Museum, and also to all of you at home who are watching via cspan. We have this evening a wonderful presentation by lord browne, and then followed by discussion with professor Daniel Minisini of rice university. So without further ado im going to hand it over to lord browne come help me welcome john browne to houston. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, i want to thank the Houston Museum of Natural Science for inviting me, to spend some time this week. For someone who is on the boards of several museums and galleries, i have a deep appreciation for the role that institutions like this play in the local community and, indeed, in society more generally. As a window on the past and explainer of the present and a guide to the future, they are indispensable resources which go above and beyond what you can read in books. Houston is fortunate to have this place, and its a great pleasure to be here. As a natural scientist and subsequently an engineer, ive always sought to maintain a Broad Perspective by educating myself about the arts and being involved in cultural organizations that go beyond my core discipline. When i applied for scholarship to study physics at the university of cambridge in england, i had to submit an essay about something completely different to my main area of study. So i submitted a piece about the architecture of and i can explained later to anybody who is interested in what that actually means. With my first bonus check from bp, i bought a david hogg reprint, and as a more Senior Executive i served on the boards of organizations such as the Folger Shakespeare library in washington, d. C. , the british museum, and later the tate. Today it is one of the great joys of a portfolio crew to be able to spend even more time with such organizations. But theres always been something that has trouble to me. Me. Ive heard people assert again and again that arts and culture is the foundation of civilization. Great art is certainly essential for understanding the human condition. You only have to visit the chapel here in houston to appreciate just that. But in my view it is preceded by great engineering, which is the True Foundation on which civilization is built. And thats why i wrote make, think, imagine, to make the argument that engineering is the lifeblood of human progress. Today i want to tell you four stories which i encountered either while writing the book or while ive been talking about it after its publication. You can interpret them just as you wish, and i hope they spark a decent internal discussion with you. So my first story is about transcending the speed limits. A few months ago i gave a lecture at the Francis Creek institute where i am chairman of the board. Its one of europes major Biomedical Research hubs directed by a nobel prize waiter, and home to several more prizewinners. After my talk a researcher raised his hand and asked a question that made me think picky asked, are not humans just like e. Coli . [laughing] this question was about the way in which we grow and use natural resources. Because when you put e. Coli bacterium into a vat of fresh nutrients, a population grows, slowly at first, and then exponentially. After this rapid expansion, things go downhill rather quickly, as the bacteria battle it out for an ever dwindling pool of resources. In the 18th century Thomas Malthus made a similar point, arguing that human population growth is doomed to push us towards catastrophic competition, followed by decline. The 1950s the american geologist coined the term fake oil. We dont use it anymore, as he predicted the production would peak around the year 2010 tail off rapidly. The club of rome made similar predictions a few decades later as it talked about the limits to growth. But somehow all these predictions about the collapse of civilization have never, to pass. I have no doubt we face great challenges today, not least the unintended consequences of progress itself. Some of these challenges such as Antimicrobial Resistance and Climate Change have the potential to become existential threats, but we are not bacteria. Time and again engineers have used their ingenuity and imagination to overcome perceived limits, workaround restraints and Work Together to build a better world. Thats why the amount of oil the world uses per unit of gdp has fallen by onethird since 1985, as engineering has enabled us to do more for less. Its why texas is by a long margin the largest generator of cheap power from wind in the United States. And its why, using Carbon Dioxide could make the permian the lowest carbon source of oil in the world. This is a real progress, instigated by developments in climate science, accelerated by evoting consumer preferences, guided by a combination of Public Policy and market forces, but made possible by engineerin engineering. My second story is about unintended consequences. During the 1980s, the dominant u. S. Communications operator, at t, was broken up into several smaller companies. This was followed in the 1990s by the loosening of regulatory structures. This was all designed to open up the market and encourage competition. We can now look back and ask what all of this is actually achieved. Thanks to a series of reemerges, at t is bigger than it was before it was broken up. But when it comes to innovation, it has lost something. Bell labs, at ts r d powerhouse, was described by some as a nobel prize factory. Its not owned by the finnish firm nokia. Call it, practical knowhow and intellectual property have migrated overseas, particularly to europe and to china. The practical consequences of this are playing out today. American companies do not have any distinct competitive advantage in 5g. Instead, Companies Like erickson, nokia, the chinese firm wally are rolling out 5g mobile internet in many parts of asia and europe, setting new standards along the way. Unlike many Critical Technology that are dependent on people and companies resident in the u. S. , 5g can be and is being developed without u. S. Involvement. This would not matter if we live in a world underpinned by