Adastral Park - Norwich Science Festival - Tackling climate change with technology

Day 5: Tackling climate change with technology - more questions

Neil (host): Here are some more questions for Charlie Wilson from the University of East Anglia (UEA)...

Question:
What's the most interesting thing you've learned studying climate and the environment?

Answer:
That even when all the evidence piles up about how bad things are getting, there are always grounds for optimism ... usually to be found in human ingenuity and resilience.

Question:
If I wanted to find out more about ways to tackle climate change, are there any good books or websites I could look into?

Answer:
Yes, there are lots! My colleague, Kim Nicholas, has just written a great book on this topic called 'Under The Sky We Make'. But there are many more... just make sure you go to a trusted source

Question:
Do you think there is one really great piece of technology we should all be using that would help reduce energy and climate issues?

Answer:
There are many, but the obvious ones in the UK are solar panels (for zero-carbon electricity), heat pumps (for low-carbon heating), and electric vehicles (for low-carbon transport). However these are all costly. There are many other affordable or free technologies that can help such as Smart Meters which help us to monitor our energy consumption and flag appliances that are costing money which we may not necessarily have thought about. Transport in particular is proving the toughest nut to crack, with emissions still rising, and cars getting bigger and bigger. Why not try car-sharing, micro-mobility or staying at home and doing things remotely.

Question:
Is digitalisation a good or bad thing overall for the environment/climate change?

Answer:
Digitalisation can have a negative effect as it’s making consumption quicker and easier (Amazon!) and it has a sizeable energy and material footprint (bitcoin!). However there is also very good evidence that digitalisation can have strong overall benefits for climate change … if we work to make that happen.

Question:
Are there any famous scientists or influential speakers you look up to, who may have influenced you to go into working in this area?

Answer:
Yes! Someone I never met but would have loved to was Buckminster Fuller. He was a very idiosyncratic thinker and innovator active in the 1930s-50s. He's most well-known for the geodesic dome (think of the Eden Project!), but he was a pioneering environmental thinker too and coined the term ’spaceship Earth’ to describe how alone and fragile our planet is. Another scientific hero of mine is Amory Lovins who founded the Rocky Mountain Institute. Amory has been arguing and providing the evidence for an energy-efficient renewable future since the early 1970s. It’s taken the world 50 years to catch up and realise he’s right. I was very lucky to meet Amory last year, and remain in awe.

Question:
Do you think we will ever reach a point where the whole of the UK is running on clean energy and electric vehicles?

Answer:
Yes I do. Both because we have to, in order to reach net-zero emissions and stop damaging our climate system, and because it makes both economic and social sense. Clean energy like off-shore wind is already the cheapest form of energy generation. And on a cost per km travelled basis, electric vehicles pretty much are too. And both will help make our air cleaner to breathe and our cities more pleasant to live in.