Great Debates: Blowing Hot & Cold Chair & Panelists

Chair: Jonathan Dimbleby

Jonathan Dimbleby is a writer, broadcaster and film-maker. He has presented Any Questions? for BBC Radio 4 since 1987. He presented ITV’s flagship weekly political programme, Jonathan Dimbleby, from 1995 to 2006 and anchored the network’s coverage of the 1997, 2001 and 2005 General Elections. In 2008 his five part series Russia – A Journey with Jonathan Dimbleby was broadcast by BBC2 and his book Russia – A Journey to the Heart of a Land and its People was published to accompany the series. Other books include Richard Dimbleby; The Palestinians; Charles: the Private Man, The Public Face; and The Last Governor. In 2010 his three part series An African Journey with Jonathan Dimbleby was broadcast on BBC2 followed by A South American Journey with Jonathan Dimbleby in 2011. His latest book Destiny in the Desert is due for publication in October 2012 and he is currently working on a documentary of the same name for BBC2. In addition to his Presidency of VSO, he is Chair of Index on Censorship and a Trustee of Dimbleby Cancer Care.

John Constable

John Constable is the Director of the Renewable Energy Foundation, an independent UK charity that publishes data and analysis on the energy sector (see www.ref.org.uk). REF is supported by private donation and has no political affiliations.

Dr Constable was educated in the humanities, reading English at Magdalene College, Cambridge, subsequently taking his PhD there in 1993. He has since taught at both Kyoto University, Japan, and at Cambridge, where, until 2005, he was a Leverhulme Research Fellow and Senior Research Fellow of Magdalene. In that field he is best known as the leading authority on the twentieth-century philosopher of language and aesthetics, I. A. Richards/ He is also the co-discoverer, with his colleague the Japanese particle physicist and economist Professor Hideaki Aoyama, of the mathematical distinction between verse and prose in English.

Dr Constable has been working in energy policy since 2004 and is known for his data-grounded view that current policy targets for renewables are infeasible, unaffordable, and almost certainly counterproductive. In 2011 Civitas published his book The Green Mirage: Why the low carbon economy may be further off than we think.

Helen McDade

Helen McDade has been with the John Muir Trust since 2005 and is Head of Policy. She is responsible for the Trust’s public affairs advocacy. This focuses on strategic public policy issues which impact on the Trust’s aims of increased protection and enhancement of wild land and increased public awareness of wild land’s value. A key part is ensuring that proposals for improving the regulatory framework governing wild land and wild places get to decision-makers.

Helen heads up the Trust’s Wild Land Campaign whose key aim is better statutory protection for wild land throughout the UK. Due to the rapid increase in proposed energy developments which would impact on wild areas, the Campaign- utilising economic and technical, as well as environmental, expertise – is seeking an independent National Energy Commission to bring forward a National Energy Strategy (covering both UK and devolved energy production and consumption).

Helen was at WWF Scotland for two years, where she was Head of Communications. Before that, she was involved in health campaigning and lobbying for various organisations.

Matt Partidge

Matt Partridge is Development Director of REG Windpower Ltd (formerly The Cornwall Light & Power Company). REG Windpower is the wholly-owned, UK onshore wind energy business of AIM-listed Renewable Energy Generation. Matt has been an elected member of the RenewableUK Board since 2007, spending 2 years as the small wind “representative”. Matt has been involved in the UK wind energy development sector for over 17 years, since graduating from the University of Southampton in June 1994 (BSc Hons Geography). In that time Matt has also held senior positions at National Wind Power (now npower-renewables), Gamesa Energy UK and Ecotricity.

Godfrey Boyle

Godfrey Boyle is Emeritus Professor of Renewable Energy at The Open University. He is co-author/editor of the widely adopted textbooks ‘Renewable Energy’ and ‘Energy Systems and Sustainability’ (Oxford, 2012) and of ‘Renewable Electricity and the Grid’ (Earthscan, 2007). He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and the Royal Society of Arts (RSA).