Explore Challenges
- Natural disasters: how can we improve? [25 May 2010]
- Not In My Back Yard
- Digital Divide in the UK?
- Importing goods, exporting drought?
- The challenges and opportunities of an ageing society
- Engineering our climate
- The future shape of Capitalism
- Migration: skills and the job market
- Razing the Rainforest
- London under water
- Concreting the countryside
- Future of low carbon energy
- Africa in the 21st Century
Similar articles
- Meet our panel of speakers »
- Who are most vulnearable to natural hazards? »
- Interview with Shaun Spiers, CEO of CPRE »
- Interview with Wayne Hemingway MBE »
- Interview with Lord David Puttnam »
Meet the panel for ‘Engineering our climate’
02 April, 2009 
Geo-engineering is not a solution to climate change, but can it be an effective means to delay its impact? Join an international expert panel discussing whether we should be researching geo-engineering seriously as Plan B?
Join the 21st Century Challenges Newsletter » click here
Environmental scientist Prof David Keith works at the intersection of climate science, way-new energy, and public power. His research has taken him into some far-out realms of geoengineering -- dramatic, cheap, sometimes shocking solutions to a warming atmosphere, such as blowing a Mt. Pinatubo-size cloud of sulfur into the sky to bring the global temperature down.
His other areas of study include the capture and storage of CO2 , the economics and climatic impacts of large-scale wind power , and the use of hydrogen as a transportation fuel. Another interest: How we make decisions when we don't have reliable scholarly data.
He teaches at the University of Calgary, and was named Environmental Scientist of the Year by Canadian Geographic in 2006.
David has served on numerous high-profile advisory panels such as the UK Royal Society's geoengineering study, the IPCC, and Canadian 'blue ribbon' panels and boards. David has addressed technical audiences with articles in Science and Nature, he has consulted for national governments, global industry leaders and international environmental groups, and has reached the public through venues such as the BBC, NPR, CNN and the editorial page of the New York Times.
David Keith website 
David Keith: A surprising idea for "solving" climate change - TED conference
Royal Society's Geoengineering working group
Dr Paul Johnston is principal scientist at the Greenpeace Research Laboratories and Head of the Science Unit for Greenpeace International. Paul set up the Greenpeace Research Laboratories at London's Queen Mary College in 1987. He has continued as the principal scientist since the group relocated to the University of Exeter in 1992.
He obtained a PhD on selenium toxicity in aquatic invertebrates, from the University of London, in 1984. Paul now has almost 20 years experience in providing scientific advice and expertise to Greenpeace International and national/regional offices around the world.
Tom Clarke is the Science Correspondent for Channel 4 News
He has covered energy and the environment in the frozen North as part of the first live news bulletin from inside the arctic circle. He met some of the world's most endangered whales threatened by oil exploration in Russia's far East, and followed the growing pains of the UK's landmark Climate Change Bill.
In 2007 Tom reported and presented a Channel 4 Dispatches investigation into the shadowy world of carbon offsetting.
Tom started out as a scientist, studying insects in the cotton fields of the American deep south. After leaving the lab, Tom trained in journalism in New York. He worked as a science producer for American National Public Radio and a science reporter for ABC television's affiliate network.
Tom returned to his native England in 2000 and worked as a reporter for the science magazine Nature, before joining Channel 4 News in 2003.