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“Futures Conversations” brings you thought-provoking dialogue showcasing the intersections of disciplines, ideas, and possibilities being tackled at the University of Edinburgh's Edinburgh Futures Institute.
[Electronic beat]
[Enda:] Welcome to Futures Conversations,
the Edinburgh Futures Institute podcast
that showcases
all the wonderful research taking place
at the Edinburgh Futures Institute.
Research at the Futures Institute
is challenge-led and interdisciplinary
addressing many of the greatest challenges
we face in the world today.
I'm your host, Enda Delaney,
the Director of Research at the Futures Institute.
[Electronic beat]
[Enda:] In this episode, I'm joined
by Professor Sean Smith.
Sean is chair of Future Construction
in the School of Engineering and director
and director of the Center for Future Infrastructure
at the Futures Institute.
Sean, could you tell us a little bit
about your background, where you grew up,
who inspired you as a teacher?
What values were important to your family
and wider social group?-
[Sean:] I grew up in Edinburgh
and also Dundee in a small village
called Errol in Perthshire,
and very much enjoyed the whole idea
of both of living in a sort of urban
and suburban and rural area.
So I had the chance to sort of
see all of that.
And my family were all farmers
by background.
But I would say probably some key
changes in terms of career path of,
you know, where was I going, etc.
I was really struck
by the whole construction
industry and infrastructure,
how it can change people's lives,
the opportunity not just be at the desk,
but be out and about visiting sites,
and also the
innovations that happen
across that landscape.
I was very, very fortunate.
I did my studies at Heriot-Watt
University, my first degree there
in Building Economics and Quantity Surveying.
Although I realised that quantity surveying
wasn't for me
and sort of cost calculations.
I really enjoyed the whole
architectural technology journey,
learning about kind of noise
and vibration in structures.
And very importantly,
we had a couple of lecturers
who were very innovative,
who worked really closely with industry,
and they were very kind and took us
sometimes, on some of their projects
they were doing with industry.
And I think that inspired me in the end,
when I finished my degree,
that I would
then focus specifically looking at sort of
the future of sort of noise
and vibration in structures.
So that was my first point,
and specifically around construction technologies.-
[Enda:] I read somewhere that Lego was a key
formative influence.
I don't know if...
Can you tell us a bit more about your
your love of Lego, erm, growing up?-
[Sean:] Well, very much.
I think for many people
who are in the sector and, and beyond this
in design and creativity
and things, Lego has played
an integral part of people's lives
when they were young.
The chance not just to obviously follow
the build instructions
and things of what you're building,
but then to innovate and adapt
and build and design your own structures.
And I used to take great pride
as a- as a young boy
I’d run down the stairs and show my mum,
what I’d built with, with something
that was not meant to be on the box but
[laughs]
certainly looked and looked quite different.-
[Enda:] It sounds like that
some of your teachers at Heriot-Watt
actually inspired you to-
to do what you do today.
Were there any people in particular,
or was it just the whole sort
of ethos and environment?-
[Sean:] I mean, there were several-
several lecturers,
Hunter Cairns
taught us on Architectural Technology,
as did David McKenzie, who also taught us
about building acoustics
and noise and vibration in buildings,
and both had been involved
in the development of new products
for the construction sector.
So that in itself, their background,
their knowledge, how much they shared
with us about their journeys
with some of the products,
and where they were then being used,
and also some of the testing
and development they did.
And I think that was, a trigger point
for me to get interested
in research and development and R&D.-
[Enda:] So, within your sort of wider
family and social group,
was it unusual to go into academia
or into what you do or-
was that quite- quite normal or, you know?
Essentially did you stand out,
or was this a sort of a predestined
pathway for you?-
[Sean:] Definitely wasn't predestined.
Certainly, I was one of the first or second
in my kind of family generation,
if you look across my aunts and uncles,
of- of my cousins, of people
who went to university,
and the best advice I had
was that nothing is set in stone.