globalization, free trade and constructive dialogue about standards. But it does matter when were experiencing a technologically driven trade war, a major feature of which is deep suspicion of china. As a result, the u. S. Is at risk of falling behind. This matters because 5g is a step change. It will provide the speed and low latency needed by the self driving cars, robots and drones that will transform our economies. It will enable physicians to perform surgery on patients on the other side of the world using extended and tactile reality that enables them to see what is going on. And as i recently saw during a demonstration at the Wembley Stadium in london, 5g offer 360 degrees Sports Coverage in real time that will completely change the way we experience life sports. At best, technological and jew political standoff will slow the speed and breadth and depth of innovation. At worst it could reverse the globalization of engineered products. Many of you will remember having to carry three mobile phones when you went overseas. One for the u. S. , one for europe, and one for japan. Its my fear that we are headed down the same path today. My third story is about making a practical difference. On december 11, 1945, Alexander Fleming and two other men put on their bowties to receive a nobel prize for the research into penicillin. Whilst the ceremony unfolded in stockholm, a littleknown female chemical engineer called Margaret Hutchinson rousseau was at home looking after her young son. Hutchinson rousseau had broadly been written out of history, but shes the real star of the penicillin story. It was she who took a promising and highly unstable chemical substance and sold the significant engineering problems necessary solved to save more lives than any other. By the time of the Normandy Beach landing in june 1944, the allied forces had 2. 3 million doses of penicillin. A year later, production stood at 650 billion units a month, all thanks to her ingenuity and tenacity. For me the story demonstrates perfectly what engineering is about and why such a powerful force in our world. I think of engineering as being like the ancient roman god janus, who had two faces, one looking at the past and the other one looking at the future. In the case of engineering, one face looks to the fruits of scientific discovery, while the other looks to the needs of commerce, humanity and customers here the important bit happens in the middle where engineers and a great all that they see and come up with solutions. These are the tools and systems that we used to understand and shape our world. Time and time again engineers have applied their art to overcome seemingly impossible challenges. In the past 40 years they have driven a 2150 fold reduction in the cost of solar electricity, lithium batteries are on a similar learning curve. And i hope and expect that the same will happen with todays expensive Carbon Capture technology so that it becomes a cornerstone of our response to Climate Change. As Hutchinson Rousseau work shows us, so clearly, this is what engineering does. It takes tools that were once unattainable expensive and impractical, makes them available for everyone to use to make a practical difference in the world. Printed books, light bulbs, airplanes, automobiles and Artificial Intelligence algorithms all were written off in their time before going on to transform our world. My final story is about imagination. It takes place in the 19th century as engineers were building ever more efficient steam engines. The power produced by these machines was up ending the established social order, and building prosperity and opportunity that would eventually ripple through society. These engineering advances were also unleashing the imagination of some of the era was best scientists the french physicist took a particularly interest in these new engines, using what he saw to elucidate one of the fundamental principles of the universe. The second law of thermodynamics first formulated by him is what gives time its a row. States that the universe as a whole is always moving towards a fate of greater disorder. Many assume that Engineering Works in a linear way. All these translating ideas into practical products, but very often it works the other way, too. Only once the steam engine was made and working did he gain the inspiration to make is great imaginative leap. And thats why i call my book make, think, imagine in that order. The things we make fuel our creativity. Engineering allows us to imagine places we have never visited, times we have never lived in, and things that have not yet been built. Thats the job of business leaders, particularly in the energy industry, because the future can sometimes look difficult and uncertain. The needs and the vans of our customers are always changing. Oil demand is likely to peak within the next 20 years. Today, oil and Gas Companies represent the smallest portion of the s p 500 for the last 30 years. And as investors put their money elsewhere, they take it from oil and gas. And young, talented people much rather work in palo alto that in the permian basin. Theres no doubt that were going to rely on hydrocarbons for a very, very long time too. They account for 85 of our energy today, and will likely account for around 75 of a significantly larger base by 2040. The challenge for leaders is to build a future in which oil and gas still underpins human prosperity, but in which the climate is not at risk from unintended consequences. In other words, we need to take the carbon out of hydrocarbons. Thats something ive been trying to encourage people to do for several decades. In 1997, as ceo of bp, i became the first leader of a major oil and gas company to recognize the threat posed by Climate Change who pledged to do something about it. That was more than 20 years ago, and theres a huge amount still to do. I have some ideas about what action oil and Gas Companies might take today, and we can certainly discuss those things later. But for now let me if i may conclude with a quotation, probably my favorite quotation, from president abraham