With only nine months to go before the most important international meeting on climate change since Copenhagen in 2009, what are the chances of success at this year’s Paris talks?

What might “success” mean?

And can the mistakes and challenges that have befallen previous meetings be avoided and tackled?

To help address these questions, let’s first dispense with three pervasive myths that continue to make the task of achieving an adequate global response to climate change harder.

Myth 1: the international climate negotiations have failed

There are few geographical areas that have seen as much military action as the Gallipoli region, the site of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corp (ANZAC) landings in 1915. 

The conflicts in the region include some of the most renowned wars from Greek antiquity.

When Jonas the fat-tailed dwarf lemur died recently in captivity at the ripe age of 29 years, he was the oldest known of his species. But Jonas not only outlasted members of closely related lemur species held in captivity; he also lived much longer than science would predict based on his small size.

Human beings are information seekers. We are constantly taking in details – big and small – from our environment. But the majority of the stuff we encounter in a given day we rarely need to remember. For instance, what are the chances that you need to remember where you ate lunch with a friend last Wednesday?

But what if later on you learned that there was something important to remember about that lunch? The brain has a remarkable ability to store information that seems inconsequential at the time.

The diversity within grapevine varieties is incredibly rich. This is good news for viticulturists – grape cultivators – and wine makers because it allows them to adapt their wine production according to the conditions in their vineyards and to the wines they want to make.

Pinot is one of the most ancient grapevine varieties and the Pinot family is an invaluable source for the production of a wide range of wines from around the world. There’s the Pinot noir from Burgundy, California or New Zealand, Pinot Meunier in Champagne, Pinot gris in Alsace or Pinot blanc in Italy.

Teaching any sort of academic program with religious content can be a tricky undertaking. Religious passions, whether pro or con, can be volatile; religion is a matter about which people can become upset.

My doctoral studies were in the relatively safe arena of Greek philosophy – no-one really cares what you say about Socrates and his mates these days – but I taught Religious Studies for many years and it was, by comparison, a minefield of sensitivities. In all those years, however, I managed to only really upset somebody once.