Chris Rapley’s performance of 2071 (the year his granddaughter will be his current age) at the Royal Court Theatre earlier this year captivated audiences and received five-star notices. He spoke clearly about the science of climate change but, unlike many pessimists, felt that human ingenuity could see changes that will help all – including his granddaughter – inherit an inhabitable planet.

In Paris in December this year, the most important climate change conference there has ever been takes place. In this presentation, and his new book based on the performance, Rapley, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, offers a clear and concise explanation of climate change – how it’s happened, our part in it, what we are currently doing about it and what we need to do about it – and expresses hope that we can still create a world for all to live and prosper in.

This event will be in the Planetarium, At-Bristol.

Image credit Chris Gilbert, British Antarctic Survey

Chris Rapley

Chris Rapley is Professor of Climate Science at University College London. He is a Fellow of St Edmund’s College Cambridge, a visiting Professor at Imperial College London, a Distinguished Visiting Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, a member of the Academia Europaea, a Board member of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, Chairman of the European Space Agency Director General’s High Level Science Policy Advisory Committee, and Chairman of the London Climate Change Partnership, committed to ensuring London’s resilience to climate change.

His previous posts include Director of the Science Museum London, Director of the British Antarctic Survey, and Executive Director of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. Prior to that, he established and built up the Earth Observation satellite group at UCL’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory.

He was awarded the 2008 Edinburgh Science Medal for having made ‘a significant contribution to the understanding and wellbeing of humanity’. He was made a Commander of the British Empire in 2003.