And I always carried that thinking,
you will change your mind on things,
you might change the career path
and I think I've changed mine 2 or 3
over the period.
But everything has an inflection point
when it comes back.
When you think:
Ah! I remember that particular moment when-
when something changed that made
you think about that's a different career
path.-
[Enda:] And so what was your route into academia
and becoming a university professor?-
[Sean:] Well, initially I came through,
I would say probably the standard route.
I started my PhD.
The PhD went part time
when the mathematical models
we were looking at to predict noise
and vibration in buildings,
those mathematical models
we could take to any structure,
all we could change
was the material properties,
but the actual noise and vibration,
the waveform,
etcetera, the frequencies, etcetera,
where things occur.
We can change that
with a mathematical model.
And so that was very attractive
to the Ministry of Defence
and the Defence Research Agency.
They really liked our complex models.
And so I started a research fellowship,
working for DERA, the Defence Evaluation
Research Agency for three years
to predict, vibration in complex
structures for helicopters and aircraft.
I was very fortunate.
We had a tremendous mentor
from the Defence Research Agency.
Sadly, he's passed away now.
But many people might have seen James Bond
and know Q the inventor
and of course, Ian Fleming,
the writer of Bond based
so many of Q's attributes
on what we call SSOs,
who are the Senior Scientific Officers
of the Defence Research Agency.
And in fact,
there are six Senior Scientific Officers,
and I worked
for one of the Senior Scientific Officers.
So if someone had told me as a young boy
watching James Bond, that later in life
I'd be working for the equivalent of Q,
I think I would have burst out laughing [laughs]
So I came through that path, finished the PhD,
finished the research fellowship contract,
and then had the chance to go overseas.
So I went to work partly in Canada
for the Canadian government.
The construction research laboratories.
And then I spent 18 months in Italy
working for the Italian government
in Turin and Torino,
which was a wonderful opportunity.
And then following that,
I went to work, for the German government
Research Laboratories in Braunschweig
at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt,
which is the the state Government Science
and Physics Metrology Center.
I've been in all the projects
I've been involved with,
whether it was Canada, Italy, Germany,
my work when I came back to Scotland,
where I- where I joined
Rob McKenzie Partnership, it
absolutely influences everything I do.
And one of the exciting things is
you see the challenges that the industry
has in construction and infrastructure.
You see the pressures
they're under for material resources
to do things better,
to improve circular economy.
We use circular economy today
very much as a as a standard term.
It wasn't a term used by the industry
many years ago.
It was just about waste reduction
and trying to reuse the optimum materials
we had and in many cases reuse buildings
through conversions and change of use.
And I remember
one of the first big conversions
I was on was an old church building,
and an old convent, and it was amazing
converting that into apartments,
and working with the architects
and designers.
I've had the great fortune
to work with great research colleagues,
and we've developed five patents,
and we have 17 patented
products in the market,
which are manufactured in the UK
and sold and owned
also by multinationals.-
[Enda:] What does your field,
which broadly we could describe as future
infrastructure, what does that encompass?
How would you explain that
to a non-expert?-
[Sean:] Well, infrastructure in the round
is almost everything around us from,
from the physical manmade elements
of transport, buildings and roads, etc.,
through to power lines and infrastructure
that supports our energy infrastructure,
but also looking at some of the natural
infrastructure,
for example, use of forests
and how we can bind soils and reduce,
you know, for example, slippage
in embankments or hillsides, etc.,
right through to marine preservation
and coastal protection and also
specifically and more importantly,
addressing climate change.
So the actual role
within infrastructure is-
is multifaceted and that's the perfect reason
why it should be based
in the Edinburgh Futures Institute.-
[Enda:] I was fascinated
reading about you,
the work that you did on medical acoustics
and preterm infants,
which I know was at an earlier stage in your career.
Could you tell us a little bit about that?
