The Anonymous Widower

Rocks and Climate Change: How We Can Stop Pulling the Carbon Trigger

Today, I went to another lecture at the Geological Society of London, the title of which is the title of this post.

The entertaining lecture was given by Bryan Lovell, who is Senior Research Fellow in Earth Sciences at Cambridge University. He talked about how 55 million years ago a rapid global warming effect called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum changed the world forever and led to the creation of the first apes. Some of the proof of this is believed to be the unusual puddingstone found in places like Hertfordshire, which was created at the time. As he said the rocks tell us what happens if you don’t control global warming and that the earth can cope with it, but animals can’t.

One point he then said was that the oil industry can store safely underground the carbon dioxide captured from a coal-fired power station at a reasonable price.

He then said that although the scientific case has been established beyond doubt and even Shell accepts there is man made global warning, but we haven’t convinced ourselves of the need to act. He said that now is the time to tell the story written in the rocks – in verse, in film and in song.  He was at Harvard in the 1960s and no-one got anywhere about convincing the Americans about the wrongness of the Vietnam War, until Joan Baez got involved. We need another Joan. And unfortunately someone, who could have written and performed something eloquent; Dory Previn, died on Tuesday.

February 15, 2012 - Posted by AnonW | World | Global Warming/Zero-Carbon, Music, Oil, Poetry