Introduction to the course by David Rippin

WELCOME TO OUR COURSE ON: ‘Tackling Environmental Challenges for a Sustainable Future’, a course that focuses on our efforts to tackle some of the world’s environmental challenges. As we are sure you already know, our planet is changing in many ways and at an unprecedented rate. Many of these changes are brought about by our own actions, and as a result,

we are facing a whole range of major environmental issues: our energy use is unsustainable, our planet is warming up, we are producing waste plastic that is endangering our seas and waterways, and large parts of the natural world are disappearing. We need to find sustainable solutions to these serious problems - and soon. Such concerns are arguably the most pressing issues facing us in the world today, and are also of the utmost importance when it comes to thinking about sustaining life and biodiversity on the planet into the future. As a result, there has never been a more important time to study the environment.

This four-week course will help you discover how the environment is studied and how our research at the University of York is helping to develop sustainable solutions to environmental problems. So let’s start with week one. In this first week, you will learn about glaciers and ice sheets. Right now, these vast bodies of ice cover approximately 10% of the land area of the Earth, and they hold roughly 69% of all of the fresh water found on the earth. Crucially, glaciers and ice sheets are changing, and during week 1 we’re going to explore these changes and the impact these are having. You will also learn about the way in which we actually measure change (it’s not as straightforward as you might think!).

Finally, we will explore our future – what will happen to our glaciers as our climate continues to warm, and what can we do to hopefully change things for the better.