It seems a very practical case of where
high level research informs
actually improving people's
lives on a day to day basis?-
[Sean:] Yeah, it was a really interesting piece of work.
Going back a wee while.
This is when I was in an acoustics
research laboratory at Heriot-Watt.
We had a- we have what's known
as anechoic chambers and anechoic chambers
is where no sound or vibration
can enter or exit these test facilities.
So it's a great way to measure directly
how sound travels
from one source to another.
And we had a visit from
a series of teachers who
were teaching various projects
that the university had been linked to.
We thought it'd be nice to bring the
teachers and and show them the facilities.
And they walked into the anechoic chamber,
and two of the teachers immediately
felt unwell and had to leave.
And both teachers, we subsequently
found, had a hearing deficit.
Two weeks later we had
a visit from schoolchildren
who were profoundly deaf.
And when they went into the anechoic chamber,
all of them immediately felt unwell.
It was almost as if we'd taken away
any natural stimulus that was around them.
And we jump forward about 4 or 5 years.
And I'm now working in Italy.
And, there had been discussions of how,
we'd had a visit from,
to a colleague of mine, visits
from the medical experts in Turin
and also from Rome,
who were looking at the opportunities of
when the foetus is in utero, in the womb,
the opportunity and the importance
of the mother's voice and voices which penetrate it.
They had seen and had been reported that there was
better ventilation, better-
better receptacle
to this kind of stimulus,
this natural stimulus of frequencies
and that very same day,
there was an article about what they call
‘La Mort Bleue’
which is, also described as a SIDs
or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
And the issues around children
who these young-
sorry, infants
who are generally 3 to 4 months old,
who commonly have issues
of influenza B, for example,
type of flu, or other issues,
when- when they have cot death
or suffer from that terrible tragedy.
And that very day
I had the most horrendous cold.
I was coming down with the flu
and my hearing was affected,
and I reminded myself of the issues
of the deaf and the profoundly deaf
going into the anechoic chamber, how we'd
stripped away any natural environment,
and when you looked
at a lot of the guidance
for infants to avoid-
to parents to avoid pre-term deaths
such as sudden infant death syndrome,
then the issues around
audibility, hearing, synapsis, etc.
and, things like,
you know, don't, you know, cover up
with lots of materials,
you know, blankets and pillows.
These are highly absorptive.
And that started me
thinking is that, you know,
eighth cranial nerve, is the auditory
nerve more important than we think?
And we often hear about people
saying that when someone's
in their last phase of life,
they may not see you,
but the likelihood is they will hear you.
And therefore, is it one of the last,
parts of our primary system to shut down?
And we know it's linked to the thalamus
and the hypothalamus,
and that controls our natural body
mechanisms such as breathing, etc.
So, I raced home, and went home with,
several books and papers
and hid under the covers
as I recovered from the flu myself
and read back to back all these papers,
and on the Monday morning
came back in and met my colleague
who had met with the medical experts,
and I said to him, I need you to sit down.
And we drew up on the whiteboard
and I showed them this pathway of how auditory sound
could influence various things
and cardiorespiratory function,
and actually it could be more important
than we thought.
And following that,
we then contacted researchers in New Zealand,
a wonderful researcher called Malcolm
Stewart, who at that time was in USA.
And when we sent him
our kind of concept theory,
he was delighted
because he had worked in a similar area.
And we had synergy.
And so we then read about 400 papers
and then summarised that.
And then the paper was published
in the journal,
International Journal of Prenatal
and Neonatal Medicine.
One key bit of advice was,
and this was very important, was
that it was important for
we felt for the infant
to be sleeping in the same room,
not the same bed, but the same room
as the parents,
because there's a natural stimulus
when the parents are in the same room,
their breathing and other sounds.
And obviously all the advice
about the position of the baby, etc.
you know, the Back to Sleep campaign,
all our areas agreed with that.
Because if you're not back to-
on your back to sleep,
if you're on your side or your front,
you will attenuate the auditory
nerve’s function, etc.
and the blood flow.