lincoln. Speaking at the end of 1862, he said, the dogmas of the quite past are inadequate to the stormy present. We must think anew, act a new era we must this in thrall ourselves. Thats a wonderful philosophy come one which ive always tried to follow. Because its not the job of leaders to administer the advent of the inevitable. Its their job to write the future. Its their job to imagine and then create the actions for tomorrow. This cant be done without the discipline of engineering, our ability to engineer is all that allows us to bring order to disorder. Engineering creates at ease and counter eddies in the relentless and chaotic flow of the universe, and we call them civilization. Engineering allows us to dream of a better world and then go out and make that vision into a reality. Without engineering it all comes apart and are fate is sealed like a glass full of bacteria. Thank you very much. [applause] lord browne, you are very welcome to houston. Thank you. And today we are going to talk about the book which lord browne wrote, and were going to discover what is inside and also try to uncover the mindset of the writer that we have with us. We will have a chance to read it but we will not have other chances to talk with him here, so take notes to write your question and to hammer it out later on so we can read it. Thanks for explaining the title, make, think, imagine in that order. My kids and said should have bn the opposite. Then the subtitle, engineering the future of civilization. The author john browne that you were just introduce as lord browne. We are not used to that title here in houston, lord what is the meaning of that title for you personally . Well, as a practical matter i am a permanent member of the second legislative house of the United Kingdom. You heard why in history, its appointed house, history goes back a very long way. It was the house of the barons that made sure that the king kept in order. We dont do that anymore. The king, the queen, while the head of state has no effective power, and neither actually does the house of lords with the single exception of being able to correct mistakes in legislation. But it doesnt do a very good job of promoting science, engineering and technology within the United Kingdom as well. So i would like to start on the very first page here, which is an indication, and it says to my father who told me to get a real job. [laughing] what was your relationship with your father . I had a great relationship with my father who i wanted to do Everything Different from what he had done in his life. So my family has a history of being he was a great soldier during the war, fought in the desert in north africa and amongst other places. And he eventually after being a professor or a long time joined the oil industry and was sent to iran where everyone spoke not arabic but farsi. Fortunately my father corrected the personal departments and i will learned before i i get th, and so we did. And i spent my teenage life around oil and gas wells, and i was determined i would never join in oil and gas company. [laughing] so we influenced your choice . Yes, he did. I went to university and i was determined to stay and do research in geophysics, at the time with some really great people who uncovered the mysteries of continental drift, from mccambridge, and then under pressure my father said you must get a job. I said it didnt want to, ive got it won already. He said thats not a real job. Go and get a real job. Do it for you, see if you like it. If you dont, the back to doing research at university. So ive been rather arrogantly went to bp. My father retired that bright day come and visit id like a job. And they said really . I said yes, for a year. [laughing] and then i said once more, i want to go to the United States because i really did actually want to leave the uk at the time. It was not good shape, and attitudes were very bad. This was in the 60s. So they suggest to that, too, and i imagined myself going to do some work around new york, or houston even. And the letter came, in those days they were written in pretty direct firm dear brown, thats how the h. R. Department would address people in those days, your posting to anchorage, alaska, if confirmed. [laughing] so off i went to anchorage, alaska, to become a training Petroleum Engineer to do not study to convert myself to an engineer and to work in the field night study drilling and testing wells in the prudhoe bay prudhoe bay high and in the proper high. And to live to Water Bottles north of the arctic circle, which i did for quite a little while. And it was very exciting. One year led to another, and after two years i said to the professor, i love it. He said stick with it. Very few people love what they are doing. Thats a good piece of advice. From your professor . From my professor, edward bullard. My father was vindicated with that was enough. So Good Relationship with your father. There are always conflict between a father and son. There are no conflict between a mother and son. I regard this as almost a rule of life. Your mother paula . Yes. In here you write the very first of the ten chapters, the ten commandments, you write that you were inspired by your mother, inspired to solve problems that others have not considered of and to help find Practical Solutions to humanities most pressing problems. So which pressing problems have you tried to solve . So i have tried to solve a few, and some of them are still in process because they are very pressing. One which is really seized to me was what oil and Gas Companies were doing to their global climate. And that worried me a lot from the mid90s, and i was convinced that we could both produce hydrocarbons and reduce the amount of carbon that we are putting in the atmosphere. Thats a problem that i started working on at bp, and the think progress has been made. That was one. The other one was to gain acceptance or gave people in business, which i subsequent to my outing, we can talk about that later, it was in my mind a very important thing to do. My mother, by reference, was a very determined