1950, Bradford, Yorkshire, England) is a writer, broadcaster and consultant.

Murgatroyd was educated at St. Bede’s Grammar School and University College Cardiff, where in 1972 he graduated with honors with a bachelor of arts in research methodology. After graduating, he became a special needs teacher in Cwmbran, Wales. He also became a tutor with the Open University of the United Kingdom.

A year later he became a full time research fellow with the Open University, directing its first major longitudinal study of adult learners. He later became senior counsellor at the Open University in Wales.

In 1983 he received a master’s of philosophy from the Open University of the UK. It was around this time that Murgatroyd became associate editor of the British Journal of Guidance and Counselling and a founding board member of the British Psychological Society’s Counseling Psychology section — all of which earned him a fellowship in the British Psychological Society in 1985. He earned his doctorate in 1987, also from the Open University.

In 1986, Murgatroyd became a dean at Athabasca University. Later, he became the first executive director of the Centre for Innovative Management, home of the world’s first on-line executive MBA — a programme he managed from 1993 to 1997. This work resulted in an honorary doctorate in “e-learning” from Athabasca University in 2000.

In 1998 he left the Athabasca to join Axia NetMedia Corporation, where he helped develop a non-profit master’s degree programme offered in association with Middlesex University, where he is a visiting professor.

He returned to Athabasca University in 2003, where he served as executive director for external relations until May 2005. He is now Chief Scout of the Innovation Expedition and Principal of Murgatroyd Communications & Consulting Inc. He works extensively with governments, companies and not for profit organizations.

He has written and published 25 books (including two bibliographies), three pamphlets, 30 chapters in edited works, 49 peer reviewed papers in academic journals, 44 contributions to journals and magazines (including reviews) and twenty fifty five journalistic pieces in newspapers and magazines since 1972.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) (UK) in 2009.

He has been active in the non profit sector, as a former board member of the Galileo Educational Network, trustee of the Alberta Heritage Community Foundation, Chair of the Human Resources Committee of Alberta Ballet and one of the founders of the Alberta Council of Technologies. He currently serves as a Director of Energy Futures Network.

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The following article was published in The Epoch Times distributed in New York City, dated July 13, 2009.

That paper usually prints good articles on the environment, so we read this article and found it to be an extremely tendential mix of facts and intent. We followed the leads and it got more and more interesting – as they brought us to the Athabaska area in the famous Canadian tar sands, to possible Exxon interests, Who knows – it might be all coincidental – but we wish that whoever tries to explain the intricacies of climate change in a globally distributed newspaper better have meat on his background.

Editor’s note: All content on troymedia.com is free to use. Please credit Troy Media Corporation.

July 8, 2009

Climate change agreement facing challenges

By Dr. Stephen Murgatroyd
Columnist
Troy Media Corporation

Just as the earth continues to cool – global average temperatures have fallen 0.74 degrees Fahrenheit since Al Gore released the film An Inconvenient Truth and forty six US states just recorded the coldest June since records began – the world’s G8 leaders are seeking a basic agreement on climate change.

They are facing challenges in doing so. First, it is very clear that the Kyoto Accord, due to expire in 2012, is doing little to significantly reduce emissions. While many countries, especially in Europe, have taken measures to increase renewable energy supplies and tax carbon emissions, actual emissions have continued to rise. The recession has had more impact on carbon emissions that policies which seek to reduce them.

Second, there appears to be a rift between the developed world and the developing world. India and China have been blocking any attempt to impose, through multilateral agreements, specific targets for emissions reductions which apply to them. Their argument, best articulated by India, is that “it is morally wrong for us to agree to reduce when 40% of Indians do not have access to electricity.” They are seeking a period of development which will permit them to raise the base-line of economic well being for their citizens as compensation for their emissions, which they correctly suggest are incurred because the developed world has outsourced their emissions to the developing world, and a fund for technology development. This seems to be a position which the developed countries cannot accept.

Third, there is disagreement over how to achieve the environmental outcomes the climate change campaigners are seeking: carbon taxes and higher energy prices or investing in emerging technologies such as electric cars, fusion energy, carbon capture and storage and/or renewable energy. Tony Blair, former British Prime Minister, has strongly indicated that a focus on technology and innovation is more likely to produce results than a focus on economic measures to penalize established economic behaviour. The report he sponsored through The Climate Change Group, Technology for a Low Carbon Future, focuses on this strategy and details the opportunities. His key point: it is almost impossible to change the behaviour of communities after over a hundred years of reliance on carbon. Only real alternative technologies which reduce emissions without people needing to change their behaviour are likely to succeed.

Finally, the politicians are realizing that the evidence base for their decisions are not as strong as many thought they were. Climate change models, on which many of the most depressing predictions about the future are based, are now understood to be very flawed. Observed data – measurements from satellites, actual temperature measures from earth stations, systematic measurements of sea levels and climate – are all indicating that the science is more complex than many of the campaigners, including the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), suggest. A recent, but suppressed, risk assessment from within the Environmental Protection Agency in the US makes clear that any attempt by the EPA to regulate carbon emissions face legal challenges on the basis of the poor quality of the science on which such regulations may be based.

In December the world’s governments meet in Copenhagen to find agreements which will replace the Kyoto Accord. The G8 summit, now taking place in Italy, was intended to secure a base agreement on which the Copenhagen Accord could be based. This is now looking like a fragile agreement, for the reasons outlined here. While the G8 will release some kind of communiqué – they always do – it will be more about rhetoric than action. The key issue that appears insurmountable at this time is the gap between the developed and developing countries in terms of absolute targets for emissions reductions. Without this, any agreement is simply an agreement to be concerned. With this, some real impacts on emissions may occur. Whatever the agreement, the earth appears to set to continue to cool for another thirty years.

Letter to the Editor: Your comments are welcome.

Keywords: G8 Summit, environment, Copenhagen, cooling temperatures, junk science, Kyoto Accord

News Beats: Environment, Political

Proposed US climate change bill a bargaining chip

Climate change talks in trouble

Politics, compromise and cap and trade

US Democrats backing away from cap and trade

http://www.troymedia.com/NewsBeats/Environment_News_Beat/2009/07/TMC070809.htm

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