Falklands : Science and Innovation Minister on His Way to Antarctica
Submitted by Falkland Islands News Network (Juanita Brock) 20.02.2007 (Article Archived on 06.03.2007)
Mr. Malcolm Wicks, MP, Minister of State for Science and Innovation is on his way to Rothera Station with BAS Director Dr. Chris Rapley and Shell Trading head, Lord Oxborough.
Photo (c) J. Brock (FINN) Dr. Chris Rapley, left and Mr. Malcolm Wicks MP, are on their way to Antarctica on Tuesday's Dash-7 Flight.
SCIENCE & INNOVATION MINISTER ON HIS WAY TO ANTARCTICA
Dr. Chris Rapley, left, and Mr. Malcolm Wicks, left, are on their way to Antarctica on Tuesday's Dash-7 flight.
By J. Brock (FINN)
Mr. Malcolm Wicks MP, Minister of State for Science and Innovation at the Department of Trade and Industry is on his way to the Antarctic base at Rothera. Just three months in the job, Mr. Wicks comes well prepared for a trip to the region in that he was previously Minister for Energy.
“I think we are at a stage where science is more and more central to the British economy,” he said. “Clearly if you think we are not going to be able to compete by producing cheap manufactured goods when we have competition from China or India – South Korea – those days have gone,” he continued.
He stressed that Britain had an economy where there was competition by being bright, knowledgeable, using science, and by innovating so that there could be added value to the goods and service that Britain produces.
“This is what some people would call a knowledge economy,” he added “and to my mind a knowledge economy is scientifically based and more about people skilled in science, where we are good at sciences and where when doing the next thing we are applying the science and innovating and producing nuances to old problems.”
Mr. Wicks thinks another way of looking at his job as Science Minister is that a lot of big issues that Britain, Europe and the world face are actually scientific issues. He pointed to Global warming and climate change as two examples. It’s a scientific question that Mr. Wicks feels the public should be aware of to some extent.
“I think they are the big issue facing humankind,” the Minister said. “We need to understand why it’s important.”
“Science has now moved centre stage,” he added.
FINN: How is the trip going to dove-tail into your remit?
MW: In two ways. The most important is that I think the work that British scientists, indeed other scientists are doing in Antarctica to help us understand more about how the world has evolved over tens of thousands of years – millions of years – the work they are doing on ice cores and the way we can understand better what’s happened to the planet because of that work in Antarctica. For example, the guys that discovered the hole in the Ozone over Antarctica has lead to a world wide concern and determination to tackle that problem. I want to learn more about that and more about their current work on climate change. There are big scientific issues, which I need to understand better by going to Antarctica.
Second, I think it is just a way of reminding Britain that we happen to be very good at science. There are a range of indicators like Nobel Prize winners and cited scientific literature. We are second only to the United States on a whole range of sciences By coming to Antarctica it is a good way of reminding Britain that this is something that we are very, very good at.
FINN: Is this a one-off trip or do you plan a series of trips through the latitudes from the Arctic through the tropics to discover about the affects of climate change?
MW: I am not sure yet. I hope it won’t be the final trip. Obviously the important guys and girls here are the scientists themselves. They are working here consistently and I want to keep in touch with them. I hope there will be other opportunities for other visits to further my own knowledge.
FINN: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has blamed human activity for climate change. However there is a war cry about these changes being cyclical. What are your views about this and how do the findings affect us economically? Is it timing of human intervention in the cyclical scheme of things?
MW: Clearly the planet is subject to cyclical change – changes that occur over tens of thousands or even millions of years. There is no doubt about that. But I am convinced myself and more importantly the world’s leading scientists are convinced that what we are seeing at the moment in terms of climate change and global warming is not just cyclical. When you look at the graph paper you can see the cyclical changes and suddenly in this epoch the CO2 rates have spiked and that has to be from human activity. It’s about industrialisation, it’s about modern transport systems and about the fact we are now using fossil fuels, which took tens of thousands of years to create we are using them very rapidly and it’s contributing to global warming. I think very few people are in denial about this. If we don’t tackle it some of the strange weather patterns we are seeing in parts of the world will continue and some communities will be flooded below sea level. Bangladesh is a good example of that. So, we have to take action.
The more optimistic point is the action we can take is well known. We are neither hopeless nor helpless about this. Now there is a range of technologies that can help us with this problem. What we need is a political will. I am pleased to hear that in the Falkland Islands you are investing in wind turbines. Why not? You have a huge wind resource here. In other communities it might be solar power or marine – tidal power can be of enormous value. I think we are close to finding solutions to this. What we need now is the political will to be mobilised. It’s not just a matter for presidents and prime ministers or governments or the United Nations. It is you and I as individuals. We need to change our life patterns a bit like asking questions about the cars we drive and whether our homes are properly insulated.
Along with Mr. Wicks, Lord Oxborough of Shell Trading and Dr. Chris Rapley, head of British Antarctic Survey, will be travelling to Rothera Station. Lord Oxborough was not present so I had a brief chat with Dr. Rapley about why he was travelling to Rothera this time.
Dr. Rapley explained that his party would be at Rothera for three days before going back to the UK through Punta Arenas in Chile. He comes to the Antarctic each year so that senior and influential visitors can see Antarctic science at the raw end.
“You don’t know what Antarctic science is like unless you go and see it for yourself,” he said.
FINN: Earlier this year you accompanied HRH the Princess Royal to Rothera. Who else have you accompanied to Antarctica?
CR: We brought down Sir John Lawton, who was the head of Natural Environment Research Council a few years ago – he’s a very accomplished and experienced field biologist and field ecologist who has worked in some pretty tricky and demanding areas of the planet. When he saw the work in the Antarctic he said he had not understood the quantum effort invested in order to get quantum science out – how much greater it is than anywhere else in the world.
FINN: In terms of quality of the science, how has it actually affected the economic and environmental decisions that HMG are making at this present time?
CR: You have heard about the intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and they have published a summary to policy makers that is the latest assessment of the planet. They are now saying that the evidence for man-made climate change is unequivocal. And, the evidence they cite for this is not only the temperature warming of the surface of the land and the temperature warming of the upper layers of the ocean that we have seen over the last 30 or 40 years, but they are also are citing the loss world wide of large amounts of snow and ice, whether it is floating sea ice, snow, glaciers on mountains or, in certain parts of the Antarctic, the loss of ice shelves and ice around the Antarctic Peninsula in particular. They are saying that it is this mass of evidence that demonstrates that the fingerprint of humans is very, very clear.
And so, the debate has shifted into the field of economics and policy and we even see sceptical administrations like the US administration beginning to shift their position and recognise that climate change and global warming are serious business and something needs to be done about it. BAS has very much contributed to that mass of evidence.
There are still some big uncertainties. We don’t know what the future will be of sea level rise because our models of ice sheet contribution to climate change are inadequate. That is why we are pressing on with high priority research into these still open questions.
FINN: You expect, then, that the research will be able to help produce better models for you to operate with?
CR: That is the aim. Of course the International Polar year, which kicks off this year, is an intensive burst of effort to try and understand the Polar-regions better than we currently do. Of course BAS will be very prominent in contributing to that.
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