person. She managed to survive being in the holocaust, in auschwitz, and came out be leaving that the best was always yet to come, and you didnt look back. History was not that important, but what youre going to do tomorrow was really important. So turning to the probably still have, when did you leave bp at the top . Why didnt you open a new Company Really going beyond petroleum . Well, i kind of did. Its very difficult to start a company which has big impact, and you do need to have quite a big impact in this area. So i decided to go into private equity and set up a fund which purely dealt with nonhydrocarbon energy. And so respond as result of that several companies that are alive and well and doing things today around the world which are changing the way people think about energy. They are not the only companies. The fund that i set up, partner in charge, was the Worlds LargestRenewable Energy fund, and it surprisingly against all the odds made people good positive investment return. So not only did it do the right thing, which i i believe it di, it also produced a proper return on investment. Many people when we started this would look at me and say well, in private equity we were regarded as, a fact i was often introduced as that person who what you will get is a good warm feeling but you will not get any money. That wasnt actually true. We made a lot of money but we also made some very good nonhydrocarbon decisions. The second part of the title, make. I dont know as an imperative or everything is active. And in their you write making things is at the root of all progress. Both my hobbies, things like the early days photography i cook. I used to cook as well. I still actually cook. I used to tinker with cars. I move forward and all the things that i do, but to my mind its very important. I noticed with a lot of people, maybe almost everyone i know, they be doing in the world, but everybody somehow wants to feel like they are making something, whether its a garden, whether its a car, whether its cake, whether its something to wear, whether its carpentry or whether its something bigger, like a full house. Theres a certain sense of satisfaction and achievement thats very human. I also think its why we somehow if we close an office full of people working just with paper and computers, who are doing administration and we close a factory that is producing something and the art equal number of people let go in both organizations, i believe we would feel more strongly about the factory then we would about the office. Theres something about having people make things that appeals to all humans excite think its a very basic point it seems to me. And the root of the award of injury as well which comes from the latin, which in english you translate to generate, and we all generate so in in a way wee all engineers. So engineers, we are all engineers but things dont have to be physical. They can also be intellectual product, a product that is ephemeral, software, and so on. So when you say may come you dont really mean building something. It could also be correct. I start the chapter in an area which i think is very, its a bookend of civilization, which is a syntax which when you handle one which ive had the process of handling several of, they are both beautiful and practical things, and the main thing they did was change the way in which we are nutrition of the human being, which changed the way human beings develop. We were able to cut up things. When did you feel that you really are an engineer . Wednesday think your actions really feel like youre injured . What i write a book even, which is a a process of making. Because i write, i cant write the whole time. I have of the jobs. This is a night job. The day jobs are full. So i have to write to a very strict outline if you will. The reason for that is i can pick it up, drop it, start again without having to go back to the beginning without a very strict engineer outline. I make them bigger and bigger and bigger, but you would get lost and have no direction. I regard that as one of the skills of engineering. I would say this is a book that has been engineering, but the very beginning you need to help other people in order to be successful. I like the fact that you state you interview 100 people in order to help you. And then you had more than 50 pages of the bio sketch of those people. And so i was wondering, during all of these meetings that you have, interviews, who impressed you the most among these 100 people that you interviewed . All these people are very distinguished, so its always risky to pick the best because you never want to ask after the question who was the worst. The mindset of an extraordinary man who is at mit, his name is rob languor. He started life as a chemical engineer. Fact he tried 40 times when he graduated not to go and join humble oil and Refining Company or amoco to work in refineries. He wanted to go into the hospital to work, and no one understood why i chemical engineer could ever work in the hospital. Because in those days there were medics and engineers, and they never, they did to Work Together. But he eventually made it and he has created engineered discoveries that help the human, whether its artificial skin or one of the other things he has done. But he has thought about the bloodstream as a river, and along the river you can float things, float things to a tumor and it gets to a tumor and it can kill the tumor, rather than putting all the chemicals in the river, you can put one little boat in the river and get it to the tumor. If he succeeds in that, an extraordinary event. It doesnt pollute your body. It just goes to the target, and he has had some success. What i find them very impressive is, not only the breadth of his developments come hes not as the edison of medicine, 25 billion of companies have emanated from his lab, but when i asked him what his purpose was, he simply said, i would just like to reduce suffering. And i thought thats probably the most impressive thing i heard anyone tell me. Why did you write the book . I had several reasons. One