Professor Myles Allen<\/a> is such a powerful advocate for the environment that he was dubbed \u2018the physicist behind Net Zero\u2019 by the BBC and is regularly asked for comment on all things related to climate and weather. But Oxford\u2019s Professor for Geosystem Science is a scientist, not an activist \u2013 despite more than two decades of work on climate change. And, he says, he was nearly not a scientist at all.<\/p>\nProfessor Allen won a place at Oxford to study Physics and Philosophy, although English was his favourite subject at school. But he took the science route ‘because it was there\u2019 (as Mallory said about Everest). A self-confessed \u2018nerdy teenager\u2019, he smiles, there were no climate-related courses available to him in those days, and he would not have been interested anyway. But, he says, \u2018Chris Llewellyn-Smith (one of his undergraduate tutors, and Director of CERN and recently-retired Director of Energy Studies in Oxford) made it very clear to me that I wasn\u2019t clever enough for a career in theoretical or particle physics…\u2019<\/p>\n
That appeared to be the end of an academic career. So how did he end up as an internationally-renowned scientist, government adviser, sought-after commentator with a media nickname?<\/p>\n
\u2018It was a roundabout route. After graduation, he went to Kenya to work for the United Nations Environment Programme. At the time, climate change was just emerging as an issue. But the young graduate was much more engaged with his work in East Africa. He says, \u2018I was really fortunate to be in Kenya at that time.\u2019<\/p>\n
But two interventions sent him back to Oxford \u2013 inadvertently onto the climate science path. The first came from his boss in Kenya, who suggested he take a doctorate, for the sake of his UN career. He returned to the university, to join David Anderson\u2019s oceanography group. It was not the easiest transition, \u2018it\u2019s hard to get back into Physics after even a couple of years out\u2019. A rainy Oxford, where he returned after just one term, did not compare with East Africa. But a chance encounter, saw him return to his studies.<\/p>\n
\u2018I had gone back to Kenya over the vacation and they wanted me to take my old job back, when some friends and I climbed Mt Kenya. On the way down, we met a very fit, albeit middle-aged man with a stick and a beard. He appeared out of nowhere and asked what we were all doing. He went round the group.<\/p>\n
\u2018When he came to me, I said I was doing a doctorate at Oxford in oceanography. He immediately asked \u2018which ocean?\u2019 The Indian. And then, like the scene from Monty Python, he said, “Does your model have a closed or open eastern boundary?” At the time, it was closed, which was clearly the wrong answer. He said it should be open.\u2019<\/p>\n
The bearded man turned out to be Stefan Hastenrath, a world expert on tropical climatology on his way to study the retreat of the glaciers of Mount Kenya. So the DPhil student went back to Oxford to fix his model \u2013 and has left only briefly in the intervening 30+ years. Initially, he was working on natural, chaotic, climate variability, but over time, the science of human-driven climate change attracted the young postgrad.<\/p>\n
\u2018The physics was understood [in terms of CO2\u2019s potential impact on warming],\u2018 he says. \u2018But when I started in 1989 it was still a prediction. We didn\u2019t see significant warming at that point, for reasons we understand well enough now, but were still obscure back then.\u2019<\/p>\n
Within a few years, though, evidence was beginning to emerge and Professor Allen has worked on the scientific problem ever since \u2013 hence the Net Zero soubriquet. The key to preventing climate change, is reducing carbon dioxide emissions to net zero, insists Professor Allen. It is a scientific fact he and others established in the late 2000s. And he has been talking about the implications ever since.<\/p>\n
Doesn\u2019t he get sick of saying the same thing? (in 2012, he jokingly referred to climate change as \u2018so last decade\u2019). Not really, he insists, \u2018The debate has moved on. Most people no longer question if climate change is happening.\u2019<\/p>\n
But, talking on the hottest day of the year so far, does he get tired of the media asking if every weather event is evidence of climate change.<\/p>\n
\u2018We don\u2019t get as many calls as we used to,\u2019 he smiles. Climate change is not a matter of faith for the Physicist. He is not likely to glue himself to the baking hot road outside \u2013 or to anything else. He knows climate change is real, because of the science, and knows as well, for the same reasons, that there are real (and relatively straightforward) solutions to the climate crisis. Professor Allen is very much the Physicist, trying to simplify things, come up with solutions to problems.<\/p>\n
