Intelligence Squared

Ever wish you could hear about some more positive ideas on how to tackle climate change? Well, here is your chance. At this event on energy game changers organised by Intelligence² in partnership with Shell and the International Herald Tribune, we will put aside for a moment the gloomy predictions about climate armageddon and look into the exciting solutions being offered by the world of science. We're bringing you five brilliant technical innovators who will be describing a scenario decades into the future when the desert will bloom with solar panel farms, nuclear reactors will produce energy from their own nuclear waste, people will travel in low-emission driverless car trains, coal will have been made clean and green, and high-tech, small-scale homesteads will be feeding the 10 billion. Not that we have to take the experts’ word for it. This is Intelligence², where debate and challenge are sovereign. But whether you’re a believer or a sceptic, this is the event to be at if you want to learn about our energy future

Rising star historian Faramerz Dabhoiwala describes how the permissive society arrived in Western Europe, not in the 1960s as we like to think, but between 1600 and 1800. It began in England and is now shaping and challenging patterns of sexual behaviour all over the world. For most of western history, all sex outside marriage was illegal, and the church, the state, and ordinary people all devoted huge efforts to suppressing and punishing it. This was a central feature of Christian civilization, one that had steadily grown in importance since the early middle ages. Three hundred years ago this entire world view was shattered by revolutionary new ideas – that sex is a private matter; that morality cannot be imposed by force; that men are more lustful than women. Henceforth, the private lives of both sexes were to be endlessly broadcast and debated, in a rapidly expanding universe of public media: newspapers, pamphlets, journals, novels, poems, and prints. In his account of this first sexual revolution, Dabhoiwala argues that the creation of our modern culture of sex was a central part of the Enlightenment, intertwined with the era's major social, political and intellectual trends. It helped create a new model of Western civilization, whose principles of privacy, equality, and freedom of the individual remain distinctive to this day

In this new Intelligence² format the BBC's Evan Davis will take to the stage in the role of roving inquisitor. There'll be expert witnesses in the audience and a chance for everyone to put their question to the panel. We're lining up eminent economists and leading figures from the worlds of business and finance for Evan to grill on the most pressing issues of the day: Just how bad an economic mess are we in? Is this the end of capitalism as we know it or just one of capitalism’s periodic upheavals that we have to survive as best we can? And what if anything can and should be done to put things back on track

We all know that the Chinese are the neo-colonialists of Africa. They’ve plundered the continent of its natural resources, tossing aside any concern for human rights and doing deals with some of the world’s most unsavoury regimes. The relentless pursuit of growth is China’s only spur. But is this picture really fair? In Angola, for example, China’s low-interest loans have been tied to a scheme that has ensured that roads, schools and other infrastructure has been built. China has an impressive track record of lifting its own millions out of poverty and can do the same for Africa. And is the West’s record in Africa as glowing as we like to think? After decades of pouring aid into Africa, how much have we actually achieved in terms of reducing poverty, corruption and war? So which way should Africa look for salvation – to the West, to China, or perhaps to its own people

http://www.iq2if.com In this talk, design guru Stephen Bayley argues that we need to reinvent Britain as a workshop. Cultures which manufacture are more socially cohesive, respectful and they acknowledge hierarchies. Most important of all, manufacturing teaches, at a fundamental level, the relationship between effort and reward - a moral connection that has been lost in the financial industry. The inaugural If Conference, from debate forum Intelligence Squared, took place on November 25-26th November in London. More than 30 celebrated scientists, award winning architects, farsighted futurologists and other brilliant minds shed light on the excitements and the dangers of tomorrow's world. Visit http://www.iq2if.com for video and picture highlights and to sign up for information about If Conference 2012.

http://www.iq2if.com Catering for YoYos and accommodating See Saws are just two design challenges created by the UK's ageing society, says Jeremy Myerson. Getting old is as disruptive as adolescence: moving home, changes in health, confusion over new technology and sexual diseases - all require design solutions. The inaugural If Conference, from debate forum Intelligence Squared, took place on November 25-26th November in London. More than 30 celebrated scientists, award winning architects, farsighted futurologists and other brilliant minds shed light on the excitements and the dangers of tomorrow's world. Visit http://www.iq2if.com for video and picture highlights and to sign up for information about If Conference 2012.

http://www.iq2if.com Christopher Choa, the award-winning urban designer and native-New Yorker, argues that in the 21st century the most successful cities will grow up around airports rather than vice-versa. Living in an "aerotropolis", we will relate to neighbours thousands of miles away. There will be winners and losers -- cities that will thrive and some that could fail. The inaugural If Conference, from debate forum Intelligence Squared, took place on November 25-26th November in London. More than 30 celebrated scientists, award winning architects, farsighted futurologists and other brilliant minds shed light on the excitements and the dangers of tomorrow's world. Visit http://www.iq2if.com for video and picture highlights and to sign up for information about If Conference 2012.

http://www.iq2if.com Sarah Harper is Oxford University Professor and world-expert on ageing. In this talk she asks whether we want to enter a world where we live for 200 years? Maybe we do, maybe we don't, but it is certainly something we should be discussing, because it is looking like being scientifically possible within a couple of generations. The inaugural If Conference, from debate forum Intelligence Squared, took place on November 25-26th November in London. More than 30 celebrated scientists, award winning architects, farsighted futurologists and other brilliant minds shed light on the excitements and the dangers of tomorrow's world. Visit http://www.iq2if.com for video and picture highlights and to sign up for information about If Conference 2012.

