From the collection of
London’s Screen Archives is a network of over 50 organisations with a collective vision – to preserve and share London’s history on film. The network is managed by Film London and we work with our partners to digitise, preserve, and offer access to their moving image collections.
The IEE Faraday Lecture explores the prospects for techical solutions to climate change.
This Faraday lecture sets the audience on an 'Emission Impossible' and poses the question "can technology save the planet?" - from pollution, increasing deforestation, melting polar ice caps and natural disasters including Hurricane Katrina, which struck just six months before this lecture took place. Glossy production values and dynamic live demonstrations, using participants from the audience, help show how energy is created and used and the problems different sources of energy such as fossil fuels create. Ice cubes, blue liquid and a blow torch are used to good effect to show how the greenhouse effect causes rising sea levels.
But it's not all doom and gloom: solutions are also presented, from smart metering to a completely redesigned energy efficient house. Controversially, perhaps, nuclear power is presented as a viable option, though the ideal solutions shown for a carbon neutral future are renewable power sources such as wind, wave and tide turbines, and solar panels. The lecture culminates with a tour round fictional rapper and film star I.B. Green's crib with a tongue-in-cheek look at what the house of the near future could be - with the help of the future scientists and engineers in the audience!
This video is from the IET Archives, a member of the London's Screen Archives Network.
Lecture series encouraging students to embrace the technologies of the future.
From 1924, the Institution of Electrical Engineers (now the Institution of Engineering and Technology) delivered an annual lecture in honour of Michael Faraday, pioneer of electromagnetism and electrochemistry, with the aim of encouraging young people to consider a career in electrical engineering.
With the advent of video, the lectures were shown in science lessons across the UK, and recorded since the 1970s in front of a largely student audience. Each lecture was delivered in partnership with an organisation working at the forefront of new and developing technologies. The videos are full of fun experiments, audience participation and increasingly futuristic computer graphics. The presenters talk with wide-eyed wonder about the potential of the internet, TV, and mobile telephones, inspiring young viewers to be part of this exciting new future.