And so we’d recommended that.
And so shortly after that
there was a major international study
that then followed that up.
And then the advice came from that
which is printed in all the
sort of, newborn leaflets for parents.
It's strongly advised that the infant
for the first six months
sleeps in the same room, not the same bed,
so the cot can be near the bed.
And, that's been advice ever since.
So I think we were part of,
let's see, a series of people at that time
who were very focused
on that area and our-
I wouldn't say we led it, but I would say
the fact that the press coverage
we got from both the BBC
and international newspapers,
when the journal got published
and our article,
drew a lot of attention to the area
and that if anything, I'm delighted with.-
[Enda:] Could you tell us a little bit more
about how your research is informed?
Sound insulation in domestic homes
and in the UK and internationally?
Could you tell us a little bit about it?-
[Sean:] Sure. Delighted to.
So when I was doing the PhD,
looking at sound and vibration
in buildings and structures.
That is all part and parcel
of looking at the overall
sound insulation
which you have between housing.
So this is what we call attached housing,
like terraced or semi-detached
or flatted or apartment type buildings.
And there's some key
regulations and standards.
Now, those regulations and standards
do vary between countries.
But nevertheless they're important
because as a quality of life aspect
interruption to sleep or other things through,
you know, unwanted noise or unwanted
sound, such as noise is a real issue,
particularly for young children
and also for adults,
because it interrupts your sleep patterns.
And what happened was, from the work
we were doing, the-
the English or UK government-
the English government
were changing their building regulations.
And at that time they had, proposed
a brand new criteria
for how you measure sound insulation.
Quite different to anything-
no one else in the world
was using at that time.
And they’d sort of almost taken
a different standard
for a completely different aspect
and brought that in.
And the house building industry
at the time were quite concerned that
how were they going to address this
new criteria?
How do you meet this new sound insulation
and how do you design for it?
And how do you build the walls and floors
that divide all these housing and apartment
units to meet the new criteria?
And we were very fortunate.
And this is where data is key.
We were sitting at the time in our
university and our research facility,
and also with the Robin McKenzie Partnership
on a lot of field test data.
And so we proposed it would may be useful
to look at an alternative approach,
which is where you can actually design
in enhanced sound insulation.
So you build well beyond the standard.
And you're not going to have to test-
do that test of compliance.
And that was the big issue
the industry was facing in England, Wales.
How do you test and comply
if there's not enough testers?
And if you're actually building
very similar archetype
type approaches in new build of housing
and the type of construction,
how could you in fact standardise that?
And so we won the contract to investigate
and develop that.
The- the government gave the industry
a 12 months to deliver alternatives.
We told the industry, statistically,
you need to test every wall and floor,
different construction- different,
you know, houses, but the same design
30 times to have statistical significance.
They loved us for that one.
And then we proposed a series of
constructions for them to build and test.
And it was to the Home
Builders Federation.
And that was all the major and medium
size housebuilders
across England and Wales.
They absolutely rallied to the for-
We assembled five working groups, 119
committee members.
We issued the designs within six weeks
of being appointed on the project,
and they built for us 1400 brand new homes
with the designs in six and a half months
all tested.
And again thanks to building control,
the local authorities, the warranty providers
because they had to accept our
recommendations for these new designs.
And we were delighted to see the
government then and adopt that approach.
And the industry, we designed it
into a handbook and published it,
and the government then decided
instead of just a one off handbook,
let's keep this live.
Let's allow new innovation to come forward.
So an organisation was set up
called Robust Details and,
I was initially director of that
to get it going.
And I rejoined the company back in 2017.
And it's- it's a wonderful opportunity
how you could create a modal shift
for the whole sector, supporting evidence
underpinning data, standardised approach.
And, over 1.6 million homes
have now been built with those designs.-
[Enda:] Have have our attitudes toward,
what you might call
noise being seen as a disturbance,
have they changed over time?-
[Sean:] I think they have.
