Climate change

David has lectured on climate change for many years, and this talk is great for a school or general audience which wants to know what the impacts might be, the difficulties of measuring environmental change, and how the evidence was collected.

Climate is changing, and the affects are already being felt around the world. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports show large and diverse impacts on countries. Some will better be able to cope than others: sea level rise will affect Bangladesh and Holland but the latter will have the resources to cope much better.

Nearer to home, the UK economy is affected. Reducing snow cover in Scotland has caused problems for the winter tourist industry. Alteration in rainfall patterns and temperature affects farmers, the population's health and the maintenance of housing stock. Transport links are affected by increased sedimentation in waterways, and more landslides damaging roads and railways. Insurance companies have been at the forefront of much research because they don't want to be out of pocket as the number, and scale, of weather related claims increases...as do insurance premiums.

The understanding of climate change, and the role humanity plays, has been a painstaking story of patient detection. Climate changes naturally for a variety of reasons and science has to carefully attempt to seperate the consequences of natural change from anthropogenically caused change. This has involved the development of novel ways of gathering data from the past to better understand the future: from ice cores in Antarctica to the examination of the middle ear bones of dead fish.

For more environmental talks suitable for schools (as well as the ones shown on the top right of this screen) go to the Talks for schools page.