Symposium Blog - CE-Project

Video: What's Enhanced Weathering? Interview with PhD Student Veronica Furey (The Future Forest Company)

"The Future Forest Company are co-funding Veronica Furey to study her PhD, investigating enhanced weathering at the Glenaros Estate on Mull. In this video Veronica gives us a brief insight into her studies and the potential of enhanced weathering as a negative emissions technology. Enhanced weathering is a method of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through acceleration of naturally occurring rock mineralisation processes. It can lock away carbon for over 100,000 years, and is an extremely effective method of CO2 removal. The Future Forest company are conducting a pilot for enhanced weathering on the Glenaros Estate on Mull before we scale up across the UK. This will help us establish what particle size of rock we need, how long it will take it to dissolve, the effect it will have on the soil and the growth rate of trees, and the process we need to set up elsewhere. Veronica is interviewed by Flora. Flora is currently studying for her MSci in Science Communication at the University of Manchester, following her undergraduate degree in Biology. Flora's particularly concerned with environmental issues including climate change and the effects of deforestation." LINK

Video: Recording: Carbon Removal and Environmental Justice: An Equitable Path to Net-negative (Carbon 180)

"Climate change is here, affecting the lives of communities across the globe. We’ve already reached an untenable degree of warming, and cutting emissions alone won’t reduce the impacts of CO2 already trapped in the atmosphere. “Carbon removal” encompasses a variety of emerging methods to clean up those legacy emissions. The question facing the climate community today is how. This discussion takes a hard look at how to deploy carbon removal, from healthy soil practices to direct air capture, that centers the needs of communities, prioritizing engagement, safety, equity, and justice. Without just policy and broader community involvement, many carbon removal projects won’t get off the ground, slowing the clean-up of legacy emissions." LINK

Video: Talking with people outside carbon removal (Carbon Removal Updates)

"We need to remove 100 parts per million of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. That means removing about 1 trillion tons of carbon dioxide...and doing something useful with it! I've got an insatiable desire to help figure this out. The changing climate will create the first trillionaire." LINK

13.07.2015 10:03

The Symposium on the Web

To broaden the discussions during the symposium, we announced the conference on Twitter and Facebook as well starting this blog. We had no idea what the response would be like. We established the hashtag #CERSYM2015 and tweets started arriving before the people did.

Day 3 - Are we comparing apples with apples? And who likes "them apples"?

The third and final full day of the symposium again included two sessions of talks. The first, entitled "A Comparative View of Climate Engineering Options and Metrics," was aimed at taking a good look at the concepts and terms we use to evaluate and assess different types of CE technologies to establish if researchers from different fields, countries and disciplines are assessing the technologies in a comparable way.

09.07.2015 08:14

Day 2 - Can we find out what we don't know about CE? And once we find out, who has the right and the means to make the big decisions?

The second day of the symposium included two separate sessions with seven presentations each. The first session of the day, entitled "Climate Engineering Uncertainties" aimed to help us understand exactly where the blind spots in our scientific and technical knowledge of CE lie, and to explore whether these uncertainties can be reduced.

07.07.2015 22:42

Day 1 - Could we?

This week's symposium aims to deal with a wide spectrum of Climate Engineering related questions, but today's session focused on what is arguably one of the most fundamental of them all: Could we do it? Entitled "Scientific Feasibility of Climate Engineering Ideas," the first session of the week included talks by seven natural scientists and engineers who addressed the "Could we?" question from different perspectives.

Welcome to the Climate Engineering Research Symposium!

Next week from Tuesday the 7^th to Friday the 10^th of July the Climate Engineering Research Symposium will be held in Berlin. We look forward to accompanying you as you participate in this exiting international event, which will not only welcome over 130 participants from thirteen countries around the world, but will also be open to the public on Thursday 9^th to encourage what we hope will be inclusive and productive discussions.

Video: What's Enhanced Weathering? Interview with PhD Student Veronica Furey (The Future Forest Company)

Video: Recording: Carbon Removal and Environmental Justice: An Equitable Path to Net-negative (Carbon 180)

Video: Talking with people outside carbon removal (Carbon Removal Updates)