SITTING ON a straight back rigid iron chair at the British Council in the Capital, Lord Julian Hunt - professor of Climate Modelling in the Department of Space and Climate Physics and the Department of Earth Sciences in the United Kingdom - seems both uncomfortable and too tired to talk. After a gruelling schedule of meeting people and squeezing in Press sessions, he hardly has time to "give an exclusive''.
"I know I should give you something exclusive from my talks during this trip but you will, however, have to give me some time for that,'' says the 63-year-old professor, who after several sessions of delivering talks on pollution and evolving strategies to protect the earth, is ready to head home for a break.
The contribution of Lord Hunt to make the world a better place is well known. He was Director-General and Chief Executive of the UK Meteorological Office from 1992-1997. While at the Met Office he was elected to the Executive Committee of the World Meteorological Organisation. Also, his lecture on behalf of the World Meteorological Organisation at the UN World Conferences on Natural Disaster Reduction led to new efforts to improve international warnings for disasters ranging from tropical cyclones to volcanoes.
A good 15 minutes into interview, Lord Hunt finally hands over what he promised at the beginning of the meeting. The exclusive! "It was in India that I got hooked to nature,'' he says. "I was born in India and was here till the age of five. My father was in the Indian Civil Services and was a sub-collector in Ooty. I was born there and I remember standing on the veranda, watching tigers being brought back dead, their legs tied to a bamboo stick. I can also remember a fruit tree in our garden and the lovely house that seemed huge then. I haven't gone back, I will some day,'' promises Lord Hunt.
But the warm comfort of the past does not hold true for the future and Lord Hunt worries about the extent of harm that humans being can do to the earth before passing it on to the next generation.
"While there is a lot of awareness about the ill effects of unclean habits that harm the earth, we are yet to take concrete actions. There is a buzz about saving the earth, but a revolution is required to do it,'' he says.
Lord Hunt is also the Chairman of Advisory Committee on Protection of the Sea, an organisation that aims at promoting strategies for the sustainable development of the coastal and marine environment.
"Work is carried out at regional, national and global levels and we study the seas and oceans both as indicators of pollution and as a threatened resource. The organisation also strives to identify cost-effective, long-term environmental solutions that can effectively be implemented across the world,'' says Lord Hunt.
Speaking about the lessons learnt during the recent tsunami, Lord Hunt explains: "We have understood that before the swell of water actually hits main land, there is a huge slump and people who recognised this were saved. The seabed actually sinks causing the waves to slump before hitting the costs. Also we have seen that structures made in a more environmentally friendly pattern survived, more modern, concrete slabs were crushed, during the recent tsunami.''
On a visit to India on an invitation from the British Council, Lord Hunt says he met many interesting people who spoke about India's determination to offer a cleaner environment.
"Indian agencies are on the right path and are serious about their concerns. However, the common man needs to be told about the need for adopting environmentally friendly measures, it has to be a mass movement not just a government effort,'' says Lord Hunt, speaking about what needs to be done to curb wide scale environmental degradation.
Lord Hunt also spoke about his most well recognised achievements that happened during his work at Cambridge, when he along with his colleagues developed environmental software on the basis of a university research.
The new air pollution dispersion model developed can evaluate the "estimated'' air pollution level in a given area. The experiment is now the standard model for the UK Environment Agency.
"We, however, realised that the model was not applicable everywhere in the world as world environment, easily influenced by any external agent, is dynamic. We have to understand that it is what we do here and now that has a bearing on the future, we have to be cautious about the earth we hand over to our children,'' says Lord Hunt.
