Data collection and communications
John holds an engineering degree. His aircraft Airglow first flew on the 20th of July 1990 at Duxford airfield. Airglow was one of the first contemporary human-powered aircraft to be constructed. With a span of 31.7 metres, or 104 ft, the aircraft has been so successful that it is still competing in flying competitions today.
John has been working for over 10 years on a major work with the provisional title “Earth: An inhabitants Guide to planning a Habitable future”.
The book maps the limits imposed on a technological civilisation by a finite planet. It describes the earth system in deep time and the alteration of that system by humans over the last 40,000 years. Humans have literally terraformed the planet as they migrated, hunted, and later farmed the once wild Earth. The effects can be seen in ice cores and in the altered structures of ecosystems. It describes agriculture, energy, transport, and housing using data mined from centuries of reports and journals. It uses this information to explore what is possible and what is impossible, thus providing the outline of a reliable map that is intended to be useful to policy makers and of interest to undergraduates in all disciplines.