CPOM Associate Investigator Dr Tamsin Edwards (King’s College London) featured on BBC4’s “Planet Earth – A User’s Guide” on 28th December 2020 as part of the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures 2020.
Watch the episode here until November 2021.
The episode was presented by Professor Chris Jackson (Imperial College London):
Professor Chris Jackson travels back into deep geological time, charting the Earth’s climate as it swings from hothouse to ice house and back again. With the help of spectacular volcanic eruptions and giant snowballs, he shows us how our planet’s oldest rocks and fossils provide evidence of radical climate changes throughout its history.
Chris reveals that what drives these changes is the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. For billions of years, volcanic activity increased CO2 levels, and mountain building reduced them. But in the last 100 years, a new kind of geological force is tipping the balance – human activity. For the first time, it is we who are changing the planet Earth’s climate, and at a rapid rate, with dangerous consequences unless we act quickly.