Will.i.am arrives by helicopter for flying visit to climate event

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/24/will-i-am-climate-debate?intcmp=122


Will.i.am with Prof Myles Allen of Oxford University at the Radcliffe Observatory this Monday talking about climate change and the Weatherathome project. Photograph: Duncan Clark/guardian.co.uk

The giant sash windows of Oxford's spectacular Radcliffe Observatory were designed to provide astronomers the best possible view of the starry heavens. But on Monday I found myself using them to scour the skies for something altogether less likely: a helicopter carrying rap superstar Will.i.am to the university to discuss, of all things, distributed climate change modelling.

Will.i.am (aka William Adams) is a busy man. Not content with his dayjob as a multi-Grammy-winning rapper, singer and producer, the Black Eyed Peas founder is also a judge on hit TV show The Voice, an actor, a creative adviser to computer chip manufacturer Intel and even a car maker. Little wonder, then, that his trip to Oxford was a flying one, both figuratively and literally.

It was the Intel connection that brought Will.i.am in a trademark sci-fi outfit, and his entourage, bursting into the Radcliffe Observatory, whooping in appreciation at the architecture. They'd come to meet and film Myles Allen, the academic behind the Guardian-backed weatherathome project, which enables anyone with a computer to contribute to atmospheric science. Like a screen-saver with a purpose, the system lets idle computers crunch models of the climate system to help pin down the links between global warming and extreme weather.

After a brief tutorial with Allen involving browsing through the dusty pages of the world's oldest continuous temperature record (with readings taken at the Radcliffe) and rolling weighted dice (to understand how some kinds of extreme weather events are becoming more likely), the rapper told me about his frustration that we're not yet solving climate change.