was i had both the privilege an opportunity to not only write about myself, because all the books i have written are about, they are written in the first person. They are about things ive been involved with in my life, and ive been very likely to be involved in lots of things, but i took the opportunity to get some of the greatest people in these areas and asked if i could talk to them. So in some ways i was trying to bring my readers into rooms around the world to meet and talk to people, the chances are they couldnt meet and talk to. And and i thought that was very important, and it was secondly very important to me to make this key point that actually civilization contains engineering, and in order to keep civilization progressing, we need to do more, not less of this activity. So when things go wrong, the reaction sometimes is, lets do less of it. So if its Antimicrobial Resistance, antibiotics that are used in that we find drugs that dont work against certain bacteria, we say the whole thing doesnt work. Wrong answer. We have to engineer a different set of drugs. When there are problems, for example, with privacy, with facial recognition, we love opening our iphone with our face, but we dont much like it when facial recognition is used for surveillance against people or classes of people and discriminate against them, as we see happening in china. We dont like that. So we had to do something about it. If it happens in our country, cant do something but in some elses country but we have to recognize everything we do has a bad side, undefeated consequences and wanted to make that point. So the third chapter, think, in this chapter you write japan is a symbol of what is unique about our brains. What the think when you look at a pin . I look at a pin as one of the alternate ways of transferring what is in your head to some other medium, with great discipline because its tough to use. Its very difficult. And they use as an example in the book the big spy row, because it democratized pins. Theyre very easy to use. They were invented by hungarian, and he invented a very simple, beautiful designed engineered product, very cheap, worked the whole time. Could write upside down even with it. You didnt have to ink and blotting paper, and you know, big apparatus. You had one simple, very cheap object. And it allowed you to do amazing things. You continue on saying with a pen in hand, the words i put in on the page, and momentary resistance between the idea and its recording gives me space to think. So describe when and where you experienced those precious moments of leap think. I think when i set about trying to solve the problem, and i think i have constructed my life as saying the point about what i do is to solve problems, big and small. And the way i think i discipline myself is i know that when i can write it down and and i thought about what ive written down and i can read it back and it still makes sense, and i read it aloud and it still makes sense, i think i might get close to a solution. I cant wave my hands and say, you know what i mean, or about that, or approximate this, or i heard it on the street so i wrote it down. Actually, its a piece of discipline and its that resistance, that moment that allows you to discipline to get something done that actually does make sense. I cant do that with a screen. Its too easy to delete. I would say that thing. I took a lot of notes in the book and for me i have three kids, also when ira, that is the moment when i think here for you, you also have very dynamic life, so is it always nighttime that it happens, or sometimes you have an idea, you have to write it out . I dedicate a lot of vacations if by men the presence of a a book, then have the privilege to be able to do it and i go exercise, you know, come back, have breakfast, and then i write. Often i do this in venice because it inspires me and it allows me, whenever i stop, to see something that is inspiring before i go back. What was the most profound chapter, you wrote these ten chapters, what was the one you had to focus the most to give a depth . I think the one most difficult was the last chapter, imagine it because i was trying to make one singular point, which is that in the end the human being, in spite of whatever we can engineer, has an exceptional quality, and exceptional quality, and its the quality to imagine. At this point id like to ask you what is the most profound and Important Message of thebook that you wrote . It is about progress, the fact that it does have the ups and downs that we see the whole time and that should not put us off. We make things, we invent things, we think about things that have great intended consequences. I also come along with unintended consequences. The unintended consequences are things that we can set right by doing more engineering on them rather than simply abandoning and saying its too late, we cant go ahead but its discontinuous thrust of progress which i believe is so important for the human condition. [inaudible] attitudes good, most definitely. For example i think that decisions made with less then complete information have caused some very interesting and very tough situations. The advent of genetically modified organisms, it was heavily rejected in europe and carries on in the us. I think its based on fears that were promoted that were not correct, really were not correct, that there would be some form of genetic transfer to human beings that i read in some newspaper that we would be having snowdrops growing out of the top of our heads and these fears are very bad. For example, i think the antivaccination movement is very dangerous and could be very dangerous and we need to think carefully before that happens and the spreads. These things could set back amenity in a big way. We all do, its what we expressed to our communities, to our politicians and how we express it will get things done for us, we live in democracies of different types. Im talking about the us and europe where expressions of what we believe and what we want really will eventually change things. They may not the first