Professor Aubrey Manning
Learning To live With Our Planet

Professor Aubrey Manning was the first of our Science Week lecturers this year. A distinguished zoologist and broadcaster, Manning’s lecture, entitled ‘Learning To Live With Our Planet’, looked at sustainability and the huge challenges we have to overcome in order to overcome problems like climate change. During his lecture, Manning made one of the most insightful comments of the week, pointing out that if we are going to shift public perceptions of science then we have to make it more important culturally. For example, one can say that they have no knowledge of physics and it is accepted, but to say that you don’t know who Shakespeare is and you would be looked upon as ignorant. Whilst discussing climate change, Professor Manning pointed out that science and society need to be motivated more by a culture of love and conservation rather than by the culture of economics and business that currently dominates. Other topics like overpopulation and rising demand for natural resources by developing countries were also discussed, with some radical solutions put forward. For more information please read the full report here.