̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Shaun Fitzgerald

Thinking the Unthinkable at COP29

plc32 — Thu, 21 Nov 2024 17:01:07 +0000

Engineer Dr Shaun Fitzgerald reports from COP29 on his discussions about climate repair as a looming necessity.

Farm to factories

plc32 — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 16:51:02 +0000

Cambridge Zero collaborates with Cambridge Global Food Security Interdisciplinary Research Centre (IRC) and the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Decarbonisation Network for two research events in March 2024 that look at industry decarbonisation and food security.

Cambridge heads to COP28

plc32 — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 17:43:08 +0000

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge heads to COP28 in Dubai, UAE, with a film premiere and a host of higher education and research events.

Social media posts around solar geoengineering ‘spill over’ into conspiracy theories

sc604 — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 16:00:00 +0000

̽��ֱ��researchers analysed tweets 2009 and 2021 tagged with #geoengineering. They used a combination of natural language processing, deep learning and network analysis to explore how public emotions, perceptions and attitudes have changed over a 13-year period.

̽��ֱ��researchers found that there is a large amount of ‘spillover’ between geoengineering and conspiracy theories, especially around ‘chemtrails’, a conspiracy theory dating back to the 1990s. ̽��ֱ��researchers suggest that negative emotions related to geoengineering have a contagion effect, transcending regional boundaries and engaging with wider conspiracies. Their results are reported in the journal iScience.

As the climate crisis worsens, the search for solutions has accelerated. Some potential, albeit untested and controversial, solutions involve geoengineering, where various technologies could be used to alter weather or climate. Solar radiation management (SRM) is one hypothetical geoengineering solution where temperature rise might be addressed by reflecting some sunlight back into space. Possible forms this technology could take include cirrus cloud thinning or spraying aerosols into the stratosphere. But there are few, if any, opportunities for researchers to test these potential solutions.

“ ̽��ֱ��amount of funding that’s been made available for geoengineering research, and especially outdoor experiments, is tiny,” said first author Dr Ramit Debnath, Cambridge Zero Fellow at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. “When you ask funders why this is, the reason often given is that the research is too controversial.”

“There are significant and well-founded concerns around geoengineering, but fundamentally we’re interested in furthering knowledge in this area,” said senior author Dr Shaun Fitzgerald, Director of the Centre for Climate Repair in Cambridge’s Department of Engineering. “In order to do that, we need to have more informed discussions. We don’t want to dismiss any concerns expressed on social media, but we do want to put them into context.”

“ ̽��ֱ��views expressed on social media don’t necessarily translate directly into wider public views, but there is still a lot we can learn by studying conversations that are happening,” said Debnath. “We wanted to know whether people who were tweeting about geoengineering were in fact, a vocal minority, and if so, what else are these people talking about?”

̽��ֱ��researchers analysed a large dataset of more than 800,000 English-language tweets sent in the 13-year period between 2009 and 2021. ̽��ֱ��researchers used natural language processing techniques to analyse the emotions expressed in the tweets and assigned each tweet a ‘toxicity score’. ̽��ֱ��researchers then conducted a network analysis to determine how tweets about geoengineering interact with other hashtag networks and conspiracy theories.

“ ̽��ֱ��chemtrail conspiracy theory is particularly popular among conspiracy theorists based in the United States, and our analysis found that tweets about chemtrails are the common link between geoengineering and conspiracies,” said Debnath. “Most of these tweets are sent by American users, but they spill over across regional and national boundaries.”

̽��ֱ��‘chemtrail’ conspiracy theory dates back to the 1990s. Believers in this patently false conspiracy allege that condensational trails (contrails) from aircraft are intentionally seeded with various chemical or biological compounds for nefarious purposes including population control or military testing. Those who believe the chemtrails conspiracy theory also allege that aircraft could be used for intentional weather and climate modification.

̽��ֱ��researchers say that the common link between the chemtrails conspiracy and conspiracy theories around geoengineering is the idea that bad actors are ‘weaponising’ the weather with chemicals.

Their analysis also showed that positive emotions rose on global and country scales following events related to SRM governance, and negative emotions increased following the announcement of SRM projects or experiments.

̽��ֱ��researchers say their work could help inform future discussions around SRM and other forms of geoengineering by putting social media discussions in context. “It’s a small echo chamber, but it’s quite a noisy one,” said Debnath.

