Professor Herman Russchenberg: Innovation, Business Strategies, Addressing the Climate Emergency, and the Scientific Perspective!

Wicked Problems Podcast

About the episode:

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US called last year the hottest on record “by far”. During the year we saw many climate-related catastrophes – from large scale fires to unprecedented flooding. And yet, for some, the science of climate change is controversial. Many claim that even climate scientists don’t believe it can be attributed to anthropogenic actions. To understand what climate scientists really believe, we thought we’d speak with one.

Professor Russchenberg leads the Climate Institute at the Technical University of Delft and is the scientific director of the national Ruisdael Observatory, both in the Netherlands, an apt choice given that roughly one third of the Netherlands lies below sea level (the lowest being 6.7 metres below) and, so, rising sea levels are an issue.

In this episode, Professor Russchenberg and Toby Corballis discuss what businesses can do, the role of technology in mitigating some of the worst effects, why we’re seeing recent events, the warming of the oceans, and where we’re headed. Importantly, we ask what role business can play in helping to mitigate some of the worst effects of climate change.

Guest Name: Professor Herman Russchenberg

With decades of industry experience, Andrew Gordon-Brooks has built his career across Telco, Finance & Media with both global enterprises and early stage startups. Holding a variety of leadership & executive level positions; including building a global engineering team for a LinkedIn top 25 startup, Andrew is currently Chief Operations Officer for Secure Delivery, a firm spec, a founder member of the OWASP Education and Training Committee, and a key contributor to the OWASP Application Security Curriculum Project.

Guest Profile:

Professor Russchenberg is a full professor in Atmospheric Remote Sensing and head of the Department of Geoscience and Remote Sensing at the Technical University, Delft, in the Netherlands. Since 202, he is the TU Delft vice rector magnificus for climate action.

As well as leading the TU Delft Climate Institute, he is the Scientific Director of the national Ruisdael Observatory.

His research themes are:

• Climate change: the role of clouds, rainfall and aerosols in the climate system
• Measuring the atmosphere
• Climate engineering
• Nowcasting rainfall

Links:

Find out about the work that Professor Russchenberg is doing:

• https://www.tudelft.nl/en/ceg/about-faculty/departments/geoscience-remote-sensing
• https://ruisdael-observatory.nl/

Calculate your travel footprint using one of the following:

• https://www.goclimate.com/travel-calculator
• https://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx
• https://greentripper.org/

I hope you enjoy the show and if you have any comments or suggestions please write to me at: [e-mail].

Enjoy,

Toby Corballis