#3 Thoughts after the lecture

I feel that the 2 hours lecture is very informatics and interesting. The 3 speakers mentioned certain parts which really enlighten me on certain issues regarding global warming, and gave me a better understanding about certain combating global warming.

Prof Andrew Palmer shared with us his knowledge on Geo engineering and spoke mainly about Carbon Storage. He started by discussing issues on climate change and how we response to the changes by mitigation and adaptation. He further elaborated on the technology regarding carbon storage. He explained that carbon dioxide can be stored deep in the ocean within a membrane with will reduced the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. However, this method of carbon storage may results to carbon dioxide diffusing into the ocean over the time and cause ocean to become more acidic.

The next speaker is from NUS, Dr. Benjamin k Sovacool who spoke about Science & Technology Studies (STS). There is a traditional theory which states that technology can be out of control and failure of technology may be due to many factors. By discussing on 2 case studies, he explained the factors which may cause technology to fail. Some of the factors are; political,cultural, social challenges, economic challenges.

The last speaker, A/P Rajasekhar Bala spoke about the global warming in a general context. He explained how green house gases causes global warming and showed charts on increasing global temperature. He also discussed how people combat global warming by mitigation and adaptation. he further add on the difficulties people faced in combating global warming. in the end he shared his views on how government can do his part in reducing carbon emission through incentives and taxes.

Personally I feel that the second speaker's slides are more interesting. It may be due to his eloquence, and may be due to the topic which is something that I have never heard of. In addition, by using case studies he is able to make his topic on STS easier to understand and more interesting. For instance, regarding Case studies 2: Electric Vehicle, he is able to relate how other challenges influence people to stop using a environmental friendly vehicle. Having a technology which may be able to reduce greenhouse gases might not be the main factor in combating global warming, there is a need to look into other aspects as well.