Last Wednesday along with six other PhD students, I met Sir John Beddington former chief scientific adviser to Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government. Sir John was a very pleasant and down to earth academic who showed genuine enthusiasm for the work which the different PhD students presented to him.

Despite a diverse group of subjects, ranging from human rights law to carbon consumption taxes, Sir John seemed to grasp the main points of the research and made helpful contributions.

My own PhD is focussed on the demand for low carbon food products with regards to how a carbon consumption tax may help to achieve this. Sir John offered the useful advice of incorporating into my thesis how alcohol taxes are essentially too low based on the evidence of the associated problems high consumption of alcohol can cause. Sir John emphasised that quality academic research is what should influence government policy and not evidence based on hearsay. I was pleased that Sir John’s reaction to the taxes was not negative (as might be expected from certain former pop stars) but instead he asked very reasonable questions which one would expect from such an accomplished academic.

His evening lecture: “Legacies of the 20th Century and Challenges for the 21st” highlighted the challenges for the 21st century of climate change, increased global population and increased demand for natural resources.  The element of hope that the world can potentially adapt to these challenges through the use of science and technology differentiated this lecture from the dogma which is often peddled in the media. His quote borrowed from Nobel Prize winner Peter Agre succinctly summed up the lecture: “Those nations which invest in science are investing in the future. Those that cut science are hoping for the best”.

Neil Chalmers

Abstract

This economics based PhD is investigating the demand for low carbon food products, due to food based carbon dioxide equivalent emissions (CO2e) being a major contributor to Scotland’s overall total greenhouse gas emissions. The hypothetical policy of a carbon consumption tax and the likely effects of the tax on the demand for food products are modelled. The method is mainly based on using an almost ideal demand system (AIDS) model in order to calculate price elasticities. The AIDS model uses both scanner price data (years 2006-2011) and carbon footprint data. Each food group is then studied and the preliminary results suggest that if a tax is applied to only meat products (the largest emitter of CO2e emissions within the Scottish food chain) then Scottish household carbon footprints are likely to reduce by 296,376.98 t/ CO2e/y. This translates into 12.6% of meat emissions being reduced from the Scottish meat chain.

Biography

Neil Chalmers has recently entered third year of his PhD titled “Demand for low carbon food products” at the University of Edinburgh. He was educated at the University of Stirling where he received a BA (Hons) in Economics. He then moved to Denmark and received an MSc in Agricultural Economics from the University of Copenhagen. While at the University of Copenhagen, he developed an interest in modelling the likely effects of agricultural and environmental policy. This led him to complete an internship with the Scottish Agricultural College focussing on modelling policy implications for Scotland. His main interests are the economics of consumer behaviour and policy.

PhD Supervisors

Dr. Revoredo-Giha (SAC)
Dr. Simon Shackley

Dr. Dave Reay

provide solutions for those seeking to reduce their own carbon footprint. He explores the reality of making personal sacrafices to live a low-carbon lifestyle and illustrates the ways in which we as a society could re-imagine the approaches we take to our professional endeavors. Could digital technologies provide us with the tools to make our visions of sustainability a reality?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I’m currently on the return leg of a trip to give a climate change talk at a big science conference – the European Geophysical Union (EGU) – in Vienna. Almost a decade ago I made the decision that, wherever possible, these trips would be made in a low carbon way. I haven’t been on a plane since.

However, after these past 5 days of travel by clackety rails and lumpy seas it’s now clear that a much speedier AND lower carbon option would have been to attend and present at the conference online. The over-lit expanses of the conference centre were teeming with the usual multitude of academics and students dodging poster tubes but, alongside this traditional format, was a system (called PICO) that allowed virtual participation via the internet. Though some of the ‘researcher bonhomie’ is inevitably missed as a virtual participant, it’s a route that opens attendance up to so many more people and has the potential for big carbon savings.

As academics, attending international conferences is a standard part of the job with most of us having cut our presentation-teeth as jittery doctoral students at annual meetings like the EGU. The skills and networks that grow from this practice are certainly important yet, with advances in technology and the huge challenge of climate change, it seems high time that virtual meetings and presentations came more to the fore.

In other facets of academia the benefits of virtual meeting and learning technology are being more successfully reaped. Participation in online learning is growing apace across the world and higher education is a lead player in this. At the University of Edinburgh our inaugural set of free-access online courses (called ‘Massive Open Online Courses’ or ‘MOOC’s) attracted 300,000 registrations. Together with a growing portfolio of online honours and Masters courses the ‘virtual’ student body at Edinburgh is now fast outgrowing its face-to-face counterpart.

This revolution in the way we teach and learn could do wonderful things. It could link us with great students anywhere in the world whose circumstances would, in the past, never have allowed them to study with us. Students with families to look after, jobs to hold down, and insurmountable visa restrictions could now more easily become part of the global community that is the University of Edinburgh. The environmental benefits may also be far-reaching, with distance-learning students avoiding some or all of the carbon-intensive travel between Edinburgh and home.

Based on the success of our existing distance education courses (such as our Carbon Management Masters), and internationalisation initiatives such as the Global Academies, Edinburgh is well set to ride the online learning wave. This is an opportunity to realise the kind of ‘sustainable growth’ that most businesses and governments can only dream of – growth that is both economically and environmentally sustainable.

The only certainty when predicting the future is that it will be different to what you expect, and in the field of climate change this is something we know only too well. Nevertheless, a future in which online learning becomes a core part of higher education provision seems a good bet. As for academics, and our embracing more actively the technological substitutes for conference globe-trotting, the revolution may have a rather more sedate pace. For myself at least, the first question I’ll ask next time a conference invite comes in will be: “Do you do ‘Virtual’?”.

Dave Reay is a Reader in Carbon Management in the School of Geosciences. He is director of the MSc in Carbon Management and also runs the online MSc course ‘Climate Change Impacts & Adaptation’ .

For those who want to travel in Europe without flying one of the best resources available is ‘The Man in Seat 61’