Politicians, unite……… and scientists, speak up!

Institute of Physics News

1 October 2009

In October’s issue of Physics World...

Writing exclusively for a special issue of Physics World on the “energy puzzle”, the physicist Lord Browne, former BP chief executive, asserts that politicians need to avoid compartmentalizing energy and climate-change issues - and to work across Government and with international partners to pursue action that binds economic prosperity, national security and environmental integrity.

If all goes to plan, political leaders at December’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP15) will agree to a successor to the Kyoto protocol and make further promises to cut greenhouse-gas emissions. But the issue will, as always, be how to put those promises into action.

To mark the significance of the occasion, this special issue of Physics World looks at not only the scientific challenges of the energy and climate-change problem, but also at the political hurdles as well as the importance of communicating the right messages, at the right pitch, to much wider audiences.

In addition to calling for joined-up political thinking, Lord Browne also says we should rethink the state’s role in energy markets. “The market is the most effective delivery system available to society,” he says, “but it needs strategic direction and a framework of rules if it is to provide the more diversified energy structure that we urgently need.”

On the challenge of communication, Joseph Romm, a physicist at the US think tank Center for American Progress, points out that scientists, and physicists in particular, need to do more to warn the world of the dangers of climate change.

As he writes, “The fate of perhaps the next 100 billion people to walk the Earth rests with scientists trying to communicate the dire nature of the climate problem as well as the ability of the media, the public, opinion-makers and political leaders to understand and deal with that science.”

Also in the October edition:

• Wrong but useful – many policymakers have traditionally seen climate models as irrelevant but recent advances are making such models an essential tool in informing policy choices.
• The road to sustainability – the hottest topic in energy research today, but what does it actually mean?  What makes a technology sustainable and what are the material-science challenges standing between us and clean, long-lasting energy?
• Does nanotechnology have the energy? From new kinds of solar cells and improved wind turbines to supercapacitators and novel hydrogen-storage techniques, developments in nanotechnology could transform the energy industry?
• Extreme energy makeover. With the world’s population expected to reach 10 billion by 2050, the “SuperGrid” – a network of underground pipes carrying hydrogen and superconducting cables - is one physicist’s far-out solution to rising energy needs.

Source: Physics World

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