• Question: what are you doing to stop pollution?

    Asked by courtneywilliamson to Chris, Dave, David, Fiona, Jack on 19 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Fiona Coomer

      Fiona Coomer answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      Apart from changes in my own life (I don’t own a car, I try to recycle as much as possible and minimise my electricity use), I carry out research on materials that will hopefully help us to cut down our pollution in the future. Researching magnetic materials helps us to understand the behaviour of materials like superconductors as well as being able to develop materials which will enable devices like computers to run a lot more efficiently in the future. For the past couple of months I have been researching materials (not magnetic ones!) that will have uses in devices such as solar cells and light emitting diodes (for energy efficient lighting), so will hopefully lead to less pollution in the future.

    • Photo: Chris Mansell

      Chris Mansell answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      My research isn’t related to stopping pollution.

      However, I recently found an online competition asking people for ways to “combine, repurpose or modify existing technologies and products to create tomorrow’s practical and scalable low-carbon solutions for the home.” By “low carbon solutions” they mean “ways to reduce carbon dioxide greenhouses gases.” I have entered this competition, as have 140 other people. The sponsors of the competition may even like a person’s idea so much they try to make it a reality. I’ve tried to use my physics knowledge to come up with a good idea. The competition doesn’t end for a while but I am interested to see what ideas people are having and if any of them can make a real impact on the world. The competition website is http://marblar.com/challenge/earthhack-sustainable-homes .

    • Photo: David Freeborn

      David Freeborn answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      Hi courtneywilliamson,

      My research doesn’t deal with global warming directly, but in our lives there’s a lot we can all do to cut down on pollution, and I try to do this.

      I either walk or use a Boris Bike to get to work instead of a car, and when I go long distance, it’s usually by train. I try to recycle as much as possible. I always turn off the light when I leave my room.

      One of the biggest things we can do is actually to become a vegetarian. Meat production accounts for just over half of all the greenhouse gas production, and raising animals for food consumes about ten times as much energy per kilogram of food as growing plants does. That’s because we need to grow the plant, then feed it to the animal, which needs to digest the food. That’s a very, very inefficient process, and a lot of energy is lost.

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