Taking control - Cover Story

‘Climate change is the most important issue we face when looking at our future way of life. The need to address our impact on the global environment has never been more urgent and the technology at the forefront of this battle is some of the most exciting and ground breaking in the world today’. So says the Institute for Engineering and Technology, whose sentiment is shared by individuals and organisations across the globe. Finally, the scientific community seems to have convinced enough people that climate change is a real and persistent threat. Whilst the pace of climate change might be linked with the pace of technological development, it is almost universally accepted that technology will provide solutions. At the Embedded Systems Conference in April, former US vice president Al Gore threw down the gauntlet to the engineering community, challenging it to respond to climate change. So what is the community’s response to the most significant problem we may ever face?