The New Optimists Blog
Scenario planing: Gathering the information — and then what happens to the conversations, blogposts, tweets, interviews, etc
A New Optimists Forum event is, in essence, a conversation among regional scientists, each part of the process to gather information and perspectives from which we can generate a range of plausible scenarios about what we Brummies will be eating in 2050.
Each scenario will be subject to different but possible external drivers. And each one of them has to reflect
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#TNOfood on 2nd November: drivers & trends, food issues & solutions
Here is Ellie Richards’ analysis of the content of the conversations that happened at the New Optimists Forum meeting on 2nd November: Analysis_Forum2ndNov2011_EllieRichards
Ellie has done a superb job in analysing the transcripts from over three hours of scientists talking, plus all the blogposts, interviews and tweets.
Her brief was “make something of all this”, with the further instruction to put her thinking into not more than four pages — she did it in three!
She divided the conversational topics into three main categories: (1) Drivers and trends, (2) Food issues and (3) Solutions.
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New Optimists Forum: What’s happened so far
We’ve run three events: on 2nd November, on 9th February (specifically on food poverty) and on 1st March.
The outputs (recordings, transcripts from the conversations, blogposts, interviews, tweets) from these events are analysed under the guidance of Warwick Business School, and will be posted soon.
Meanwhile, here’s a one-pager summary of the impact of the New Optimists Forum: NewOptimistsForum-27thFeb2012.
Top of our impact list is that food and food issues are rising smartly up the agenda in the city. Indeed, there are more than a few intimations that food security will be part of Birmingham’s long-term strategic planning.
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#TNOfood: Why not invite community groups that are already tracking this challenge?
@orangejon asked this question Why not invite community groups that are already tracking this challenge? via twitter during the New Optimists Forum event last night.
We’re hoping that the Food Futures for Birmingham 2050 project will culminate in large-scale open event in early 2013, that is, if we can get funding enough to make it happen. (I’m working on it!)
Is this an event for “community groups that are already tracking this challenge”? I hope so. And where else might they find voice? And who else can make a valuable contribution?
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#TNOfood: what the participants thought important and interesting
The last task the participants did at the New Optimists Forum last night was to answer three questions:
- What is the most interesting or important thing you’ve heard tonight?
- What didn’t you say that you now wish you had?
- What did you expect to hear tonight that you didn’t?
And here are their responses . . . some of which conflict with each other, as you’d expect from the lively minds of a bunch of scientists:
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#TNOfood notes from table 2
This was a free-flowing conversation and the notes below are paraphrased rather than quotations.
Leaving food aside for the moment, what will the city of Birmingham be like in 2050? What if there is no public transport? What if lorries can’t enter the city? Life would be more localised.
Birmingham’s Big City Plan runs until 2050 and envisages expansion. How will housing expansion be handled? Housing will be built in those areas with least lines of resistance.
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Lynsey Melville on food waste and creating a cycle of calories from food – to waste to energy, back into food.
Dr Lynsey Melville is a a reader in Bio-energy & Bio-refining at Birmingham City University.
If we’re to have community based food economies do we need more clearly defined communities in out cities? Professor Ruth Reed
Professor Ruth Reed had been involved in a table discussion about local food economies – which might include a whole range of carbon incentives and local energy produced from local waste. But here she argues that if we want this to be part of how we feed Birmingham into 2050 then we should do something now about defining urban communities in a more concrete way — perhaps urban parish council – or more formalised neighbourhood forums – which of course fits with the localism bill and neighbourhood planning).
Ruth teaches architectural practice at Birmingham City University and was the first woman President of RIBA.
#TNOfood on 1st March: group one notes
This was a free-flowing debate and points are paraphrased rather than quotations:
Chris Brewster – we should consider the fundamental underpinning, and that’s the reliance on petrol.
Ruth Reed – is the key about whether we have economic mass-transportation.
David Pink – it’s a dichotomy—economies of scale—small can do things (like crops localised for local conditions) and big can do things. Assumptions that local is more sustainable isn’t necessarily true.
Laura Green — in abattoirs there’s a snobbery that ‘small is beautiful’ but conditions are better in the large EU certified ones. You could have a very large set up in Birmingham.
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Dr Chris Brewster on linked data the semantic web and local food production in Birmingham
Dr Chris Brewster, of Aston Business School, is a specialist in linked data and the semantic web – he thinks using these technologies will help local and community food producers to get their produce into supermarkets. It could change the economic models for food production.