Professor Dave Waltham is a geophysicist – he teaches and researches at London University’s Royal Holloway College and he lives in Marlborough and has started a new column for marlborough.news.
Marlborough.news welcomes him as new columnist who will be writing mainly about climate change.
Professor Waltham told marlborough.news: “I have worked either in, or with, the oil exploration industry for 35 years. Most of that time I have been at Royal Holloway, University of London, where I am currently the Professor of Geophysics. Until a year ago I was director of our MSc in Petroleum Geology by Distance Learning.”
“So, I’ve been heavily involved with oil exploration for my entire career. However, I also have a long-standing research interest in how Earth’s climate has changed over geological time.”
“This led to the publication of my book Lucky Planet in 2014 – a book which looked at the mystery of our ‘4 billion years of good weather’.”
“A clash between these areas of interest was inevitable. I haven’t exactly turned against the oil-industry. I believe that oil is a valuable resource – we just need to stop setting fire to it.”
He works with the Citizens’ Climate Lobby. And – as he explains in his first column – he took part in discussions leading to the debate on climate change at the February meeting of Wiltshire Council.
This lengthy debate ended with Councillors accepting a LibDem motion declaring a ‘Climate change emergency’ – as well as agreeing some specific actions tabled by leading Conservative Councillors.
His work is fact based and checked by colleagues. As he told us: “I should add that I’ve authored around 100 scientific papers and the peer-review process used to vet these is brutal!”
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