Post #3

After attending the lecture on 30th January 2009, following are the summary of what the three speakers had presented during the speech.

Speaker 1: Professor Andrew Palmer spoke on the topic of Carbon dioxide Capture and Storage technology and Politics. From the statistic shown by Prof. Palmer, it revealed that Carbon dioxide is increasing rapidly and one way to response to climate change is to capture and store carbon dioxide from fossil fuel so that it is not dumped into the atmosphere. He also suggested on how to capture carbon dioxide that diffuse into the ocean. Furthermore, in his speech, he had also mentioned on how everyone can play their parts in tackling climate change. For instance, individuals can give up owning cars and do not buy bottled water.

Speaker 2: Dr. Benjamin Sovacool spoke on the topic of Using STS to address energy (and Technological) Problems. In his speech, he covered cases: 1-Renewable Power and 2 - Electric Vehicles. For case 1- Renewable Power, it is about the use of renewable energy such as solar energy and wind energy. However, these alternative energy sources cannot be tapped easily because of constraints such as the market failures and barriers, political and regulatory obstacles. For case 2 - Electric Vehicles, there are also constraints such as the technical challenges and economic challenges to overcome. Although there are challenges encountered, yet STS methods provide a useful lens to evaluate these technologies.

Speaker 3: Dr Rajasekhar Bala spoke on the topic of Climate change: Assessment and Mitigation. In his speech, he mentioned on why the earth’s atmosphere is becoming warmer, effects of global warming, approaches and difficulties encountered while tackling global warming. The earth’s atmosphere is becoming warmer because of human activities such as the increase in population, increase in consumer’s product. It is because of these activities that cause the rise in the average global surface temperature, which then causes the change in rainfall patterns and sea level rises. Therefore, there is a need to deal with Climate change. One of the ways is to slow the rate of climate change by increasing energy efficiency and rely more on renewable energy resources and reduce greenhouse gas emission. However, there are difficulties encountered while dealing with climate change such as changes can disrupt economies and lifestyles. Dr. Bala also mentioned a few solutions to global warming such as storing carbon dioxide by planting trees and switch to renewable energy resource.

After hearing what all the three speakers had said about the climate change, I find that it is interesting to note that carbon dioxide is the main causes of climate change. It make me wondered are there any other gases that can also cause climate change.