City: Uppsala
Country: Sweden
Starla is a researcher in the Department of Chemistry at Uppsala University in Uppsala Sweden.
She tells Speak Out:
“Most of the researchers in our department, including myself, have projects based on the chemical or biological principals of solar energy conversion to storable fuels. We believe that our research will eventually lead to or play a large role in establishing viable large scale carbon neutral energy resources that coming from sun rather than oil, coal, and nuclear fission. While this is really nice, I believe that researchers in my department are mostly oblivious to other important global issues, like factory farming, mono-cultive farming, overpopulation, poverty, consumption of disposable goods. Sweden has a very high quality of life and does a lot of importing of goods, so I think these issues are rather “out of sight – out of mind.” We have a library/coffee room in our department for chemistry researchers the book would reside for all to take in. I don’t know exactly what impact this book would have in my department. Minimally, I believe the impact of having a book like this around will force these researchers to think about their own human impact not related to energy needs alone. My hope is that the end people in my research department will then make personal changes that help minimize impact or possibly. An even higher hope is that this book will enable a more well rounded view of the extent of human impact on earth and its populations which can then be used in teaching, lecturing, and guiding research principles.”
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