Save Our Bees

As part of the celebrations for this year's National Science and Engineering Week (6-15 March 2009), the British Science Association (formerly the BA) want you to help save UK Bees by planting bee-friendly plants across the country. The 'Save Our Bees' campaign has been launched with a dedicated website and resources for schools.

Billions of the UK's bees are dying from unknown causes and one in three bee colonies in the UK were lost last winter alone. Bees are vitally important: In all, they are responsible for pollinating one-third of all the foods we eat.

Register your interest at the website of the campaign to receive a FREE pack of seeds and a education pack of activities designed for KS1, KS2 and KS3 children.

Look out for further information from the BES later this year, as we develop an event for the 2009 British Science Festival (5-11 September), focused on attracting pollinators to gardens and green spaces.

Young Scientist Parliamentary Poster Competition

A major scientific competition and exhibition is to be held in Parliament. 'SET for BRITAIN' will be held in the House of Commons on Monday 9 March 2009 between noon and 9 pm. It will form a part of National Science and Engineering Week 2009.

The day will be divided into three sessions. Applications are invited from early-stage and early-career research scientists, engineers and technologists who wish to exhibit posters in one of the following three areas:

• Biological and Biomedical Science
• Physical Sciences (Chemistry and Physics)
• Engineering

Early-stage researchers include university research students, postgraduates, research assistants, postdocs, research fellows, newly-appointed lecturers, part-time and "mature" students, "returners", those people embarking on a second career, etc and their equivalents in national, public sector and industrial laboratories, etc, and appropriate final year undergraduate and MSc students, all of whom are engaged in scientific, engineering, technological or medical research and are achieving results.

This event is supported by, amongst others, the Institute of Biology and Royal Society of Chemistry.

Prizes will be awarded for the best scientific posters presented in each discipline, including the Wharton Medal which will be awarded in memory of the late Dr Eric Wharton.

The closing date for entries is Friday 16 January 2009. There will be an initial selection by the judges and you will be informed by Monday 16 February whether or not your application to take part in the exhibition has been successful.

Full details of the competition and exhibition including the application form can be found on the SET FOR BRITAIN website at: www.SETforBRITAIN.org.uk.

Nominations Open for 2009 BA Annual Award Lectures

Nominations are now open for the 2009 BA Annual Award Lectures. The opportunity to deliver a lecture is awarded to an impressive communicator of science, engineering or technology who show outstanding skills in communicating to a non-specialist audience.

The Award Lectures are delivered each year at the BA Festival of Science, next year taking place in Guildford from 5 - 9 September. The lectures aim to promote open and informed discussion on issues involving science and actively encourage young scientists to explore the social aspects of their research, providing them with a reward and recognition for doing so.

Nominees should be professional scientists and engineers and must be aged 40 or under on 10 September 2009. They must be able to attend the 2009 Science Festival.

Further details on the Award Lectures and how to nominate an outstanding communicator of science are available from the BA website.

Human Population Growth and Ecology: Jonathon Porrit at the Cheltenham Science Festival

The BES policy team attended several insightful and stimulating talks at this year's Cheltenham Science Festival, which took place last week. In particular, Jonathon Porrit (Programme Director of Forum for the Future and Chair of the UK Sustainable Development Commission) delivered a fascinating, if controversial talk on the issue of global population growth, in the context of rising oil prices, increasing food costs and ongoing environmental degradation. Jonathon identified a number of global regions , many in South East Asia and Africa, where population growth exceeds a neutral growth rate, or 'replacement' rate; with some families having up to seven children on average. He cited the lack of funding, and political will, for effective family-planning programmes in many developing countries as a major barrier to reducing global population growth.

With the global population set to exceed 9 billion by 2050, and current resources struggling to fulfill demand, the current rate of consumption cannot hope to match a future population if everyone in the world consumed as much as those in 'developed' countries. What Jonathon failed to identify clearly was the link between demand for resources and demography. It is true to say that many of the world's poorest reside in the most biologically diverse regions of the world, such as tropical rainforests, and that they depend on their resources for their livelihood. But in the same spirit, the driving force of habitat loss and destruction is generally from economically more developed countries.

A strong case has been made for sustainable population growth, if not reduction, but the root cause of the world's environmental ills presently is not just in the rapidly expanding population, but in the existing and falling populations in economically more developed countries with the overwhelmingly larger environmental footprint. Geometric population growth should not be overlooked as an environmental issue because of its controversy, but the facts should not be misrepresented, so as to ease the mindset of the economically most developed countries into continuing unsustainable and environmentally damaging activities, such as over-exploitation of natural resources, continued pollution of the natural environment and increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

We all have a part to play in living less environmentally harmful lifestyles and globally, countries should take responsibility in equal measure rather than naming and shaming others.

The Economist provides an interesting insight to the topic of population growth, and other links.

The BES would like to invite blog readers to share their thoughts and opinions on this topic.