Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
I have to be honest and say I know absolutely nothing about your field of study. How would
you explain what your research is about to someone like me who’s completely ignorant?
OK, so I guess there’s an over-arching theme. I’m interested in atmospheric science and
how the atmosphere affects our lives, either via the biosphere or by precipitation or rain
or the climate. But in particular I straddle a number of different fields. I’m interested
in the minutiae of atmospheric chemistry and physics and so this really is of a laboratory,
looking very much at the detailed reactions. But I’m also very interested in slightly
far-ranging subjects such as climate change and in particular, geo-engineering. It’s
something I’m looking at during my time as a Birmingham Fellow. I guess you probably
want me to talk about geo-engineering definitions?
Well, I guess. Yeah, I mean geo-engineering is – how would you, give us a…
So there’s a number of different definitions you can use. I think the one I’m most comfortable
with is the deliberate attempt by mankind to alter global warming by kind of a proactive
approach. So there’s a number of different approaches one can take. Maybe the most simplistically,
but also the most controversial, is solar radiation management. So actually trying to
reflect some of the radiation coming from the sun. So the sun’s energies come down,
hit the earth and that warms it up in effect and if we can actually deflect some of this
radiation from even getting into the atmosphere then the overall temperature will drop and
this could mitigate against the temperature due to climate change.
Ah, OK. So obviously your research has massive impact. What would you say the kind of main
benefit to society that you think you might be able to produce from your research?
Very much from the environmental point of view, so I’m confident that some combination
of geo-engineering approaches will work, if we want them to work. But what we don’t
know at the moment is what’s the consequences apart from – so the physics of the actual
radiation is fairly well known but what would be the consequences on the environment? And
so the way I’m interested in looking at this is we don’t want to solve one environmental
problem by exacerbating existing problems, or actually generating new problems. So for
example, something I’ve worked on a lot in the past is ozone chemistry and one of
the approaches to geo-engineering is to essentially mimic a volcano, so introduce lots of particles
into the atmosphere and what we know from natural volcanoes is that you can actually
generate ozone loss – or you can destroy ozone via this process.
OK.
And so one really big question for my research is if we geo-engineered via aerosols, or particles
in the stratosphere, would this lead to additional ozone loss? And if it does, would the amounts
being lost be acceptable or is it again, just generating another problem?
OK. So how did you get into this field then? It’s a really fascinating field, but what
kind of inspired you from say your first degree into this particular aspect of chemistry?
I’ve always been good at hard sciences, so kind of physics, chemistry, mathematics
as well, and so that’s my skill set I would say, but my interests have always been towards
the environment and the natural world in particular and hence I found my chemistry first degree
a bit dry and so ever since that point I’ve been moving closer and closer to environmental
science, but still retaining the skill set of hard physical sciences. And then it’s
just been a process of refining what I’ve liked with each successive jump.
So what do you hope to achieve in the next five years as a Birmingham Fellow? What do
you think your kind of biggest output or where will you e at the end of five years?
As I say, I think it’s really what I want to produce is a very strong assessment of
different geo-engineering options, again from this environmental point of view. So five
years and one person isn’t enough man hours to be able to solve climate change or understand
geo-engineering but what I hope to get is like a very definite list of things that need
to be understood, if we should ever really consider geo-engineering.
And what’s the relationship then with policy makers? Do you have any kind of input into
policy and how does that work?
So I’ve got a number of hats. I’ve got the fundamental scientist where I’m the
lab monkey as it were, actually generating fundamental results. But then there’s also
this assessment work where I’m trying to refine the facts into consequences I guess
and it’s these type of reports which will then be used by the policy makers and the
social scientists and at that point it’s me passing it over and I’m very interested
in that side of things but that’s again, not really what I do.
So what attracted you then to the Birmingham Fellow Scheme? So you were in Cambridge before.
What kind of drew you to Birmingham? What do you think’s the good thing about this
scheme?
I think it was the academic freedom and with this soft start, so you’re essentially given
a reduced teaching load and as much as I enjoy teaching, I feel like I’ve done a lot of
teaching over the last five years and it would be really nice to consolidate my research
now, and five years is good amount of time to tackle big questions. It’s not just a
question of chasing publications, it actually gives me time to really attack these big questions
with respect to geo-engineering.
And how are you finding life in Birmingham?
I’m not actually living in Birmingham so I’ve moved to the countryside because I’m
a country boy at heart, but what I’ve seen of Birmingham and I’ve only been here three
months, is that it has been very nice, especially the campus which I’ve seen most of.
And what about sort of life at the university? I mean you’ve only been here three months
so perhaps it’s difficult to judge but what’s the big differences from where you’ve been
before and what are the best things about it?
So Cambridge is very collegiate and so your life is your college and whereas in Birmingham
your life is your university and so it’s been nice to really feel part of a school,
part of a department. It’s nice to be on a campus university again actually, so you
can walk around green spaces just a hundred metres outside your door. It’s been very
nice.