While the controversy around geoengineering will continue on social media, the team says what they really need is quality data and research. “There are risks associated with geoengineering, but how do these compare with the risks of letting climate change continue unabated?” said Fitzgerald. “I worry that knowledge hasn’t progressed in this area. What happens if some rogue entity decides to go for a huge deployment of SRM, and people end up suffering because of it? This is why it’s so important to have informed discussions backed up by quality research.”

̽��ֱ��researchers say their study provides a data-driven glimpse into the structure of online climate misinformation that has a strong contagion effect, leading to strengthening of conspiracy theories in the public domain. Understanding such links with respect to climate action is critical for the design of counteraction strategies.

̽��ֱ��research was supported in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Cambridge Centre for Climate Repair, Cambridge Zero and Quadrature Climate Foundation, and the Google Cloud Climate Innovation Challenge Award. This study is part of an ongoing project co-led by Dr Ramit Debnath with Cambridge Zero on improving public understanding of climate change.

Ramit Debnath will be speaking about climate change misinformation at the Cambridge Festival on 30th March.

Reference:
Ramit Debnath et al. ‘Conspiracy spillovers and geoengineering.’ iScience (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.106166

Researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge have analysed more than 800,000 tweets and found that negative emotions expressed about geoengineering – the idea that the climate can be altered using technology – can easily fall into conspiracy.

Milamai via Getty Images

Person using a smartphone

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Refreeze the Arctic Foundation funds marine cloud brightening research

plc32 — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 00:30:00 +0000

̽��ֱ��Cambridge Centre will work in close cooperation with RAF and Delft ̽��ֱ�� of Technology Climate Institute (TUDCI) in the Netherlands on research to create methods for marine cloud brightening, a process that generates white cloud cover to increase the reflection of sunlight over the Arctic during the summer months and slow the melting of Arctic sea ice.

“We all know that cutting emissions is a non-negotiable requirement if we are to have a long-term climate that can sustain life as we know it. ̽��ֱ��problem is that we are moving too slowly and we are at serious risk of losing the Arctic summer sea ice, glaciers and other ecosystems which support cooler temperatures on Earth. Marine Cloud Brightening could potentially provide a means of safeguarding our climate whilst we get our greenhouse gas levels down,” said Dr Shaun Fitzgerald, Director of Research at the Centre for Climate Repair at Cambridge.

Cambridge engineers are hoping to mimic the way nature makes clouds. Storms at sea with crashing waves generate droplets of water which dry out to form salt crystals. Air currents carry the tiniest of these crystals high up to where the air is cool and moist, providing the nuclei around which white clouds can form.

“Maybe we can help nature to make whiter clouds by creating our own spray of sea water. If we can fine-tune the droplet size then we can make the clouds brighter and longer lasting," said Professor Hugh Hunt (Engineering Dynamics and Vibration at Cambridge).

Simultaneously TUDCI will offer its cloud physics, modelling and remote sensing expertise to derive the optimum combination of droplet size and number concentration needed for achieving the desired brightening effect.

RAF is confident that the cooperation between CCRC and TUDCI, where each research centre contributes following its fields of expertise, will accelerate the delivery of a Proof of Concept for Marine Cloud Brightening.

“We are extremely happy we can make this donation. Today is the start of a multi-year highly synergistic collaboration between two top universities. We realise our challenge is enormous and hope to expand this initiative into a global network,” RAF said.

̽��ֱ��Refreeze the Arctic Foundation is able to do its work thanks to a donation in memory of Hanns Walter Salzer Levi: linguist, historian, global citizen and philanthropist. ̽��ֱ��Foundation aims to develop emergency measures to combat global warming. It specifically supports research to make clouds whiter to reflect sunlight.

Marine Cloud Brightening is just one piece of research dedicated to tackling climate change at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, which created its Cambridge Zero climate initiative in 2019 to focus the power of one of the world’s top five global research universities on finding solutions to humanity’s most pressing problem.

̽��ֱ��Centre for Climate Repair at Cambridge and Refreeze the Arctic Foundation (RAF) signed a multi-year agreement to fund research methods for brightening clouds to combat climate change.

Marine Cloud Brightening could potentially provide a means of safeguarding our climate whilst we get our greenhouse gas levels down

Dr Shaun Fitzgerald

Dr M. Antoinette Nestor

Team members from Centre for Climate Repair at Cambridge, RAF and TUDCI Photos show: Front row from left to right: Dr Isabelle Steinke (TUDCI), Dr Shaun Fitzgerald (CCRC), Sir David King (CCRC), Professo

Yes

Interactive tool helps you decide how to protect yourself and others from COVID-19

sc604 — Thu, 02 Dec 2021 00:08:47 +0000

A new interactive graphic developed by UK researchers and published by ̽��ֱ��BMJ will help people decide what to do in everyday situations to protect themselves, and others, from COVID-19.

