Summary of speech

"An Inconvenient Truth" has told us how serious global warming can turn out to be, and this concept has been further reinforced by attending the presentations on global warming by Professor Andrew Palmer, Benjamin K. Sovacoo and Rajasekhar Bala.

Professor Andrew Palmer is from Centre for offshore research & Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering, NUS). He touched on topic on Carbon dioxide capture & storage: technology & politics.

Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring balanced in the air we breathe. It used to occupy a small amount of air. However, as the world keeps progressing and countries keep developing, more and more carbon dioxide has been released in the air. Gradually it traps heat in the atmosphere and heats up the temperature around us. As the temperature increases, global warming is likely to happen. The climate change will cause flood and drought which lead animals and mankind to extinction.

The actions people should take in order to prevent such things from happening are: fuel efficiency & conservation; fuel switch to gas; solar displaces coal and carbon dioxide capture & storage. Among all those actions, carbon dioxide capture & storage is the most interesting one. It is done by diffusing the gas into the ocean or storing them in large sausage-shaped membranes. It seems very hard to achieve but at least people are putting their best effort to solve the problems.

The second presenter, Associate Professor Benjamin K.Sovecool talked about using STS to address energy (and technological) problems. He showed us the revolutions of various technological inventions and how those things have affected our life. He listed out technical challenges; economic challenges, political challenges and social/culture challenges faced by people and proved to us that STS methods are very useful in evaluating latest technologies.

For the final part of the presentation, Mr. Rajasekhar Bala gave us an excellent speech on climate change: assessment & mitigation. He basically showed to us the effect and consequences of greenhouse gases with detailed data and models.

According to Mr. Bala, greenhouse effect will lead to global warming and the evidence to support that is the 2007 IPCC report and fast-rising average global surface temperature. Some potential consequences were also pointed out such as droughts, floods and tipping point.

All of those consequences can be avoided if necessary actions are taken such as we can rely on more renewable energy resources and government should tax greenhouse gases emission and subsidize energy efficiency and renewable energy use.

Global warming is a global issue. So everyone has to play a part in fighting it to protect our beautiful earth from all kinds of disasters.