Food Thinkers Lunches: Trinity Term 2018

There are many people working directly or indirectly on food across the University’s staff and student body, and across a vast range of disciplines. Food Thinkers Lunches aim to provide an informal atmosphere for the stimulation and exchange of ideas, and the building of collaborations. Each lunch has a theme and two speakers who will speak briefly (5-10 minutes) on their work as it relates to the theme.

Please note - You can only attend if you sign up. Please only book one place at a time - if you know of anyone interested in attending, send them the link and ask them to sign up (or email me at ifstal-oxford@eci.ox.ac.uk).

Speakers and Themes

May 15th (Tuesday) - 1230 - 1400 hrs - Ethics and Consumption

Please register by the 9th of May

Dr Adam Shriver, Research Fellow at The Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics: The Ethics of Reducing Societal Meat Consumption

Lola Dixon, owner of Happy Friday Kitchen: The Challenges of Running an Ethical Restaurant

With unique perspectives from ethics, philosophy, and the experiences of running an ethical restaurant, Dr Shriver and Ms Dixon will be presenting an ethical analysis of different strategies for reducing societal meat consumption. Focusing on reducing meat consumption as a primary example, both speakers are addressing changing consumption patterns, and the underlying ethics.

May 22nd (Tuesday) 1230 - 1400 hrs - Methane, Climate, and Food Systems

Please register by the 16th of May

Dr Michelle Cain, Oxford Martin Fellow, Oxford Martin Programme on Climate Pollutants

Dr John Lynch, Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Physics, Oxford

What is methane "worth" to the climate, and what are the implications for our food system?

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, which contributes significantly to climate change. However, it is also a relatively short-lived gas, so it affects the climate in a fundamentally different way to CO2. This distinction between short- and long-lived greenhouse gases can cause problems if climate emissions metrics (which are used to compare different emissions) are inappropriately applied. About two-thirds of the anthropogenic sources of methane are from agriculture and waste. How these emissions of methane are (mis-)represented makes a big difference to estimates of a food's carbon footprint. This in turn has implications for the types of agricultural production system we support, and how we might prioritise potential mitigations.