Based on estimates provided by 26 international experts, it shows the different pathways that may be taken by the virus that causes COVID-19 when it transfers between two people.

It is designed to help illustrate the risks of catching COVID-19 in different scenarios - and what can be done to reduce those risks - based on the available evidence.

As well as the areas of scientific consensus, it also conveys the uncertainties and the disagreement that exists between experts about how the virus behaves, how it is transmitted, and how we can best reduce the likelihood of transmission through personal and social measures.

̽��ֱ��researchers say the tool should support decision-makers and the public to make informed decisions about how to reduce virus transmission in different contexts, such as how to make a workplace or a public area as safe as it can be while still being open and functional.

To create the tool, the researchers, led by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, consulted 26 experts from a range of disciplines and countries, asking them for every value needed to underpin the graphic.

These included the importance of different virus transmission routes (eg. small and large airborne droplets, contact with contaminated surfaces) during a range of activities (eg. talking, coughing, exercising, eating) in different environments (eg. outdoors or indoors in different sized rooms, with or without ventilation).

They also gathered estimates on the importance of different protective measures, such as face coverings and screens, physical distancing, hand hygiene, surface cleaning, in reducing transmission.

Analysis of all the values showed that airborne transmission routes were most important in almost all situations, while face coverings, especially when worn by an infected person as a form of source control, were the most important mitigation measure.

But importantly, all routes were considered to play a part in transmission, and simple measures such as physical distancing, hand washing, and respiratory hygiene all made a useful contribution.

̽��ֱ��researchers found important evidence gaps and differences in opinion among experts around several variables, including the role of aerosol transmission; the effects of different kinds of masks on inhaled aerosols; and the effects of face coverings on transfer from hand to eyes, nose, and mouth.

“Everyone has been keen to know how much difference each possible action we’ve been told about makes, and finally we have been able to gather together enough knowledge from experts from around the world and in a range of fields to answer those questions,” said co-lead author Dr Alexandra Freeman from Cambridge’s Winton Centre for Risk & Evidence Communication.

She added: “ ̽��ֱ��tool is interactive, so that you can explore the scenarios that are most relevant to you, whether it’s because you sing in a choir, or want to know about the risks of eating in a small restaurant. How much difference would it make if you opened the windows, or cleaned the surfaces? Have a look and find out.”

“It is all too easy to focus on just a single route of spread for COVID and forget about all the others,” said co-author Harry Rutter from the ̽��ֱ�� of Bath. “One of the ways a tool like this can help is by making it clear that all the transmission routes matter, in different proportions in different contexts. ̽��ֱ��fact that one of those routes - airborne transmission - is the main one in most situations doesn’t mean that we can ignore the others.”

̽��ֱ��authors acknowledge some study limitations and say generating robust evidence on the complex and highly contingent routes of COVID-19 virus transmission is not straightforward. But they say they hope their approach will prove helpful to those faced with the challenge of communicating complex, imprecise, and uncertain evidence in the future.

̽��ֱ��research was supported by the PROTECT COVID-19 National Core Study on transmission and environment (managed by the Health and Safety Executive on behalf of HM Government), and the David and Claudia Harding Foundation. Cambridge co-authors on the paper also included Dr Shaun Fitzgerald from the Department of Engineering and Professor David Spiegelhalter from the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication.

Reference:
Alexandra LJ Freeman et al. ‘Expert elicitation on the relative importance of possible SARS-CoV-2 transmission routes and the effectiveness of mitigations.’ BMJ Open (2021). DOI: 10.1136/ bmjopen-2021-050869

Harry Rutter et al. ‘Visualising SARS-CoV-2 transmission routes and mitigations.’ BMJ (2021). DOI: 10.1136/bmj-2021-065312

Adapted from a BMJ press release.

Is it risky to sing in a choir? What are the risks of eating in a small restaurant? How much difference does it make to open windows or clean surfaces? New interactive tool helps people make decisions on COVID-19.

Everyone has been keen to know how much difference each possible action we’ve been told about makes, and finally we have been able to gather together enough knowledge from experts from around the world and in a range of fields to answer those questions

Alexandra Freeman

Will Stahl-Timmins, ̽��ֱ��BMJ

COVID-19 risk calculator

Yes

Rapid transition to a net zero world

cg605 — Thu, 28 Oct 2021 11:32:49 +0000

̽��ֱ��opportunity to make real and lasting change has never been greater. But we all need to act, and act now.