guest speaker with stories, ideas and insights from around the world
Environment, sustainability, and nature conservation talks
Through my travels, research trips, and my university teaching, I can illuminate and clarify important environmental issues. The talks are academically rigourous, illustrated with high quality slides, and delivered with enthusiasm. I aim to entertain, surprise and inform, whether a specialist audience or a general audience keen to have their horizons expanded. My environmental talks are booked by conferences, schools and lecture societies.
Our Energy Future
Where our energy comes from is a topic of vital importance for security, cost and environmental reasons. this entertaining and visually appealing talk looks at our energy options and evaluates their feasibility. It also looks at the political issues, and what are the devastating consequences when societies have their energy curtailed. Finally, it explores the human rights and foreign policy considerations that devolve from how we choose to source our energy. The talk ethically examine the choices ahead of us and the impacts on societies around the world.
Living with the Environment
Our lifestyles are having profound impacts on the Earth's ecosystems. How much of nature are we prepared to sacrifice to sustain our lifestyles, and does it matter? Are we living sustainably? Is it possible for everyone in the world to enjoy a decent material quality of life without losing the simple pleasure and wellbeing that having nature in our lives brings? What are the conservation challenges? I explore how 'progress' is measured and what environmental costs we are prepared to pay to maintain current living standards. This is a thought provoking and enlightening talk for a general audience.
Climate change
Climate is changing, but then it's always changed. Why is climate change such a hot topic now? Is it important?
What is global warming? Should we take it seriously? How can we understand it when the science seems so impenetrable?
This talk aims to clarify the issues and techniques used in this fascinating detective story as science tries to tackle perhaps its biggest
challenge: understanding the planet and the consequences of anthropogenic
climate change.
The End of Nature
In this talk I examine the impossibility of finding anywhere on Earth that has not been affected by mankind's activity, how we reconcile that with notions of wilderness, how we value nature, and the necessary redefining of what is now 'natural'.
Geology: the stories in the rocks
Geology is not just about rocks, it's about stories, and geology has some fantastic ones to tell. This talk is aimed at an audience with no geological background. At the end of it you will have a new appreciation of how important geology is, how it helps us see our place in the world, and will also get you looking at rocks with renewed interest.
Antarctica: a continent for science
Antarctic environmental science has loomed large in my professional life. Ozone depletion, climate change and plate tectonics have all given up secrets to scientists studying in one of the harshest environments in the world. Here I explore Antarctica with world class environmental scientists and look at why it is so important to our understanding of the planet and what the future might hold.
The Ship with a Hole in it
I have been an expedition participant on the marine research ship JOIDES Resolution in the Pacific. This is part of an amazing international research program that has helped uncover the secrets of tsunamis, plate tectonics, earthquakes and climate change by drilling through a hole in the bottom of the ship and into the seafloor. Come on board and learn what it's like to conduct scientific research, and support a self-contained floating community for months at a time, in one of the most difficult environments in the world.