I think partly
maybe because of the source of noise.
If you go back to the ‘90s, in the 1990s,
the main driver behind England and Wales
changing their building regulations
and improving sound insulation levels
was because of the number of complaints
went up fourfold in the domestic sector,
not commercial, not environmental noise.
It was the housing sector.
So many people were listening to bass
music, you know, garage, rave, etc.
and that probably really sort of
infused the government to say
we need to address this.
Now we cannot do it
retrospectively in existing stock.
It's not a health and safety-
It's not a structural issue.
But we can do it for new build.
And that's why
when they designed this new criteria
that they brought in- they made a big,
big focus on lifting the requirements
of the minimum amount of insulation
you need at low frequencies,
which we had to design to meet.-
[Enda:] In the past 15 years or so,
you've very much concentrated
on sustainable construction.
What are the challenges,
that we face in our efforts
to achieve net zero emissions?-
[Sean:] As we look to the future,
one of the issues
is that the global population will rise
from about 8 billion
to about 11.3 billion by the year 2100.
That's going to place
huge, huge resources-
pressures on materials, land
availability, etc.
but particularly on materials.
And so to meet that demand
we will need
to build, over the next
75 years, 1.2 billion homes.
Now, in addition
to that, people are also living longer,
which is wonderful,
you know, fantastic health facilities.
And- and as more and more countries
improve their
approach to health and solutions
that they have,
so more people around
the world will live longer, too.
And what that does do, though, is that
then as more people live longer,
it reduces the supply of housing
coming back onto the market
and also sadly with divorce
and other things.
And so you need new households to support.
And this puts huge household pressure.
So we need another 800
million homes over the next 75 years.
If this trend continues globally,
that's 2 billion homes.
And the pull on material resources around
the world will just be huge
if it's not already.
So it's incredibly important
we do things as sustainably as we can.
We reutilise materials, we reutilise-
we look at design, from the very first thing
that we do right from the design stage,
how do we maximise that delivery
but reduce the effect of footprint
of materials and resource?
And net zero, which is a separate
but almost equal challenge,
has had various,
let's say, journeys
of different play in different countries.
The UK, we- we for example,
in construction, in housing,
we devolve the targets effectively
that we're looking at.
Specifically the Scottish Government
has its own targets,
but nevertheless
it will still wrap into the UK targets.
So the Scottish targets are 2045
for net zero
UK targets, most of European targets
are 2050.
And whilst across the UK, we have reduced
overall emissions by about 53%
since the 1990 levels to where we are now
today in 2024.
We're in that tough period where we've not
really reduced effectively for housing.
We've not reduced effectively
for agriculture.
And our transport emissions
make up 25% of the emissions
that we currently have,
and that's another key target.
So the amount of work and graft
to do over this
next 20 to 25 years is significant.
And we're in,
I would say the difficult stage
because we have done some of the easy bits.
We've done some of that low hanging fruit
and we really, really need to up the game
and accelerate as quickly
as we can.
And finally, I would say
it's not all about data and technologies.
We need to take society with us.
I mean, for example, two years ago,
if you wanted to do some sort of
green measures on your home,
there are about 7 or 8 different types
of funding stream and different
funding aspects from governments
depending on what you were looking at,
and that was very complex for people.
So I think we need to streamline it,
simplify it.
Just looking at Edinburgh and Glasgow
alone. Just take- just the housing,
forget transport, anything else
but just to retrofit where we are.
That's a 35 billion pound market over
the next 20 years.
Scotland needs to retrofit
roughly about 135,000 homes per year.
England needs to retrofit
approximately 900,000 homes per year,
and Europe needs to retrofit, every year
till 2050,
11 million homes per year.-
[Enda:] I think this takes us to your role within the Futures Institute,
as director of the Center for Future Infrastructure.
