The issue of human population has become the "elephant in the room": huge but ignored by so many. In fact, human numbers count and count decisively. Uniquely, population is the multiplier of all. Without a humane resolution to the problem of population growth, all other causes will, sooner or later, become lost causes. It is high time to face the challenge and refute the many myths that surround it.

Sandy Irvine has lived in Newcastle since 1968, when he came to the city to study at Newcastle University. He is married with two grown-up children. He has been politically active since the late 60s. Prior to retirement, he worked in a local Further Education college where his specialism was Film Studies. His main involvement has been with the Green Party, having originally joined the then Ecology Party back in the early 1980s. He was a member of the Ecologist magazine editorial board for many years. He is an active member of the national charity Population Matters. Amongst other published work, he co-authored the book A Green Manifesto for McDonalds Optima and a pamphlet Beyond Green Consumerism for Friends of the Earth. He also spent a year on secondment at Northumbria University as an environmental policy advisor. His M.Sc. was a thesis on reforesting the uplands. Recently he has been very active in local land use battles triggered by the pro-growth strategies of local and national government.He strongly believes that, no matter how good the cause, it will be a lost one if the threat from human numbers is not addressed in a humane way.

It’s easy to think of pseudoscience existing in a glass case at a museum – something to be examined and critiqued from a safe distance, but not something to touch and to play with. Using examples taken from his own personal experiences in skepticism, Michael Marshall will show what happens when you begin to crack the surface of the pseudosciences that surround us – revealing the surprising, sometimes-shocking and often-comic adventures that lie beneath.

Michael Marshall is the Vice President of the Merseyside Skeptics Society, and regularly speaks with proponents of pseudoscience for the Be Reasonable podcast. His work with the society has seen him organising international homeopathy protests and co-founding the popular QED conference. He has written for the Guardian, The Times and New Scientist.