 - 1 hour - 173 MB

Lessons from Financial Crises: Paradigm Failure and the Future of Financial Regulation. In October, George Soros delivered a week-long series of lectures at the Central European University in Budapest discussing his latest thinking on economics and politics, and the way forward out of the current financial crisis. Soros argued that while the magnitude of the credit and leverage problem faced today is greater than in the Great Depression, the artificial life support given to the financial syst...

Geoengineering the climate

November 19, 2009 13:11 - 58 minutes - 135 MB

Geoengineering the climate: Science, Governance and Uncertainty: The Royal Society Study - John Shepherd (NOCS). The climate change we are experiencing now is caused by an increase in greenhouse gases due to human activities, including burning fossil fuels, agriculture and deforestation. There is now widespread belief that a global warming of greater than 2C above pre-industrial levels would be dangerous and should therefore be avoided. However, despite growing concerns over climate change...

The End of Business as Usual

November 18, 2009 10:13 - 44 minutes - 101 MB

Distinguished Public Lecture: The end of business as usual by Dr Mohamed El-Erian, Co-CIO of PIMCO. In the wake of last year's financial crisis, businesses, economists, policy makers and analysts around the world are asking if the events of 2008 mean the end of business as usual for the global financial system. Dr Mohamed El-Erian, Co-CIO of PIMCO, the world's biggest bond fund, and one of the world's most respected economic analysts, certainly thinks that it does.

Dealing with doctrines: time to outlaw nuclear weapon use?

November 11, 2009 11:28 - 40 minutes - 25.6 MB

Achieving an end-state of "zero" has emerged as an important policy goal for a number of 21st Century challenges. The most prominent example is the "Global Zero" campaign to eliminate nuclear weapons. To stand any chance of getting near to zero, nuclear weapons must be marginalised in military and security doctrines. That means creating international norms and, if feasible, agreements that until nuclear weapons are universally prohibited by treaty, their use will be treated as a crime against...

Blueprint for a Safer Planet

May 08, 2009 13:41 - 53 minutes - 49.3 MB

Professor Lord Nicholas Stern, a world renowned economist and leading authority on climate change, came to the 21st Century School on Thursday 7 May to give a lecture about his "Blueprint for a Safer Planet". Professor Lord Nicholas Stern, a world renowned economist and leading authority on climate change, came to the 21st Century School on Thursday 7 May to give a lecture about his "Blueprint for a Safer Planet". Lord Stern made headlines in 2006 with the publication of the influential Stern...

Ian Goldin at University of Cape Town

March 18, 2009 11:57 - 44 minutes - 40.6 MB

Speaking at the Vice-Chancellor's Open Lecture, Dr Ian Goldin asked: Are the world's leading thinkers anticipating the risks and opportunities of the 21st century, or will humanity be overtaken by its own medical, technological and scientific successes?

21st Century Challenges: Humanity at the Crossroads?

October 15, 2008 15:41 - 45 minutes - 53.3 MB

Dr Ian Goldin provides an overview of the work of the James Martin 21st Century School and looks at the challenges facing humanity in the 21st Century.

What is Science for?

June 10, 2008 14:48 - 57 minutes - 52.8 MB

What is science for, what good does it do and should it do good? In this lecture, Sulston and Harris will attempt to identify some of the most urgent ethical and regulatory problems raised by contemporary science, and suggest some possible solutions. They will discuss some key cutting edge scientific problems, and debate how we can assess their impact. Where do the significant ethical and regulatory dilemmas for science lie? Are we worrying about the right things? They will also address the ...

Stiglitz on Credit Crunch - Global Financial Debacle: Meeting the Challenges of Global Governance in the 21st Century

June 10, 2008 14:46 - 45 minutes - 57.9 MB

The global financial crisis reflects a failure of global economic governance. The failure of America's regulatory system has not only ramifications for the American economy, but for the global economy. It is clear that the banks' risk management systems could not even protect their own shareholders, let alone the well-being of the global economy. What went wrong? Where did the global financial regulators fail? What can we do to minimize the downturn? And what, if anything, can we do to preven...

Craig Venter on Genomics: From humans to the environment

April 14, 2008 12:19 - 1 hour - 61.4 MB

In the second of the Distinguished Public Lecture Series run by the James Martin 21st Century School, Dr Craig Venter will discuss his work at the J Craig Venter Institute and its implications for the future of our culture, society and science. The Institute's projects include developing new understanding of human disease at the DNA level, running the Sorcerer II Global Ocean Sampling Expedition to understand microbial diversity in the world's oceans, and finding new ways of tackling environm...

Economics of Climate Change

April 14, 2008 11:44 - 1 hour - 55.5 MB

Professor Sir Nicholas Stern, HM Treasury: The economics of climate change Introduced by: Dr John Hood, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford. Chaired by: Dr Ian Goldin, Director of the James Martin 21st Century School.