Brains at the Bevy

Global warming threatens our frozen planet – why you should care about glaciers, ice sheets and permafrost

Wednesday 5 February 2025, 6pm at the Bevy Pub.

Speaker: Dr Lorna D Linch

Icy features such as glaciers, ice sheets and permafrost are crucial components of the world we live in. This talk will explore just how critical our frozen planet is to the functioning of global environmental systems and societies.  

Not only are ice sheets, glaciers and permafrost threatened by global warming, they drive the climate by weakening ocean circulation, impacting local weather regimes and releasing stored carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. Glacial processes make significant changes to landscapes. Flowing ice carves out valleys and fjords, leaving a legacy of erosional, depositional and meltwater landforms and sediments behind, while melting and collapsing snow, ice and permafrost leads to sea level rise and flooding, avalanches and landslides, often destroying habitats and impacting biodiversity. 1.9 billion people are threatened by mountain water shortages due to climate change and glacier retreat.

Returning from her recent voyage to Greenland, Dr Lorna D Linch, will tell us of the unimaginable repercussions that the rapidly warming polar and high mountain regions are having on the world we live in and the future of the planet. She will also share her experiences of visiting these exciting, and often breath-taking, locations as a researcher.

It's cold outside! Join us for a talk about ice and global warming.

Dr Lorna D Linch is a physical geographer with specialist interest across geomorphology, glacial and periglacial processes and pollutants, sedimentology and micromorphology. She is passionate about the environment and inspired by the outdoors, particularly mountainous and cold environments.

Blue Spaces – Water and wellbeing for everyone

Wednesday 5 March 2025, 6pm at the Bevy Pub.

Speakers: Dr Catherine Kelly and Sadie Rockcliffe

Have you have ever felt better just by being next to the sea? Come and listen to our research into how and why ‘blue spaces’ can make you feel well.

We explore why seas, oceans, rivers and lakes matter to people. We look at the various wellbeing impacts that being in or next to blue spaces can bring.

For some of us there will be physical benefits, related to movement; for others, the benefits may be stress-relief related, or indeed, social, through connections and communities of other blue space users.

We present some of the research on this alongside accounts of lived experiences from real people.

Working with the Environment Agency on the National Blue Space Forum, Dr Catherine Kelly discusses some findings from eight national workshops that explored inequality of access to water for wellbeing. Exploring this for one particular demographic, people with visual impairments, Sadie Rockcliffe discusses research that challenges the often forgotten area  of sensory inequalities and accessibility, focusing in particular on outdoor swimming experiences and challenges. We also touch on our other university-funded research projects that link blue space wellbeing to environmental activism, social-prescribing and to the arts in Brighton. 

Join us for some blue space calm and wellbeing.

Dr Catherine Kelly is the author of  the best-selling book Blue Spaces: How and Why Water Can Make You Feel Better. A geographer based in the School of Business and Law, her research interests centre around blue space use, stakeholder engagement, wellbeing, accessibility and inclusion, and environmental stewardship. She is an experienced wellbeing practitioner and coastal educator, as well as an executive board member of the Sussex UNESCO Biosphere ‘The Living Coast’.

Sadie Rockliffe is an ESRC SCDTP-funded PhD student, whose research interests lie within the themes of wellbeing and therapeutic landscapes; placemaking and custodianship; and the importance of accessibility and inclusivity within blue space engagement.

POSTPONED The light and Shadow side of AI

Due to unforeseen events we had to cancel the Brains at the Bevy talk on Wednesday 6 November by Paul Levy on the Light and Shadow of AI. 

Apologies for the disappointing news but we are planning to reschedule the talk for 2025.

It was late 2022 when we all started hearing about something called Chat GPT.

Artificial intelligence has been around for decades but it was generative AI that really hit the headlines. Suddenly we could talk to AI and AI could do all kinds of things for us and even instead of us. 

• Will AI replace the jobs we are currently doing? 
• Is it all hype what is the truth that the heart of the rise of AI?
• How does AI actually work?
• What are the benefits of AI and what skills do we need in a world increasingly defined by it?

This interactive session led by Paul Levy from the University of Brighton, whose recent research has focused on digital innovation, the skills of digital management and the rise of disruptive innovation including cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Technology.

We will take a very practical look at artificial intelligence, get online, see what it really can and cannot do, try and break into it, identify the benefits but also the risks and take a look at the future. 

Paul Levy is the author of several books including Digital Inferno and Technosophy.

Previous talks in the series

The Bevy

The Bevy in the press