What does the centre do?-
[Sean:] Well, the centre really acts as a-
as a bridge between many of the aspects
happening in engineering
across all areas of engineering,
and also within the college of Science
and Engineering and linking
right across the university.
So very much the EFI,
the Edinburgh Futures Institute model,
the Centre for Future Infrastructure
by being based there.
Its purpose is to look and solve
and work with interdisciplinary teams.
So that's working with architecture.
Could be the law school,
it could be geosciences,
it could be social sciences or humanities,
it could be the business school.
So the purpose of the centre
is not to run a- get lots
and lots of academic research staff.
The purpose is to link across
who are our experts, where are they
in the different schools and research
institutes across the university.
where we need them to come together
and be the interdisciplinary team?
I mean, just some examples of projects
we've worked with geosciences
and architecture,
looking at projects around Dubai.
Similarly,
we've worked with similar diverse schools
around projects
looking at sustainability in Galapagos.
We've had projects recently
in South Africa-
sorry, South America, where they're looking
at issues around new infrastructure
for dams and also the issue
around the legal aspects for that.
So it's- it's quite a diverse
but a wonderful area
to be in because infrastructure touches
so many areas.
It's almost a keystone.
We take so much of it for granted,
but nevertheless
we use it day in and day out
and it plays such a critical role.
So that's that's the purpose of CFI to go
after some of these key challenges
around climate change and
infrastructure, particularly resilience.
But also to to bring
all these different partners together,
all these diverse and wonderful
academic colleagues that we have
at the University of Edinburgh
and also work
with industry, public sector,
whether it's advising on future
skills pathways,
which we've been doing for the region,
and also for the UK,
where it's looking at the opportunities
around new skills
that will be needed for the future,
the new technologies which are coming.
So we're assessing some world
firsts and new heating systems
that are coming to market,
which is very exciting, but also listening
to the societal needs
and that sort of, touchstone of
where is society going?
Are the on side with us,
with where we're trying to get to
what could make it easier,
and how do we infuse them to stay with us?
And when people were saving, many years
ago and planning for their pension,
they probably hadn't planned
that they might have to spend 15
or 20,000 pounds retrofitting their home
and an additional,
maybe 20 or 25 thousands over
and above what they were expecting to pay
for an electric vehicle,
in addition to installing
electric charging points, etc..
So it's a new dynamic.
It's complex.
It weighs heavily on some people's
shoulders how they might afford that.
And so we need to make sure
that we are 1) simplifying that process,
innovating to reduce the costs
and improving how people will interact
with that and take it forward.-
[Enda:] Where do you see
political leadership featuring?-
[Sean:] This is something because it's 2045
or 2050 deadlines for net zero,
and this is not something
that's a 4 or 5 year political cycle.
This is something you invest in now for
the future, and none more so than skills.
We need a kind of joined up approach
across government in construction.
And that has perhaps been lacking a bit.
I saw many years ago a very good model.
This is about, oh, 15, 16 years ago.
I won't say where if that's okay,
but it was a government department we were working with,
where they had effectively
a very, very senior
civil servant who led construction.
And whilst the sector was,
you know, crisscrossing 6 or 7
ministerial portfolios,
he linked everything together
and tried to make sure
there was an association
or link with them.
When he left, he wasn't replaced.
And suddenly that- there was a loss.
There was no construction minister either.
So there was no one to drive things forward.
And we've seen both in the 2013 review,
for example, of the review-
the review of procurement
in construction, they recommended
having a Construction Czar
or a Minister for Construction.
And I did a review
for the new housing skills
for future new housing
and one of the 40 recommendations
there was to have, we need a Construction
Minister or a Senior Construction Czar
who’s in the civil service
because it's so important.
To get to net zero construction and
infrastructure is absolutely paramount,
and you can't have so many things
crisscrossing
6 or 7 government agencies
with no connected tie up-
[Enda:] You were very recently
awarded a large grant from UK Research
and Innovation,
and congratulations on that
for a new Centre
for Net Zero High Density Building.
