A fringe meeting at this year’s Labour Party Conference asks ‘Picking winners: can engineering succeed where finance failed?’ Now there’s a question we’d all like to see answered.
The political conference season is now in full swing, with the Labour Party taking over Brighton this week. Of course, there’s a multitude of speeches, meetings, and desperate cabals (although smoke-filled rooms are a thing of the past), but the one that caught our eye is a fringe debate called ‘Picking winners: can engineering succeed where finance failed?’ Now there’s a question we’d all like to see answered.
The start of October marks the renewal date for 65 per cent of industrial energy contracts in the UK, and many energy-intensive users will be looking for improved deals. Coincidentally, there’s a new face on the energy policy scene this week: David MacKay, a professor of physics at CambridgeUniversity, takes up the role of chief scientific advisor to the Department of Energy and Climate Change on Thursday, where his task will be to assess government plans for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
High temperatures are very much on the agenda, as somewhat further away, NASA’s Mercury probe, MESSENGER, is due to make its third close pass of the planet this week. It will approach to 142 miles off the surface to survey the scorched landscape.
Stuart Nathan
Special Projects Editor
Good article and timely reminder in this political honeymoon season. What exactly is climate change, has anyone defined it?
Earth’s climate is dynamic and constantly changing, it is sheer nonsense to suggest that by reducing C02 we are going to somehow save the world from disaster. Do not forget that CO2 is not being created, it is being released and absorbed constantly and the same amount has been in the atmosphere more or less since we first developed an atmosphere. If we look at information from ice cores from past thousands of years we can deduce that we are heading for a further ice age and this can be confirmed by Earth’s rotation and obliquity as having a 26,000 year cycle. We are approximately half way through the cycle and on our way to colder climate. Sadly or otherwise, we will not be around to witness it. What I do not trust is egg head Professors, appointed by self-serving ministers who are on Energy company’s payrolls.
The omens for us are not good!
It is human activity that is pouring vastly more CO2 into the air than would otherwise naturally be the case. In the same way that, whilst extinction is also a natural phenomenon the present rate of extinction is 1000 times what would be considered “natural” and is a direct result of human activity. We cannot and must not ignore climate change, it IS the greatest threat to humanity that exists and we need to do something to at the very least reduce the rate of that change for the sake of our kids and their kids. We might be buying time for future engineers and politicians to find more effective solutions. Both today’s and tomorrow’s engineers are the ones who just might make the difference.
The greatest threat to humanity is over population and pseudo science based on prejudice, self interest and ignorance.
Britain apparently contributes a miniscule 2% to current global CO2 emissions (according to recent statistics) and of that cattle produce nearly half…
The whole climate change nonsense is driven by from No 10 by Miliband and the energy companies and Friends of the Earth. Common sense is not their forte.
Things are looking up; the government’s advisor, David MacKay, is a pragmatic man and every engineer should read his book (on the internet) “Sustainable Energy – without the hot air”. He simply details the various green technologies and evaluates typical known performances and realistic load factors and costs. So horrific will some of the costs be, he leaves the politics and economics to others.
A truthful man, he bluntly admits the UK’s emissions are actually rising steeply, not falling, because our intense materialism is provided by China etc on our behalf and for this reason I hope China does not put up with any nonsense at Copenhagen.
Whatever any government tries to do, CO2 emissions are roughly proportional to GDP per capita and population.
For as long as gravity will exist, sea levels will always rise due to the trillions of tons of sediment washed down into the sea each year by precipitation.
Common sense suggests that Climate Change is the result of over population but it rarely, if ever, is discussed by our politicians. China has made some attempt to tackle this issue.
I would also suggest that common sense tells us that burning fossil fuels and forests means that a greater proportion of the fixed quantity of carbon becomes airborne.
Sustainable energy policies therefore seem sensible and, in view of the political uses made of fossil fuel resources, the right way forward.
These policies will also save us individuals money and provide opportunities for engineers. I am all for them.