• Question: If you got the 500 pounds would your experiment/thing polute the enviroment or help the enviroment

    Asked by anon-267493 on 5 Nov 2020.
    • Photo: Sam Geen

      Sam Geen answered on 5 Nov 2020:

      The environment is very important, of course – my lab in the Netherlands is 5 metres below sea level, so people here are very aware that it’s important that the sea level doesn’t rise too much. I would give £500 to help local people become interested in science, and we need more scientists to help the technical problems with the environment and climate. But climate change isn’t really a technical problem – trains with electric power cables are 100 years old, we know how to do that already. We need to come together to make sure people stop using cars (even electric cars cost some pollution to make and to extract the resources, and you need clean energy), that big companies stop polluting, that governments stop oil and gas extraction and use clean energy instead. With the internet I stay connected to UK politics, I go on marches against climate change and campaigned for green policies at the last election. It’s important that everyone gives what time and energy they can to make sure governments fix this. Recycling and reusing is good and you should do it, but the problem is worldwide, and we’re all in this fight to make the world a better place.

    • Photo: Bradley Young

      Bradley Young answered on 5 Nov 2020:

      I would design my workshop so that is is as sustainable as possible, however it would use electricity. I think this is worthwhile though because by educating and engaging people with renewable energy sources there will be a big long term benefit.

    • Photo: Adrien Chauvet

      Adrien Chauvet answered on 5 Nov 2020:

      Hehe, good one!

      To be true, although all my research aims at being “greener” or more sustainable, it pollutes!

      I use high power lasers which consume more electricity than you will ever consume in your house… during your whole life. And chemicals whose toxicity is sometimes scary. But it allows me to better understand how nature works; like photosynthesis, or it allows me to develop more efficient solar panels…
      Hence, you can see it as a trade off: you have to invest before getting a return on investment.

      With this being said, yes, we try to minimize our impact as much as possible, by using only what we need for example; not letting the lasers run overnight if no-one is using it; discarding chemicals in appropriate storages to be later recycled.

      And if you look in the grand scheme of things… like Sam said, it is not research that is causing the major issues we see around the world (at least not directly), but more our life-styles…
      The ultimate goal is to change our consumer mentalities, and yes, this also implies that we have to change the way we do research, and these £500 will help in achieving that goal.

    • Photo: Daisy Shearer

      Daisy Shearer answered on 5 Nov 2020:

      This is a great question! The environment is so important. I would like to use the prize to make videos showing you around different physicist’s labs and workplaces and interviewing them, so I guess that would inherently contribute to my carbon footprint as I would need to travel. I would do my very best to use public transport where possible to minimize my impact. I try and walk and cycle as much as I can but if I wanted to go and see a lab somewhere far away that wouldn’t be possible. I suppose I would justify this by hoping that my video project would help educate and inspire the next generation of scientists to work on important problems like climate change and green energy by interviewing scientists whose research helps make things like better renewable energy sources.

    • Photo: Louisa Young

      Louisa Young answered on 19 Nov 2020:

      I would donate the prize money to In2ScienceUK a charity that helps provide Science related work experience to students, which will hopefully inspire them and open up opportunities for them to continue on to pursue a career in STEM.

      I guess it depends on exactly what they end up doing afterwards, but any right-minded scientist has the environment in mind and believes in climate change, so should be doing their part to help the environment! 🙂

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