Description: This Faraday lecture sets the audience on an 'Emission Impossible' and poses the question 'can technology save the planet?' - from pollution, increasing deforestation, melting polar ice caps and natural disasters including Hurricane Katrina, which struck just six months before this lecture took place. Glossy production values and dynamic live demonstrations, using participants from the audience, help show how energy is created and used and the problems different sources of energy such as fossil fuels create. Ice cubes, blue liquid and a blow torch are used to good effect to show how the greenhouse effect causes rising sea levels.

But it's not all doom and gloom: solutions are also presented, from smart metering to a completely redesigned energy efficient house. Controversially, perhaps, nuclear power is presented as a viable option, though the ideal solutions shown for a carbon neutral future are renewable power sources such as wind, wave and tide turbines, and solar panels. The lecture culminates with a tour round fictional rapper and film star I.B. Green's crib with a tongue-in-cheek look at what the house of the near future could be - with the help of the future scientists and engineers in the audience!