How do you think this funding
will transform practices
within the construction industry?-
[Sean:] We- we're in some pretty difficult times
when you're looking at net zero.
The reason that we looked
at the high density buildings is
let's just take Edinburgh and Glasgow.
They are 68% and 70% flats,
so the highest proportion of flatted
or apartment dwellings in the UK.
London is about 52%.
The UK average is 20%.
And Scotland
actually has a higher average, about 38%.
But nevertheless, the complexities
of dense streetscapes, different types
of archetypes of buildings going back
400 years, stone developments, etc.
traditional, historic and listed,
plus the complexity of bringing in perhaps
future district community heating,
testing new technologies, the skills
and the data required for that, and also
that occupant interaction behaviour.
That was the foundation
of setting up the centre.
So we could have multiple workstreams
that were talking to each other,
new heating technologies, new materials,
green approaches,
archetypes, district community
heating, sensors, etc., etc.
and skills.
And for the sector itself,
the sector is thriving.
It is innovating where it can.
It's testing and developing
and they need support.
And that is the role of the centre.
The centre will support the industry,
both public sector, private, commercial.
It goes beyond just housing.
It's going to look at non-domestic
as well.
And it will also, as we're
currently doing, working with new housing.
For example,
the Edinburgh home demonstrator down
at Granton is one of the sort of,
real pushers of the envelope of where
we're going with net zero for housing.
And it’s great to be involved with that.
And, in the future, that could be a,
you know,
a major test bed for so many of the things
that are to come.
But we think it's very important
having such wonderful partners.
So it's- Edinburgh's leading it
with Glasgow University,
Strathclyde University,
Napier University, West of Scotland.
And we're working with the-
the industry’s forerunner in innovation
and development which is known as ‘BEST’:
Built Environment Smart Transformation.
We have 58 partners.
That's given me a few grey hairs,
drawing them together.
From public, government, social housing,
industry, manufacturers, etc..
And I think collectively that four year project,
all being well,
every few months will be pumping out
reports, knowledge exchange and workshops
to accelerate that delivery of net zero
for this really important area,
which is high density
buildings and cities.-
[Enda:] We're here in the Edinburgh
Futures Institute.
What sort of future do you envisage
given your expertise?-
[Sean:] Sometimes people ask me
‘what gives you sleepless nights?’
and I'd say the whole issue around
building in the resilience
we need for our infrastructure
with climate change.
I think we've seen
with the recent tragic events in Valencia,
in Spain, Malaga,
Barcelona, Italy, with similar floods,
this- this terrible Storm Boris
this this summer
in Europe, which impacted seven countries.
And the scale of flooding and basically
our roads are turning into rivers.
They've become the conduit
for most of the flood waters now,
and the damage to people's lives
and property is so significant
and the intensity is increasing.
So we've seen a huge increase
in the intensity
and also the number of storms
in terms of that intensity in Europe,
in America,
they classify as billion dollar events.
And back in about 2003,
they had 2 or 3 events.
In 2023,
they had 23 major billion dollar events
due to forest fires
or flooding and storms.
We saw with Hurricane Helene,
in- in the USA,
the whole issue there of-
absolutely everybody was right
to focus on storm surge,
the Florida Panhandle.
I think no one could quite foresee with
suddenly that slow movement of the storm
as it sat over the- the states
further to the north, like North Carolina,
the sheer scale of damage
that would ensue.
And then more recently with the other one,
with Hurricane Milton,
which crisscrossed
the panhandle of Florida.
And everybody did the right thing.
They got out of-
this is going to be the pathway.
Okay, we'll get out of that pathway.
We'll move north or south.
But no one could have foresaw
we'd have 140 tornadoes
to the south of the hurricane pathway,
where people thought they would be
more safe, but
in fact turned out to be more dangerous.-
[Enda:] Thank you very much for coming in
to tell us about your fascinating work.-
[Sean:] Thank thanks very much, Enda.
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