Week 4

The first lecturer first talked about the needs to curb climate change and then he went on to introduce us one particularly important technology, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), which he's been spending his life researching on. CCS is related to geotechnical engineering and it is an area of study so complicated that no 30-minutes-lecture could ever clearly explain the objectives and mechanics behind the technology. However, the lecturer did give us a very interesting analogy and it sort of gave me the overall picture of how it works.

"Liquid carbon in a sausage stored in the sea", he explained.

We all know that excessive carbon emission is the big problem that leads to climate change or global warming. Therefore, the first lecturer gave an ingenious way to tackle the problem. However, this technology is not an ideal one because after a certain amount of years, the carbon stored in the sausage may diffuse into the ocean and cause the ocean too acidic an environment for many of the marine species. Well, at that point in time, I was feeling somewhat disappointed because after a long hearing of a plausible technology that could save the earth, it still will not save the earth! Then, the lecturer spent the rest of his lecture talking about what we could do as an individual to reduce carbon emission and how we can help conserve the environment.

Then, the next lecturer gave us a quick introduction to science and technology studies. He first talked about the history and the development of technology and it surprised me again (because I have heard this for the millionth time) how drastic technology has changed human’s life over a century. However, whenever a new technology appears on the surface, most people will intrinsically dislike the idea and think the new technology will never for a day work. This is exactly what happened back in the sixties when people talked about visiting the moon. Hence, the lecturer analyzed to us the reasons behind the resistance to adoption and acceptance of new technology. The two case studies that he brought up were namely “The Renewable Energy” and “The Electric Vehicles”. (Well, frankly speaking, I was not too impressed by his talk because I do believe in the power of technology and I do know the existence of people who loathe new technology. My mother will be a classic example as she still doesn’t know how to operate a DVD player thou it is not so much of a “new” IT product.”

(I left the lecture theatre after the second lecturer finished his talk as I had to rush for a production rehearsal so I missed the third lecturer’s talk.)