SCIENCE WEEK IRELAND:WE FACE a bleak future if we don't learn to live in a sustainable way and avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, a leading scientist has warned.
"There is so much an attitude out there of taking the planet for granted," Prof Aubrey Manning said yesterday evening at Trinity College Dublin's Science Gallery during a lecture entitled Learning to Live with our Planet.
"It is really about how we are to go on living on the planet in a sustainable way."
Prof Manning OBE, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and an authority on sustainability, spoke as part of the Science Gallery's contribution to Science Week Ireland.
Scientific research has helped us toward a new understanding of how the planet works, and how it has changed life on earth, he said. "Life began on the planet extraordinarily early, when the surface was molten and the oceans intermittently boiled."
The changing planet played a direct role in evolution, he said. Marsupials flourished on the landmass that became Australia when it broke away and "wandered off eastward", this at a time before the placenta-forming animals evolved elsewhere.
Animals evolved separately on the isolated land masses of North and South America until the Isthmus of Panama finally connected the two about three million years ago, he said.
This brought many extinctions as the northern animals migrated southwards to displace those that couldn't compete against stronger newcomers.
Scientific research had also warned us of past cataclysms, volcanic eruptions with the power to change world climate, but these were frequently ignored, Prof Manning said.
Mexico City's 19.2 million people live within 100 miles of the Popocatépeti and Ixy volcanoes. "When Popo blows its top it is going to dump ash over a very large area of Mexico." And the 10.2 million living in Istanbul face the earthquake danger from the North Anatolian fault.
These threats posed by the earth itself are matched by human-made threats including population growth at 200,000 births a day, depletion of water sources and carbon discharge.
"The only way through is by understanding the planet. We just can't take it for granted," Prof Manning said.
Science Week Ireland is organised by the Government's Discover Science and Engineering programme, and runs until November 16th.
Full listings of the 450 events taking place during the week can be found at www.scienceweek.ie
What's on: today
How Science is Making Computer Gaming Better, County Library, Tallaght, 1pm, lecture, general public, free, more information from 01 462 0073.
It Takes Guts, Waterford Institute of Technology, 12.30pm, show, junior cycle secondary school, free but pre-book, contact Eleanor Reade on 051-302037.
Particle physics and the LHC: The Search for the Essence of Matter, Hume Building, NUI Maynooth, 7.30pm, lecture by Dr Peter van der Burgt, general public, free.
