The Earth's Future

Special talks and panel discussion on Wednesday 24th June

The Earth's future is in our hands, but what can we really do as individuals or as a science community? Our 'Earth's Future' event is an opportunity to hear scientists who have successfully crossed from their own personal research spheres into the public domain and are instrumental in forming governmental policy at the highest level. What are the current key issues? Where are the science areas that need urgent government attention? How can scientists, from students to senior academics, help drive societal change? At the end of their short lectures, the speakers will form a panel to answer these and other questions from the floor. This session will take place in the Plenary Theatre Hall of the Conference Center (A1/Th), beginning at 14:00.

The speakers are:

14:00: Dr Bill Chameides

Dr. Bill Chameides has combined more than 30 years in academia as a professor, researcher, teacher, and mentor with a 3-year stint in the NGO world as the chief scientist of the Environmental Defense Fund. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, fellow of the American Geophysical Union, and recipient of the American Geophysical Union’s MacElwane Award.

Bill has served on numerous national and international committees and task forces and in recognition was named a National Associate of the National Academies for “extraordinary service.”

His research focuses on the atmospheric sciences, elucidating the causes of and remedies for global, regional, and urban environmental change and identifying pathways towards a more sustainable future. Specifically his research helped lay the groundwork for our understanding of the photochemistry of the lower atmosphere, elucidated the importance of nitrogen oxides emission controls in the mitigation of urban and regional photochemical smog, and the impact of regional air pollution on global food production.

He has led two major, multi-institutional research projects: the Southern Oxidants Study, a research program focused on understanding the causes and remedies for air pollution in the Southern United States; and CHINA-MAP, an international research program studying the effects of environmental change on agriculture in China.

More information on Bill Chameides can be found at http://fds.duke.edu/db/Nicholas/faculty/wlc4.

14:30: Dr Veerabhadran Ramanathan

Dr. V. Ramanathan is a distinguished professor of atmospheric and climate sciences at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego (UCSD). In the mid 1970s, Ramanathan discovered the greenhouse effect of CFCs and numerous other man-made trace gases. He correctly forecasted in 1980 that the global warming due to carbon dioxide would be detectable by the year 2000. He and his students also used satellite radiometers to detect the atmospheric greenhouse effect directly from observations and demonstrated using satellite and ground based observations that the coupling between atmospheric warming and water vapor greenhouse effect exerted a strong positive feedback effect, thus confirming earlier model predictions.

Teaming up with NASA colleagues, Ramanathan showed that clouds had a large natural cooling effect on the planet using direct measurements of the atmospheric greenhouse effect. He, along with Dr. Paul Crutzen, led the Indian Ocean Experiment (INDOEX) that first discovered the widespread South Asian Atmospheric Brown Clouds (ABCs) in the late 1990s. Using INDOEX data, Ramanathan showed that South Asian brown clouds led to large-scale dimming of the ocean, slowed down monsoon circulation, and decreased monsoon rainfall. He followed this with a path-breaking study with agricultural economists to show that ABCs and greenhouse gases were responsible for a 14-percent decrease in rice harvests in India.

Ramanathan has been part of the U.N’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was co-awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, since its inception, and for the 2007 report served as one of the lead editors in the panel’s Working Group I report.

More information about him is available at http://www-ramanathan.ucsd.edu

15:00: Dr Janet Hering

Dr. Janet Hering is the Director of the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science & Technology (Eawag) and Professor of Environmental Biogeochemistry at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zürich. As Director of Eawag, she oversees a staff of 400, including approximately 150 Ph.D. researchers. Research at Eawag focuses broadly on water and the water environment, encompassing the continuum from relatively unperturbed aquatic ecosystems to fully engineered water and wastewater management systems. In addition to its research activities, Eawag’s mandate encompasses both education and expert consulting. Eawag contributes to tertiary education in cooperation with degree-granting institutions, particularly its partner institutions within the Domain of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and hosts about 100 Ph.D. students engaged in their thesis research.

Dr. Hering’s own research interests include the biogeochemical cycling of trace elements in natural waters and water treatment technologies for the removal of inorganic contaminants from potable water. Her research includes both laboratory and field experimental studies. She has been a member of the faculty of the California Institute of Technology, in Environmental Science and Engineering, and of the University of California, in Civil and Environmental Engineering. She is a past recipient of the National Science Foundation’s Young Investigator Award and Presidential Faculty Fellows Award and has served as an Associate Editor for the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

More information on her can be found at http://www.eawag.ch/kuerze/personen/homepages/heringja/index_EN.

15:30: Sir David King

Sir David King is the Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment at the University of Oxford. He was the UK Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser and Head of the Government Office of Science from October 2000 to 31 December 2007. In that time, he raised the profile of the need for governments to act on climate change and was instrumental in creating the new £1 billion Energy Technologies Institute. In 2008 he co-authored “The Hot Topic” (Bloomsbury 2008) on this subject. As Director of the Government’s Foresight Programme, he created an in-depth horizon scanning process which advised government on a wide range of long term issues, from flooding to obesity. He also chaired the government’s Global Science and Innovation Forum from its inception. He advised government on issues including: The foot-and-mouth disease epidemic 2001; post 9/11 risks to the UK; GM foods; energy provision; and innovation and wealth creation; and he was heavily involved in the Government’s Science and Innovation Strategy 2004-2014.

He was born in South Africa in 1939, and after an early career at the University of Witwatersrand, Imperial College and the University of East Anglia, he became the Brunner Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Liverpool in 1974. In 1988 he was appointed 1920 Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and subsequently became Master of Downing College (1995 – 2000) and Head of the University Chemistry Department (1993 – 2000). He has published over 450 papers on his research in chemical physics and on science and policy, and has received numerous prizes, Fellowships and Honorary Degrees. He continues as Director of Research in the Department of Chemistry at Cambridge University, and is currently President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

16:00: Panel discussion