Notes of various sorts

OK, so that's sorted. Val to choose June/July, Valerie for August/September, and Helen S for October/November.

As to Field Notes... Like Valerie, I found it very informative, but scary. It seems so unrelenting. I did find the bit where the one town has turned things around to be deeply hopeful, but the problem seems to be getting people willing rather than able. I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse! Knowing we COULD be doing things that we're not... hmmm... I very much hope that we will produce a global response and not just retreat into self-interest. It seems such a waste to me - that humanity has so many skills which are not currently being devoted to this problem. I found especially chilling the following: "you know, somebody will visit in a few hundred million years and find there were some intelligent beings who lived here for a while, but they just couldn't handle the transition from being hunter-gatherers to high technology". And the other point that really struck me was the observation that normally with a scientific issue, the public are more panicked than the experts. Here, it's the reverse. So I'm glad I read it, given the situation is what it is, but it was scarcely comfortable reading. What about the rest of you?