Professor Sir David King did not shy away from controversy during his seven year span as Chief Scientific Advisor to the government and nor did he last night, while delivering the annual Darwin Day lecture for the British Humanist Association. Now director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, Sir David said the invasion of Iraq was “the first resource war of the 21st century”.
Sir David advised the government for seven years from 2000, a time peppered with scientific challenges, opportunities and controversies. During that time he argued in favour of GM foods and their potential to feed the world, backed a highly unpopular badger cull in order to control bovine TB, and in 2004 he said that climate change was a greater threat to the world than terrorism. This last statement in particular echoed around the world media and given his position it was widely taken as a rebuke against the British government’s involvement in the “War on Terror”.
Now he has taken a position on Iraq, contrasting the results of military spending with what could have been achieved by investment in scientific research and technological development. “The US is dependent on oil and was well passed peak oil production when the war began. Looking at Iraq, many in the White House saw an opportunity to secure America’s oil supply by creating a friendly government which would be more amenable to providing oil to the US,” said Sir David. “Iraq has cost the US $3 trillion but if one tenth of that money had been invested in developing alternative low carbon energy sources, the US could have secured its energy supply without having to go to war.”
“Our challenges now are entirely different from those faced by Darwin and Dickens,” he said. “The problems of their times have largely been resolved in the developed world with life expectancy now 80 rather than 40 years. Instead, we face a new set of linked challenges including producing enough food, protecting biodiversity and supplying enough energy, water and minerals.”
He also turned his attention to very recent events, saying that climate change is responsible for exacerbating the desertification in Australia which can cause wild fires and enables them to spread. In Victoria one third of the state’s water will soon come from desalination plants, powered by coal and releasing further huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.
In Africa, Sir David believes that well-meaning westerners have persuaded governments from using science and technology, including GM methods, to increase food production.
The British Humanist Association has run the Darwin Day lectures annually since 2003 and this year co-hosted the event with the South Place Ethical Society at Conway Hall. Andrew Copson, BHA Director of Education, said, “Sir David’s approach has always been rationally to follow the evidence where it takes him, using a humanist moral compass to orientate himself. This is not abstract theorising. This is Humanism in action.
“Sir David’s thought and research are guided by a deep concern for human life and our crucial role in determining the future of the global biosphere. Charles Darwin taught us that all life is interconnected. Sir David is telling us that today our connection to the rest of planet is all too often fatally harmful – and we must change.”
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For comment or information, contact Andrew Copson, Director of Education, on 020 3675 0959.
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The British Humanist Association (BHA) is the national charity representing the interests of the large and growing population of ethically concerned non-religious people living in the UK. It exists to support and represent such people, who seek to live good lives without religious or superstitious beliefs.