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Department of Computer Science and Technology

Earth Day Lecture

To mark Earth Day on Wednesday 22 April, our colleague Emily Shuckburgh gave the first virtual Turing Lecture on sustainability and the climate crisis.

Emily is Reader in Environmental Data Science here and Director of Cambridge Zero at the University of Cambridge.

She is a mathematician and climate scientist and a Fellow of Darwin College, a Fellow of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, an Associate Fellow of the Centre for Science and Policy and a Fellow of the British Antarctic Survey.

In her Turing Lecture at 13:00 on 22 April, she presented scientific research around climate change conducted by Cambridge Zero, the University's zero-carbon future initiative, explore possible solutions being researched now to secure the future of our planet, and discussed the impact of COVID-19 on climate change.

"The last five years have seen the hottest temperatures ever on record and carbon dioxide has reached a level never before inhabited by humans," said the Turing Institute in its introduction to the event. "The conditions within which we are living today are unprecedented, and the effects are manifesting in extreme weather such as flooding and rising temperatures.

"Despite warnings from scientists and campaigners, world leaders have been slow to act, and we are now facing the biggest threat to our existence in the history of humanity. In this talk, climate scientist Emily Shuckburgh presents the facts and figures, based on world-class research conducted at Cambridge Zero."

This was an online event and took place via Zoom. You can watch it below.


Published by Rachel Gardner on Friday 17th April 2020