After Stern

I’m doing a short talk in response to Michael Jacobs at an event at the RSA on Wednesday about climate change and the Stern review. Michael is a member of the UK Chancellor’s Council of Economic Advisers and a brilliant speaker — will be interesting to hear what he has to say.

I think I’m going to talk about optimism and climate change, and how really there’s a bit of pessimism in the way we all think about global warming that we need to confront if we’re going to do anything about it collectively.

Come along if you like. I’m told the ‘full’ sign on the website doesn’t mean completely full and there will be some spare seats on the night.

Long Now London: The Ghost Map

In my role as London based friend of the Long Now Foundation, I’ve done a bit of pro-am event organisation.

Here are the details:

The Ghost Map
Steven Johnson in conversation with Brian Eno
18:45, 4 December 2006, The ICA, the Mall, London SW1


In 1854 a cholera epidemic killed 50,000 people in England and Wales and become a battle between man and microbe unlike any other. At the ICA, Steven Johnson — author of Everything Bad is Good for You — will tell the story of Dr John Snow, the physician who pounded the streets of London, methodically noting the patterns in the outbreak. The conclusion he came to brought him into conflict with the entire medical establishment, but ultimately enabled him to defeat his era’s greatest killer.

In conversation with Brian Eno — musician, artist and co-founder of the Long Now Foundation — Johnson will explore what a cholera outbreak in the nineteenth century can tell us about solving the long term challenges we face in the twenty-first century.

You can book here — and I strongly recommend that you do. Should be brilliant.