The Society should set an example by supporting the campaign for a 2050 decarbonisation target, argues Martin Lack
I was very disappointed when the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) banned an ExxonMobil advert for investment in algal biofuels some years ago. Where land is cheap and sunshine abundant (such as deserts), researchers have already shown that algae can be genetically modified to produc...
Dear Editor, The term soapbox reminds me of student days: regularly visiting Hyde Park’s Speakers Corner to listen to Donald Soper, Roy Sawh and others expounding their beliefs. Similarly, in the April issue of Soapbox Mr Lack expresses his beliefs, not science. A bandwagon is what he suggests the Society should join—doing or supporting something fashionable or literally joining ...
Sir, With reference to Adler deWind's piece 'Question Time' (Geoscientist 22.07 pp. 16-19), the Geological Society of London’s (GSL) official stance on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) has contributed to negative and technologically flawed implementation by successive UK governments.
I venture to suggest that there was, and is, a great deal of underlying dissent by many fellows and...
Colin Summerhayes* considers the evidence and struggles to find substance in the explosive political dispute over the real source of atmospheric CO2
Geoscientist 21.08 September 2011
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change1, CO2 is warming the atmosphere. The Panel is convinced that most of it comes from human activities, not from volcanoes; but many people, including some...
Two recent disastrous east Atlantic storms were exacerbated by the Soufrière Hills eruption, say Wyss Yim*#, Judy Huang* and Johnny C.L. Chan*
Geoscientist 20.6 June 2010
The best time for achieving a better understanding of climate change is surely the present, because we have both instrumental records and satellite records for verification. It is therefore somewhat surprising that r...
The ice-core trends of temperature and greenhouse gases match so precisely that there has been room for doubt as to what is cause and what is effect. Thus, could the temperature changes be driving CO2/methane levels in the atmosphere (by altering patterns of global biomass production and storage, say) rather than the other way around? If this was true, then the currently increasing levels of CO2 a...
Can CCS and radwaste find comon ground? Indeed they can, say Neil Chapman1, Julia West2 and Jordi Bruno3
Geoscientist 21.08 September 2011
To a geologist, the analogies between the geological disposal of radioactive wastes and the sequestration of CO2 deep underground are obvious. Both aim to isolate and contain waste products that come principally from the generation of electricity. Both fo...
Sir, Kristin Vala Ragnarsdottir and her ASAP colleagues took a strangely superficial approach to the relationship between geology and economics (Beyond GDP, Geoscientist, October 2014). Having conceived the idea of Gross Domestic Product in 1934, Simon Kuznets (see reference below) went on to question its role when it came to unpaid labour and international development. Furthermore, his 1971 No...
Although the eruption of a supervolcano would have a catastrophic effect on global climate, they are not capable of wiping out the entire human race. What's more, survivors would very likely include residents of the UK, according to Dr Morgan Jones of the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton.
24 September 2009
Alongside global warming, a more dramatic threat to global climate is on th...
Sir, In the interest of contributing to the evidence-based debate on climate change I thought it would be constructive to draw to your attention the geological evidence regarding climate change, and what it means for the future. This evidence was published in November 2010 by the Geological Society of London in a document entitled “Climate Change: Evidence from the Geological Record”, ...