\u2018Some subjects seem to be about making things complicated,\u2019 he laughs. \u2018Physics is about making things simple.\u2019<\/p>\n
He has clearly adopted this scientific approach in other aspects of life. Professor Allen explains, he and his wife, Professor Irene Tracey, [yes, the future Vice Chancellor] have adopted this methodical approach to work. They agreed at the outset that he would follow her, from Oxford to roles in the US and back again to roles in Oxford – since it is much more difficult to secure experimental research positions (\u2018she needs a multi-million pound scanner \u2013 I just need a desk and a laptop\u2019). Professor Tracey is professor of anaesthetic neuroscience and researches pain. If they were to work in the same town, it made sense for her secure a place, and him to follow.<\/p>\n
It also made sense, he says, that he took extended paternity leave when their youngest child Jim was born, since Professor Tracey had just been appointed to take over the Oxford Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain. At that time, shared parental leave did not exist, \u2018but my Head of Department, Roger Davies, was incredibly supportive: still not quite sure how \u2013 best not ask!\u2019 He took a year off from work and mostly stayed at home, although, he says, \u2018Jim did have to sit through more statistics lectures in his first year than is probably healthy.’<\/p>\n
\u2018It was a really nice year,\u2019 he remembers. He is under no illusions that the novelty of a father taking parental leave in the early 2000s meant there was no damage to his career.<\/p>\n
\u2018In many ways it helped being a bloke, people didn\u2019t think about it\u2026but it was easier for me to take time off. Plus, Oxford and the department have been really supportive.\u2019<\/p>\n
His experience may not be typical, but it helps highlight that it is possible to have a really outstanding academic career and a family. He and Professor Tracey are proof positive. <\/p>\n
He now sits in both Physics and Geography, as Professor of Geosystem Science in the Environmental Change Institute and Director of the University\u2019s new Oxford Net Zero initiative. Nevertheless, he was always able to do the school run, and was going to watch a sports competition that afternoon. But how does he feel about being the first, or is that second, gentleman in the university, once Professor Tracey takes office? Typically, he laughs.<\/p>\n
What does he do, when not at work?<\/p>\n
\u2018Walk the dog,\u2019 he replies simply. \u2018We\u2019ve got a lockdown puppy, who has his own Twitter account \u2013 not that I am responsible for it. But I like to walk the dog\u2026 He\u2019s called Geoffrey, with a G…Geoffrey Biscuit.’<\/p>\n
From: https:\/\/www.ox.ac.uk\/<\/a><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s perfectly possible to remove CO2 from the atmosphere \u201c Professor Myles Allen is such a powerful advocate for the environment that he was dubbed \u2018the physicist behind Net Zero\u2019 by the BBC and is regularly asked for comment on all things related to climate and weather. But Oxford\u2019s Professor for Geosystem Science is a scientist,\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13702,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_scj_primary_category_id":126,"_scj_featured":false,"_scj_featured_from":"","_scj_featured_until":"","_scj_featured_order":0,"_scj_visibility_class":"current","_scj_layout_family":"video","_scj_article_style":"","_scj_display_overrides":[],"_scj_intro_image_id":13702,"_scj_intro_alt":"Professor Myles Allen, the physicist behind net zero","_scj_intro_caption":"","_scj_intro_class":"","_scj_intro_float":"","_scj_full_image_id":13702,"_scj_full_alt":"Professor Myles Allen, the physicist behind net zero","_scj_full_caption":"","_scj_full_class":"","_scj_full_float":"","_scj_media_type":"video","_scj_media_provider":"youtube","_scj_media_external_id":"dZtnOnqcDN4","_scj_media_url":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=dZtnOnqcDN4","_scj_media_poster_id":13702,"_scj_media_width":640,"_scj_media_height":360,"_scj_media_aspect_ratio":"16:9","_scj_media_description":"","_scj_gallery_items":[],"_scj_related_post_ids":[],"_scj_additional_authors":[],"scj_layout_family":"video","scj_media_provider":"youtube","scj_media_url":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=dZtnOnqcDN4","scj_full_caption":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[126],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews"],"yoast_head":"\n
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