Sir David Frederick Attenborough is a British broadcaster, biologist, natural historian and author. He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Unit, the nine natural history documentary series forming the Life collection, a comprehensive survey of animal and plant life on Earth.
David Takayoshi Suzuki is a Canadian academic, science broadcaster, and environmental activist. Suzuki earned a PhD in zoology from the University of Chicago in 1961, and was a professor in the genetics department at the University of British Columbia from 1963 until his retirement in 2001. Since the mid-1970s, Suzuki has been known for his television and radio series, documentaries and books about nature and the environment. He is best known as host and narrator of the popular and long-running CBC Television science program The Nature of Things, seen in over 40 countries. He is also well known for criticizing governments for their lack of action to protect the environment.
Sellafield, formerly known as Windscale, is a large multi-function nuclear site close to Seascale on the coast of Cumbria, England. As of August 2022, primary activities are nuclear waste processing and storage and nuclear decommissioning. Former activities included nuclear power generation from 1956 to 2003, and nuclear fuel reprocessing from 1952 to 2022.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is a department of His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom responsible for environmental protection, food production and standards, agriculture, fisheries and rural communities in the entire United Kingdom. Concordats set out agreed frameworks for co operation, between it and the Scottish Government, Welsh Government and Northern Ireland Executive, which have devolved responsibilities for these matters in their respective nations.
George Joshua Richard Monbiot is a British writer known for his environmental and political activism. He writes a regular column for The Guardian and is the author of a number of books.
Alan Patrick Vincent Whitehead is a British politician who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Southampton Test since 1997. A member of the Labour Party, he has been Shadow Minister for Green New Deal and Energy, previously Energy and Climate Change, since 2015. He served as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions from 2001 to 2002.
A refrigerant is a working fluid used in the refrigeration cycle of air conditioning systems and heat pumps where in most cases they undergo a repeated phase transition from a liquid to a gas and back again. Refrigerants are heavily regulated due to their toxicity, flammability and the contribution of CFC and HCFC refrigerants to ozone depletion and that of HFC refrigerants to climate change.
Sir David Anthony King is a South African-born British chemist, academic, and head of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group.
Safety culture is the collection of the beliefs, perceptions and values that employees share in relation to risks within an organization, such as a workplace or community. Safety culture is a part of organizational culture, and has been described in a variety of ways; notably the National Academies of Science and the Association of Land Grant and Public Universities have published summaries on this topic in 2014 and 2016.
Pallab Kumar Ghosh is a science correspondent for BBC News.
Frozen Planet is a 2011 British nature documentary series, co-produced by the BBC and The Open University. It was filmed by the BBC Natural History Unit. The production team, which includes executive producer Alastair Fothergill and series producer Vanessa Berlowitz, were previously responsible for the award-winning series The Blue Planet (2001) and Planet Earth (2006), and Frozen Planet is billed as a sequel of sorts. David Attenborough returns as narrator. It is distributed under licence by the BBC in other countries, Discovery Channel for North America, ZDF for Germany, Antena 3 for Spain and Skai TV for Greece.
The nuclear power debate is a long-running controversy about the risks and benefits of using nuclear reactors to generate electricity for civilian purposes. The debate about nuclear power peaked during the 1970s and 1980s, as more and more reactors were built and came online, and "reached an intensity unprecedented in the history of technology controversies" in some countries.
The environmental impact of the energy industry is significant, as energy and natural resource consumption are closely related. Producing, transporting, or consuming energy all have an environmental impact. Energy has been harnessed by human beings for millennia. Initially it was with the use of fire for light, heat, cooking and for safety, and its use can be traced back at least 1.9 million years. In recent years there has been a trend towards the increased commercialization of various renewable energy sources. Scientific consensus on some of the main human activities that contribute to global warming are considered to be increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases, causing a warming effect, global changes to land surface, such as deforestation, for a warming effect, increasing concentrations of aerosols, mainly for a cooling effect.
Climate change is impacting the environment and human population of the United Kingdom (UK). The country's climate is becoming warmer, with drier summers and wetter winters. The frequency and intensity of storms, floods, droughts and heatwaves is increasing, and sea level rise is impacting coastal areas. The UK is also a contributor to climate change, having emitted more greenhouse gas per person than the world average. Climate change is having economic impacts on the UK and presents risks to human health and ecosystems.
In 2020, net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the United Kingdom (UK) were a little over 400 million tonnes (Mt) carbon dioxide equivalent, of which about 320 Mt was carbon dioxide. The government estimates that emissions increased by 6% in 2021 with the easing of COVID-19 restrictions, about half of the increase being due to the extra road transport. The UK has over time emitted about 3% of the world total human caused CO2, with a current rate under 1%, although the population is less than 1%.
Steve Rayner was James Martin Professor of Science and Civilization at Oxford University and Director of the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, a member of the Oxford Martin School. He described himself as an "undisciplined social scientist" having been trained in philosophy, comparative religion and political anthropology.
Frack Off is a grassroots direct action campaign aimed at stopping the extraction of unconventional resources in the UK, specifically concentrating on unconventional gas extraction.
Fracking in the United Kingdom started in the late 1970s with fracturing of the conventional oil and gas fields near the North Sea. It was used in about 200 British onshore oil and gas wells from the early 1980s. The technique attracted attention after licences use were awarded for onshore shale gas exploration in 2008. The topic received considerable public debate on environmental grounds, with a 2019 high court ruling ultimately banning the process. The two remaining high-volume fracturing wells were supposed to be plugged and decommissioned in 2022.
Shale gas in the United Kingdom has attracted increasing attention since 2007, when unconventional onshore shale gas production was proposed. The first shale gas well in England was drilled in 1875. As of 2013 a number of wells had been drilled, and favourable tax treatment had been offered to shale gas producers.
Michael Jacobs is an English economist. He is a professorial research fellow at the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Sheffield. He was previously a special adviser to former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Co-Editor of The Political Quarterly, in charge of the full-time staff of five at the Fabian Society, director of the Commission on Economic Justice at the Institute for Public Policy Research and a visiting professor in the Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy, University College London.