time but they will eventually change things and if we keep progress on track but equally they could stop progress. You mentioned civilization and i was wondering if you write this book for the western world or for everybody, but i couldnt understand because i need first to ask you what did you mean by civilization . First, i wrote this of course with my own experience base, not with the experience base of chinese businessmen who i think might write a very different book but it would be as unctuous of me to write such a book. I wrote this book about what i know about and civilization is about the progress of humanity. It is about the building of people and with greater aspirations. Do you think we only have onecivilization orally have different civilizations . We have many different societies with different definitions of civilization and of course different starting points and probably different ending points but they are alldifferent. But is it the same civilization . Have different family systems but that means whatis important and what is emphasized is different in different parts of the world but in the end they all want to improve. They allwant to improve their living . They all want to improve their overall lot. It depends what is. I think when i look at civilization and progress i look at the world and say it is a better place. Its less violent. Its healthier. People live longer. Less children die at birth. More people read. There is greater communication. There is actually greater transparency. All these things are good things. Do you think that what is driving this civilization is engineering, what is the relationship between civilization and the progress ofcivilization and engineering . Theres more to progress in engineering, theres more to progress and discovery. What it does is provide the opportunity but the inaction of it in the end comes to the rules of society. Producing the right environment for progress to take place. But that of course is the act of politics and Public Policy so economic signals are needed for example to develop products. They always are. And thats something that is engineered naturally, its something that the public and therefore the representatives of the public get done because people think its the right thing to do. Youre in a fantastic position because you are a part of the uk power, you can do something none of us can do in here but what do you do, what could you do being a representative of the people in the Uk Parliament . Remember, we are a second chamberwithout budget accountability. But you still have the megaphone. You certainly have a platform from which, so i talk about the things that im interested in but i do believe need to change. Things like Climate Change for example. Things like the Energy Provision and of course ive been a very big advocate for lgbt rights and ive used that platform for these positions. Do you see that you are successful . In some cases it moves very slowly, some cases very quickly. Or example i think the reforms in lgbt rights move quickly through parliament and i was one of the voices which i think moving forward. I think some of these things for example in Climate Change, we are not i think quite yet at the point where enough of all populations want something done. I think we are in europe. I think it is on the agenda, probably at the top of the agenda of the incoming european president. Its certainly on the agenda of every politician in the United Kingdom so something will be done. I think probably we will move to make that happen and i see increasingly not so much at the federal level but at different state levels in the United States the same thing is happening here. In those societies project progress is higher, you have more progress or you have societies that they have inclusion and diversity. Generally its more sustainable area and its much moresustainable. Very often i think theres this, would you prefer to work with a dictator or a democracy . And people immediately leap to the conclusion that a dictatorship you can get a decision made very quickly. That may be true but equally it can be unmade very quickly. In a democracy it may take longer but it certainly takes longer to unmake the decision. So this is where i think youre going with the grain of society. Thats where i think you have to be very careful. We have, what is the role of art in civilization, talking aboutengineering, what is the role of art . Art i would think and lightens, educates and entertains humans. It enlightens them. They have to have the ability and the means whereby and i think if we were simply surviving, we would just be in survival mode, what we think about as art changes or perhaps even disappears but when we take the time to think about what were going to do as we survived, then art provides enlightenment. It provides certainly education and it transfers what one generation does to anotherone. And these are very important aspects and it also entertains. In page 7 of the journal of this book you write that the profit for this book will go to a Charitable Trust where they would be used for the education and support of the arts. Correct. What is going to happen with that money that comes fromthe book . They go to a place where for sure there will simply be used for the education of people who cant afford to be educated in these topics. Thats whatits used for. Im going to stop talking about the book right now and what say we go to the very last page. What would you like the reader to do . What is the action that you want the readers to do once they have closed the book because they have read the very last page . This is not a book of action or a business book and i say improve yourself from the following of things but it is a book which i hope allows you to say let me think about whats going on and look at different ways of making things better. And having a dialogue which is based on a littlemore information. So i think thats what id like to have is people thinking that progress is a good thing. That can be continued. That bad things can be sorted out in the end, but we must