winter tree

We are on our annual Gradschool conference weekend, this year in Cumbernauld. Today's talks were really excellent. I particularly enjoyed a talk on trace fossils from Skye. Also had an excellent chat about fracking and what's involved. I learned that not that much water would be involved (about 50 swimming pools worth) but unlike the US we'd get most it back and we would have to deal with heavily contaminated waste water (about 50 swimming pools worth ).

The key note was by Dr Clive Mitchell from SNH about scientific facts, policy, narratives and view points. Very excellent and thought provoking talk. The main message I took home was that it is not so much about scientific fact but about the question what sort of world we want to live in. I totally agree, but I don't see this dialogue happening. I was also thinking that we are all too busy to go round our hamster wheels to get engaged in this.

More impressions from the the wet winter west coast on flickr.