19/08/2010

Summer nights could become much hotter in big cities like London, Beijing and Sao Paulo and as these cities grow the problem is only going to get worse. Cities are already ‘Urban Heat Islands’ – when buildings and roads soak up a lot of heat from the sun, tall buildings block cooling winds and the large energy use in cities results in urban areas being hotter than surrounding rural areas. Gareth is joined by Mark McCarthy from the Met Office to discuss projections that suggest how the cumulative effect of climate change and urbanisation could result in much greater temperature increases, and extremely hot nights in cities than would result from greenhouse gases alone. What will this mean for city dweller comfort and worse what will it mean for the their health? Picture: Thermal Image of Atlanta, Georgia , NASA

The Met Office

Lots of science stories on controversial topics get media coverage – vaccination, climate change, links between lifestyle and cancer – but do people actually listen to the conclusions or act on them? Research published by Professor Geoff Munro from Towson University, Maryland in the US suggests that if you hear scientific evidence that contradicts your original prejudices, not surprisingly you discount the evidence you’ve just heard. Unfortunately it also seems that this makes you more likely to discount scientific evidence in general – you don’t believe anything else you hear from scientists either. A recently published book called “Why aren’t we saving the Planet?” by Professor Geoff Beattie at the University of Manchester, explains how we research people’s attitudes and behaviours relating to all kinds of important issues, and why people don’t follow through when they say they have positive attitudes to green behaviour.

Yeah well you can prove anything with science – Bad Science