keep going and we do have to make some Big Decisions on some existential threats. And we need to get those done soon. Hopefully we will discover a bit about the book and uncover a little bit of john browne. Are there anything that are more important theories about the arguments asking questions and so if anyone wants to represent you or do it in another way, this is the moment to get the audience thinking about it. I have lots ofquestions from the audience. So several people wanted to know if John Lgbt Browne can give us insight on brexit. Its actually a bit easier tonight as i believe were going to have an election on 12 december. And i think thats very important because managing the house of commons, the first chamber, the Principal Chamber of the elective representatives in the United Kingdom without having a majority, without the government having a majority is provingto be quite impossible. We are committed under a referendum which doesnt sit very well with the way the systems work in the uk, both with the population that voted to leave your, so that must be honored and we will proceed to do that and unless the election miraculously produces a party in charge that doesnt want to do it. It seems everybody, well it seems the majority want to leave your and that means we will dothat. Personally i wanted to stay but now the election of the will of the people is to leave and we will leave. So more of that later. I would say that i have a record of forecasting in this area which is roughly 10 mistakes, no successes. Why would you like to stay . Because im a Firm Believer that a greater collection of people creates in europe in particular reduces tension because when we Work Together, we trained together and there will be intentionwhich is important in this area. Its been too divided for too long. So thats. 1 and. 2, a practical matter we trade very heavily with each other and we should probably Stay Together to do that. We also do science and engineering together and we should continue to do that. Having said all that weve decided to go and im confident the uk will do very well. It has to change what its doing but it needs to be inspired to create a new future. This is a good segue to another question and in one of these im combining because theyre similar. What leadership is needed to progress towards lower Carbon Economy . I think there has to be an acceptance on the leadership level in companies and in the leadership level of the relevant political bodies and action now needs to be taken which is realistic anddone in a clear eyed way. Many people around the world not i think in texas are saying we must get rid of hydrocarbons. I dont think that is actually possible, its not possible. I believe we will be consuming about the same level of hydrocarbons in 20 40 as we are doing today. Its not going to growmuch. But we need to get people to say thatgiven that, how do we decolonize . How do we d carbonized and for example do we collect Carbon Dioxide that results from burning it and take it away in seacrest or it, bury it and do we convert it into hydrocarbons in particular natural gas into hydrogen and Carbon Dioxide and then bury it but use the hydrogen to burn, not the hydrocarbon. This is a wellknown Chemical Engineering technique. What else do we do . I think thats one area. We have all the basic technology we need to apply but in order to apply it to a wide scale, it needs proper economic incentives or disincentives. And thats where the Public Policy comes in. But that is what they should be advocating. I think it goes with the grain of younger generations to certainly speak into the data and the forecast as we see it today. It would be pretty consistent, theyve been saying the same thing for a long time and today we see more localized evidence of damage occurring, whether that is the oceans or its unusualfreak weather. So i think its time to do something about this. And it would have been easier had we started a long time ago because the problem would be smaller. We talk about reducing carbon, where are we, where do you see the biggest impacts coming from Nuclear Energy orbatteries or storage . If i may their two different things, one is the use of hydrocarbons which are powerful things. There are a lot of, they have enormous amounts of energy in one else. And in fact the only other thing which brings more energy is uranium but there are plenty of other problems with Nuclear Power that many neighborhoods dont like them in theirneighborhood. Some do. So the rate of growth is determined by Public Perceptions but theres hydrocarbons and then theres Everything Else. And Everything Else is Renewable Energy, solar and wind. Its biofuels made from plants, notably sugarcane. Its hydro, its nuclear. All these things add up to a smaller portion of Global Energy that is expanding and thats why if the population of theworld grows and the economy of the world grows , it will use very much more oil and gas so we need to continue to develop that. Very different approach to Energy Provisions with some complexity to do with changing the way we transmit the Energy Around the world, around a nation and how we store it when it cant be made but the sun only shines during the day, of the wind only blows at a certain time of the day. And so at night we need another way of making electricity. And or storing it. And that has limitations at the moment but i would expect people to make breakthroughs in that area to. Can you comment on the plastics pollution in the ocean which is a pressing crisis. It certainly is and you have to ask where it all comes from and quite a lot i think floats down the yangtze and game ganges. And the biggest problem is connecting the plastic. If you could collect it then you could do something with it and theres no reason why in the United States and europe we shouldnt be doing just that. Collecting it and either transforming it into a lower quality plastic or else burning it for energy doing something with the Carbon Dioxide so thats all possible. We should probably use less of it. There are some plastics and theyre very difficult