http://www.iq2if.com 'A vegetarian in a hummer is much less damaging for the environment than a meat-eater on a bicycle'. Today's techniques for rearing livestock are unsustainable, particularly if global meat consumption doubles - as it's predicted to do - by 2050. Artificial meat, argues Professor Mark Post, could be the answer. The inaugural If Conference, from debate forum Intelligence Squared, took place on November 25-26th November in London. More than 30 celebrated scientists, award winning architects, farsighted futurologists and other brilliant minds shed light on the excitements and the dangers of tomorrow's world. Visit http://www.iq2if.com for video and picture highlights and to sign up for information about If Conference 2012.

http://www.iq2if.com In any city, anywhere, says Patrick Blanc, a naked wall can be turned into a Vertical Garden and be a valuable shelter for biodiversity. Drawing on travels to Taiwan, India and Malaysia, Blanc began developing his living walls inside using mainly tropical plants. Today his green tapestries are being planted externally in an increasing number of cities including New York, London, Madrid, Paris, Tokyo... The inaugural If Conference, from debate forum Intelligence Squared, took place on November 25-26th November in London. More than 30 celebrated scientists, award winning architects, farsighted futurologists and other brilliant minds shed light on the excitements and the dangers of tomorrow's world. Visit http://www.iq2if.com for video and picture highlights and to sign up for information about If Conference 2012.

http://www.iq2if.com In this talk, urban shaman Iain Sinclair argues that we live in the age of the Grand Project, when political and economic elites decide that big visions are required to improve districts and cities. The London 2012 Olympics encapsulate this trend towards "retro-futurism" and they will be extremely damaging to East London. The inaugural If Conference, from debate forum Intelligence Squared, took place on November 25-26th November in London. More than 30 celebrated scientists, award winning architects, farsighted futurologists and other brilliant minds shed light on the excitements and the dangers of tomorrow's world. Visit http://www.iq2if.com for video and picture highlights and to sign up for information about If Conference 2012.

http://www.iq2if.com Phaidon's Amanda Renshaw introduces us to the Art Museum: 10 years in the making; open 365 days a year, 7 days a week and 24 hours a day; it houses 3,000 exhibitions, 650 collections from 60 countries; and is 992 pages long... Take a tour through Phaidon's latest creation. The inaugural If Conference, from debate forum Intelligence Squared, took place on November 25-26th November in London. More than 30 celebrated scientists, award winning architects, farsighted futurologists and other brilliant minds shed light on the excitements and the dangers of tomorrow's world. Visit http://www.iq2if.com for video and picture highlights and to sign up for information about If Conference 2012.

CONSPIRACY, PARANOIA THE NOVEL A Conversation with Umberto Eco. * Writing fiction about the real * Exploring the persistence of conspiracies * Adapting "The Name of the Rose" for the internet generation * Grasping the infinity of lists * Exploring the future of books * Losing yourself in a 50,000-volume library These are some of the topics Umberto Eco will be discussing with Paul Holdengräber, Director of LIVE at the New York Public Library. Their wide-ranging conversation will in part focus on Eco’s latest work of fiction, The Prague Cemetery. The book is an historical pseudo-reconstruction set in a 19th-century Europe teeming with secret service forgeries, Jesuit plots, murders and conspiracies, and covering everything from the unification of Italy, the Paris Commune, the Dreyfus Affair to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It has been criticised by both the Vatican-backed newspaper the Osservatore Romano and the Chief Rabbi of Rome

If a windmill is about to blight your cherished view of the green English countryside, you might start to wonder why on earth the Department for Energy and Climate Change thinks it is a good idea to subsidise the monsters at vast cost to the British taxpayer. Why not retune some boilers in Guangdong instead? Or encourage the booming cities of China to power themselves with gas, not coal? There’s a whole raft of practical, carbon-saving steps which can be more cheaply achieved in the growing, bustling emerging world. After all, a ton of carbon saved in China is as good in global terms as a ton saved in the UK. So why ever spoil our green and pleasant land? Hang on, though. Wasn’t the “green new deal” all about creating jobs in a new sort of economy? Making Britain a leader in an industry of the future? Not to mention making us just a little less dependent for our energy on geopolitically unstable regions of the world. Make China the focus of all our policy effort, and it will be China that reaps the knock-on benefits. Why would we realistically agree to that

Picasso's Nude, Green Leaves and Bust became the world's most expensive painting last year when it sold for £65 million. A stupendous price, but one that reflects Picasso's status as one of the giants – if not the overriding genius – of 20th-century art. But do the high prices fetched at auction always indicate artistic merit? Aren't they often the result of a fraught bidding war between two super-rich collectors? Doesn't the $25 million stumped up for Jeff Koons' giant balloon model say more about the power of hype than the merit of the work itself? What's more, the market itself can easily be rigged. When Damien Hirst's diamond encrusted skull was purportedly sold for £50 million in 2007, rumour had it that Hirst himself was part of the consortium that bought it in order to drum up publicity and raise the market value of his other work. So does the art market tell us only about fads and fashion and the egos of multimillionaires? Or should we overlook the hype and remember that in the long run the market rights itself and reflects the consensus on what great art really is