#3 Summary of lecture on 30th Jan

The lecture on 30th Jan which was conducted by three lecturers was thought provoking. The three guest speakers presented their expertise on three different yet related topics. All topics talked were related to climate change. Summaries of their insightful speech will be provided in the following paragraphs, as well as my personal reflection regarding to these topics, based on my understanding.

The first speaker was Prof. Palmer, a Fellow of the Royal Society, Royal Academy of Engineering and the Institution of Civil Engineers, and also a Chartered Engineer. He talked about the problem of climate change and raised some possible solutions accordingly; for example, concentrate on the fuel efficiency; switch to alternative energy sources; try to mitigate effects; adapt to change of climate and capture and store carbon dioxide. The last approach aforementioned was the one he discussed most. His second half lecture was concentrating around the merits and defects of this method. To avoid the water be acidized due to the capture and storage of CO2, an innovative idea like store CO2 in a ”sausage” was provided. Finally, he ends his lecture with a call-on to reduce carbon dioxide by saying “everyone, all the countries, all the politicians has to be convinced”.

The second speaker was Dr. Sovacool, from Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. His lecture was systematic and mainly focused on using STS (Science & Technology Studies) to address energy and technology problems. The speech consisted of three parts: a quick introduction to STS; case studies, one was on renewable power and the other was on electric vehicles; conclusion. As what he had mentioned, STS mainly looks at contingency, social and political ordering, invisibility and failures. He said, technology can succeed technically, but fail socially. In case studies, he talked about the barriers and obstacles in both cases. His lecture ends up with a conclusion of STS as methods provide a useful lens to evaluate new technologies.

The last speaker, A/P Bala, was from the Division of Environmental Science & Engineering. Professor Bala was mainly focusing on the climate change assessment and mitigation. Prof. Bala introduced some common problems and difficulties faced by the whole world and called for international cooperation. Meanwhile, some measures were provided to mitigate climate change, for instance, for individuals, increasing energy efficiency, relying more on renewable energy resources, reducing greenhouse gas emissions are all possible and efficient methods, and for governments, taxing greenhouse gas emission, subsidizing energy efficient enterprises and cooperating internationally can be applied.