TEDBlog

« Bono buys a stake in Forbes | Main | Sirena Huang on TEDTalks »

07 August 2006

Martin Rees: An Apollo project for green energy

Sir Martin Rees is dismayed by the "worrisome lack of determination" shown last month in St Petersburg by the leaders of the G8 countries to accelerate the development of clean energy technologies. In an editorial published by the journal Science this week (only the abstract is available online), he calls for a significant increase in public R&D spending for technologies "that are too far from market" (nuclear fusion, biomass, geothermal, solar, wind etc), funded by carbon taxes or other similar instruments.

Unless the global approach to energy changes radically, he says, "the world will continue to become more reliant on fossil fuels beyond 2030" and that will lead to disastrous increases in greenhouse gas concentrations.

Sir Martin is famed for his pessimism (his most recent bestseller is titled "Our final century" - meaning the one we're living; he has predicted "a 50 percent chance of a really severe setback to civilization by the end of the century"; and last year at TEDGLOBAL in Oxford he warned against the risks of bio and cybertech) but he is also one of the world's most respected scientists and the president of Britain's Royal Society.

In the Science article (the Guardian has a write-up) Sir Martin calls for a high-profile, sharply-focused programme "analogous to the Manhattan or Apollo project, but on a global, rather than national, scale". These projects, he writes, have shown that when a goal is given a high priority "things can be done much more rapidly than would have happened in the normal course of events".

[Cross-posted on LunchOverIP]

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://blog.ted.com/cgi-bin/mte/mt-tb.cgi/2880

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Martin Rees: An Apollo project for green energy:

The Environmental Skeleton in our (Global) Closet from Built for the Mountain Life Tour
It's a wonder that more people aren't alarmed at, or at least trying to do something about, the impending energy crisis that faces our country, and the rest of the world. Slowly buy surely, organizations are beginning to gain credibility More...

Discuss Blog Post


    Tools for TED.com


    Subscribe to the TED Blog's RSS feed >>
    Download the free TED Miro player >>
    Download TED and Ideo's Big Questions widget >>
    Join TED on Facebook >>
    Follow TEDTalks on Twitter >>

    facebook225.gif
    twitterLG.gif

    Tips? Comments? Contact us.
    NEW: Found a glitch in a TED video? Report a bug >>


    Get the latest news on the TED Prize on TEDPrize.org >>

    ... and follow the TED Prize on Twitter >>

    by topic

    Archives



    What we blog about

    TED Bloggers

    Chris Anderson | Curator
    June Cohen | Director of TED Media
    Amy Novogratz | TED Prize Director
    Tom Rielly | Humorist
    Bruno Giussani | TED European Director
    Jason Wishnow | Director, Film + Video
    Emily McManus | Editor, TED.com
    Matthew Trost | Assistant Editor, TED.com

    Blogs we watch

    >> TEDPrize.org | Updates on the 2008 TED Prize winners and wishes:
    Dave Eggers' wish blog
    Karen Armstrong's wish blog
    Neil Turok's wish blog

    >> Thomas Dolby | TED Musical Director, blogging at ThomasDolby.com
    >> Bruno Giussani | TED European Director, blogging at LunchOverIP.com
    >> Emeka Okafor | TEDAfrica Director, blogging at Timbuktu Chronicles and Africa Unchained


    Get involved: TED Prize wishes

    Once Upon a School

    Meet the Greens

    Next Einstein

    InSTEDD

    Open Architecture Network

    Encyclopedia of Life

    Pangea Day