Conversations About The Environment

This Ideas Roadshow Collection includes the following 5 Ideas Roadshow Conversations plus a detailed preface highlighting the connections between the different books. Each individual book is broken into chapters with a detailed introduction and questions for discussion at the end of each chapter:

I. Solar Impact: Climate and the Sun - A Conversation with Joanna Haigh, Professor Emerita of Atmospheric Physics, Imperial College London. This conversation details Haigh's research of the influence of the sun and solar variability on our climate, how energy emitted by the sun in the form of heat, light and ultraviolet radiation warms the earth and drives our climate, how data from satellites and modelling the processes helps us distinguish the warming effects of greenhouse gases from those of natural variations in solar energy, and more.

II. Saving the World at Business School (Part 1) - A Conversation with Andy Hoffman, Holcim Professor of Sustainable Enterprise, University of Michigan's Ross School of Business and School of Environment and Sustainability. Topics of this conversation include the notions of "environmental sustainability" and "big business" which sometimes seem as incompatible as oil and water.

III. Saving the World At Business School (Part 2) - A follow-up conversation with Andy Hoffman who is passionately committed to encouraging fellow academics to play a much stronger role in communicating knowledge, facts and information to the regular public and politicians.

IV. Coral Reefs: Science and Survival - A Conversation with Charles Sheppard, Professor of Life Sciences, University of Warwick. This conversation explores how Prof. Sheppard is trying to find a way through political shortsightedness, corporate greed and societal indifference to use his experience to make the planet a better place.

V. Ocean Enlightenment - A Conversation with Edie Widder, Founder ORCA. This conversation examines bioluminescence: a fascinating scientific phenomenon that provides us with a deeper understanding of fundamental biological processes and the development of new programs designed to equip a new generation with the tools they need to deal with the environmental devastation we're facing.