Eiffel Over

Tag: Edinburgh

  • Bristol to Glasgow via the Caledonian Sleeper

    While it is possible to go direct from Bristol to Edinburgh, and from Bristol to Glasgow with one change, it is a long route and involves spending a long time on Cross Country trains (which I prefer to avoid). So when the need arose this week for me to work in Glasgow for the day, I experimented with a different route: via London and the Caledonian Sleeper. 

    Going from Bristol to London and then up to Scotland is taking two sides of the triangle. But if I can sleep for a decent chunk of the journey then it is very appealing. 

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  • A reminder about the imminent climate catastrophe and how we should educate engineers to prepare for it

    A reminder about the imminent climate catastrophe and how we should educate engineers to prepare for it

    [The following text is adapted from the after-dinner speech I gave at the University of Edinburgh Engineering Faculty’s away day. It was originally titled ‘How problem-based learning can save the world and make you happy too’. But I have renamed it ‘A reminder about the imminent climate catastrophe and how we should educate engineers to prepare for it’]

    Tonight’s engagement is my first since I took a summer sabbatical, which I planned to use to work on a book. Those plans changed in my first week away when I got involved in the Extinction Rebellion summer uprising in Bristol. That experience of direct action and the reaction it caused prompted me to read much more about climate breakdown, models for political change, the implications of societal collapse, the role of engineers to help minimise impacts and deal with upheaval in our own communities and the role of the people that teach engineers.

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