Thinking in Green
This event occurred on the 28th of November 2018
Warwick Arts Centre, University of Warwick, CV4 7AL, UK
The United Nations tells us we have 12 years left until climate change becomes irreversible. Headlines like this flood in: of deniers and outspoken supporters, rays of hope and bleak forecasts, of commitments held and broken.
Climate change awareness is gaining traction as researchers and activists fight for recognition of the urgent need for concerted global action, but the progress made towards policy agreement is eclipsed by news of the UN accelerated time-limit and environmental promises abandoned by the US, Brazil, and others.
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TEDxWarwick, for our second event of the year, calls together different sectors and brings them under the lens of environment, to go further than just recognition of the immense problem facing us - to look for innovation, solutions, and hope - can technology help limit environmental damage? How can we re-use waste to economize production processes and reverse current trends? We invite our speakers, and audience, not only to believe the assertions about the urgency of major change, but to work our way towards practical, creative responses, and to think: of problems, of answers, and of the future - in green.
The speakers
Toby McCartney | Founder MacRebur Limited
Toby is the CEO and founder of MacRebur Limited, a company which uses plastic waste to fix and enhance the quality of roads.
His story began in Southern India with a charity helping people who work on landfill sites as ‘pickers’. He noticed how some of the waste plastics retrieved by the pickers were put into potholes, petrol poured all over them, and the rubbish set alight until the plastics melted into the craters to form a makeshift pothole filler. Toby thought that UK councils might ‘frown upon this’, but he did not let this stop him. Together with two friends, Nick and Gordon, he formed MacRebur® and came up with an innovative idea to take a mix of waste plastics, pelletise them and add them into the making of an enhanced asphalt road. After 18 months of testing and trials, they had ‘MR6’ - a patent-pending, green alternative to standard asphalt which actually increases the lifespan of a road.
Simon Caney | Professor of Political Theory
Simon is Professor of Political Theory at the University of Warwick and a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. Simon is the author of Justice Beyond Borders, and of numerous articles in politics and philosophy journals. Simon is currently completing a book entitled On Cosmopolitanism: Equality, Ecology and Resistance.
Additionally, Simon is interested in the ethical issues raised by climate change. In particular, the relationship between human rights and climate change and the nature of our responsibilities to prevent dangerous climate change, as well as intergenerational justice and legislation to protect future generations.
Dr Abdelaziz Matani | Biomedical Engineer
Dr Matani is a British biomedical engineer with an extensive working experience in higher education since 1994. He has worked in higher education institutions in different countries such as UAE, Jordan, and UK. He is currently working as a Biomedical Engineer and Assistant Professor in the College of Engineering at Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University in Saudi Arabia. As well as being an expert in biomedical engineering, medical design, education and training, with theoretical and practical expertise in magnetic resonance imaging, This year Dr Matani published his first invention’s patent in the USA and KSA and has other inventions filed, these of which are well in their way to being published, built and marketed internationally.
He will talk about his most recent invention, a ground breaking device designed to turn sea water into drinkable water almost immediately. This device is fully green, leaves no waste and uses no energy. It simply uses reverse osmosis and wave pressure to turn non drinkable water into drinkable water on the spot.