Bill Giles OBE - Conference Dinner Speaker

Since retiring from the Weather Centre, Bill Giles has specialised in lecturing on the consequences of global warming. As far back as 1990 in his book “ The Story of Weather” he warned of the consequences of climate change and was first, in the BBC programme “The Weather Show,” to postulate the theory that the Sahara Desert would move north into the Mediterranean, thereby displacing millions of people, in the second half of the 21st century. Many of his hypotheses on the consequences of rapid climate change are now generally accepted by the Government and are now being acted upon.

Today, Bill is a director of the International Association of Broadcast Meteorology and attends regular meetings in Europe. At the World Meteorological Organisation - part of the United Nations - he regularly relies on the expertise of simultaneous interpreters to ensure his message is correctly communicated into many languages including Russian, French German and Spanish.

In January 2008, he was invited by the British Embassy to visit four cities in China to talk about climate change. At the talks and workshops, which also involved journalists and university students, Bill worked closely with interpreters to educate people about climate change.

Bill Giles O.B.E. was born in Dittisham, near Dartmouth, south Devon and retired from the Met Office in January 2000.

Her Majesty the Queen appointed him an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in the 1995 New Year Honours List for services to broadcast meteorology and he was the subject of “This is Your Life” in 1998.

Last year he was awarded the prestigious Broadcast Meteorology Award by the European Meteorological Society in Amsterdam for outstanding contribution to weather broadcasting.

Bill is married to Maureen, has two children, and now lives in Oxfordshire. He is a fund-raising Patron for the Iain Rennie Hospice - a local charity that enables terminally ill patients to spend their last days at home with their family.

Find out more about Bill Giles and his work at his website: http://www.billgiles.co.uk/