Illustrated talk on the sustainable energy challenges the UK faces

What energy choices does a country need to make to reduce its imports of fossil fuels and therefore make itself more secure from international uncertainty and conflict?

The UK government, concerned about the emission of greenhouse gases, has now decided we should build more nuclear power stations. The Scottish government has declared its opposition. Opinion is divided amongst environmentalists.

Do wind farms help conservation by reducing global warming or do they simply make the landscape less appealing?

Should energy be created and consumed locally?

What global problems loom as less developed countries strive to reach America's level of consumption?

Energy use has transformed society and now threatens to transform the planet. In this decade we will have to make difficult energy choices encompassing national security, aesthetic factors, sustainability, greenhouse gas emissions, safety, human rights, and social equitability. No single energy source will satisfy everyone.

This extremely topical talk will equip you with an understanding of the political, social and practical considerations that govern the use of renewable and non-renewable energy sources. This is the chance to examine contemporary energy issues, including the current dependency on oil, energy policy and the environmental impacts of energy production and use. Come and listen and draw your own, informed, conclusions as to the choices that should be made.

David was responsible for designing and running the University of Glasgow's 'Energy: Options for Sustainability' course on their environmental sustainability degree programme and contributed to their carbon management MSc, and so is a speaker ideally qualified to talk on this subject.

Scotland's Energy Future

David has recently toured a version of this talk around Scotland, focusing specifically on its energy situation.

"We greatly appreciated your talk - it was refreshingly unbiased, educational and put forward in a manner that lay people could understand. I know that many found it very thought provoking - issues I certainly hadn't connected to the energy dilemma! I think the questions could have gone on all night, judging by the interest aroused! Thank you again - hope we'll see you back in Stirling soon."

"On behalf of the committee and, indeed, everyone who attended your talk last evening, I write to thank you for a most interesting and thought provoking session. You raised a number of issues which require a lot of thought and no easy answers! Your presentation was very well put together, well delivered and held the audience's attention and interest throughout - no easy task. I hope you enjoyed your visit to our centre and we look forward to welcoming you back on a future occasion. "

"What I liked about your Talk was the clarity with which you put over an extremely complex subject, first giving it a strong structure which broke it down into manageable chunks so that everyone could understand and everything made sense. Also you had just the right number of images and text in your presentation and a very good variety of just the right type so people could pick up the message quickly, had time to read or interpret them and therefore didn't get bored. There's so much misuse of PowerPoint in the lecturing and business world, and yours was a model of how to use it to best effect."

"Congratulations on your presentation. It was succinct, methodically constructed, avoided technicalese and powerfully postulated the problem, not just of Scotland's energy needs, but the planet's! "

Our Energy Future

Scotland's Energy Future