to capture, but we have to rethink whether we should really use these things. Is there a substitute, but we again shouldnt get carried away. I wouldnt like to, many people say lets ban plastic, lets reduce it. There are some applications that are truly modern wonders , in particular in medicine. I think there are probably people who will remember having injections with glass syringes and steel needles which used to be put into an autoclaveto be made stare ill. Nowadays we just unwrap something which is preloaded and we get it and no one can see it. Everything in medicine is wrapped up with plastics. We need to keep doing this, otherwise we will suffer. We will get infections that we dont like or we will be inconvenient so plenty of other things like that and other plastics also go into the things that are readily recycled. So parts of cars and things like that. Thats a very different matter. Its all this waste that just gets thrown away and wanders into the ocean and then into fish, thats very bad. Can you comment on deepwater horizon and what weve learned since then . I cant do it firsthand because i wasnt ceo of bp at the time but i think we learned , i think the industry learned a lot of decisionmaking, how every decision needs to be checked and double checked because of the drilling for oil is a hazardous, deeply hazardous process thats been well known to be hazardous and every decision therefore has to be checked and double checked before its made, before its acted upon so if you think about it its like checking in an airplane and the pilots go through checklist and im sure they all know that its fine, but they take it very seriously. I think we learned something about that in the orders and the discussion on the rig but thats the process point. We learned to that very large disasters and wipeout companies and bp was very close to being, very severely damaged if not at the edge. Its come back with good leadership, but it was something that people remember vividly. A small set of bad decisions creates a very big disaster. Iq. Can you comment on Artificial Intelligence and our future of giving Computers Power . Ill try and summarize this. I think Artificial Intelligence is a great thing and its good to see it developed with specific applications. So everything from ophthalmology which got lots of ai applications driving diagnosis very well through to the way in which i think you all, your suggestions for research are presented to you on your screen depending on your habits is all actually a little application of ai and it continues to get better and better and it continues to look as if its intrusive so lets be careful how its policed. Again, its not about ai, its about how we use it and what we think about when we do that and what regulations and engineering events it beingabused. I think theres a big scare which is artificial general intelligence which is can you build a human . I think were probably a very long if not an infinite way away from this actually happening. We cant define human intelligence. Before you build somethingyou need to define what youre doing. In the case of specific applications, you can define what youre doing. You know what the objective is. And you can define it. In the case of human intelligence we dont understand and were looking at brains, we dont understandthose very well. We can understand a fruit flys brain and how it smells and does things like that area and a mouses brain is a little bit more complicated, we understand that and the human brain are nowhere close to understanding a microstructure of the brain. We understand basic things but actually emulating it will i think take a lot of time though i dont get too scared about someone coming to see me who is not me, who i cant turn off and when i ask, when i say you know, i would like everything that you touched into gold to do it. The world is suffocated by everything being gold. I dont think were going to get there ever, but i may be wrong when or not archaeologists take this book out in 150 years and say what a strange person who didnt believe in the future of us robots. Maybe ill be wrong and i think i might be right. So what kind of car you drive and is it economical . I drive two cars so that in itself isuneconomical. And since i always tell the truth ill tell you what they are. First is an ed, its a golf ev. Its a very nice car. Its actually quite expensive for what it is and therein lies the story about ev. They need to get less expensive otherwise they will not energize the market. Your current paying a big obvious premium to gasoline and an ev golf. You can see the difference. But its a very fine car for in town driving. My second car is a large mercedes. And i enjoy that very much. I used to be on the board of mercedes and i would expect that one day it will be converted into a hybrid as a mercedes and then into an electric mercedes but we will see how that goes. Do you see a trend growing with electric vehicles . Yes but i think a few things need to be done. It got to be engineered down to an affordable level because i think theres a limit to what people will spend on an automobile area. I think we covered most everything. Can you comment on how the internet ischanged engineering . Tremendously. Its changed everything in the act of building and discovery and the building because you can get many more opinions in one place very quickly. So you can have teams build from faraway places with different ideas, different views. You can access the past very quickly, its changed everything. Sometimes not well. As there is no Due Diligence done on what you learn but you can certainly learn a lot and you can collaborate in ways that were inconceivable when i was practicing first as an engineer. Help me thank doctor daniel ministry for being here. And especially our special guest john browne, maker, for being with us. [applause] the cspan city store is exploring the american story as we take the tv and American History tv on the road with reports from our cable partners, this weekend we traveled to charlestonwest virginia. Coming up in the next hour