Posts Tagged ‘climate change’
Fair Share: Country & City in Australia
Posted in Opinion, Visions by Kate Archdeacon on June 15th, 2011
Image: MargaretNapier via flickr CC
For many decades Australia was the country that rode on the sheep’s back. No more – now we are a country of mining and services. In the new Wheeler Centre Quarterly Essay, one of Australia’s most original and respected political thinkers, Judith Brett, looks at what this has meant for the country and the city in our politics and culture. What will be the fate of rural and regional Australia in an era of economic rationalisation, water cutbacks, climate change, droughts and flooding rain? Does urban Australia care for or understand the country anymore?
The Wheeler Centre, 6:15PM – 7:15PM, Thursday 16 June 2011
Free event; recommended to make a booking.
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Climate Change Is Real: an open letter from the scientific community
Posted in Movements, Opinion, Research by Kate Archdeacon on June 15th, 2011
Photo: California Academy of Sciences, the line attributed to Wallace Broecker, Scientist, by jinxmcc via flickr CC
…The Conversation launches a two-week series from the nation’s top minds on the science behind climate change and the efforts of “sceptics” to cloud the debate.
The overwhelming scientific evidence tells us that human greenhouse gas emissions are resulting in climate changes that cannot be explained by natural causes. Climate change is real, we are causing it, and it is happening right now.
Like it or not, humanity is facing a problem that is unparalleled in its scale and complexity. The magnitude of the problem was given a chilling focus in the most recent report of the International Energy Agency, which their chief economist characterised as the “worst news on emissions.” Limiting global warming to 2°C is now beginning to look like a nearly insurmountable challenge.
Like all great challenges, climate change has brought out the best and the worst in people. A vast number of scientists, engineers, and visionary businessmen are boldly designing a future that is based on low-impact energy pathways and living within safe planetary boundaries; a future in which substantial health gains can be achieved by eliminating fossil-fuel pollution; and a future in which we strive to hand over a liveable planet to posterity. At the other extreme, understandable economic insecurity and fear of radical change have been exploited by ideologues and vested interests to whip up ill-informed, populist rage, and climate scientists have become the punching bag of shock jocks and tabloid scribes. Aided by a pervasive media culture that often considers peer-reviewed scientific evidence to be in need of “balance” by internet bloggers, this has enabled so-called “sceptics” to find a captive audience while largely escaping scrutiny.
Australians have been exposed to a phony public debate which is not remotely reflected in the scientific literature and community of experts. Beginning today [Sunday June 13], The Conversation will bring much-needed and long-overdue accountability to the climate “sceptics.” For the next two weeks, our series of daily analyses will show how they can side-step the scientific literature and how they subvert normal peer review. They invariably ignore clear refutations of their arguments and continue to promote demonstrably false critiques.
We will show that “sceptics” often show little regard for truth and the critical procedures of the ethical conduct of science on which real skepticism is based. The individuals who deny the balance of scientific evidence on climate change will impose a heavy future burden on Australians if their unsupported opinions are given undue credence. The signatories below jointly authored this article, and some may also contribute to the forthcoming series of analyses.
Are you a scientist? Do you agree? If you’d like to add your name to the list, send an email to megan.clement@theconversation.edu.au The next installment in our series is from Karl Braganza at the Bureau of Meteorology. The greenhouse effect is real: here’s why.
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Go to the original article on The Conversation to read the list of signatories – it’s far too big to include here!
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Garnaut Climate Change Review Update 2011: Live Webcast
Posted in Events, Research by Kate Archdeacon on June 7th, 2011
| 16 June , 2011 | ||
| 6:30 pm | to | 7:30 pm |
In November 2010, Professor Ross Garnaut was commissioned to provide an update to the 2008 Climate Change Review for the Australian Government and community. Since then, the Garnaut Climate Change Review Update 2011 has released a series of papers addressing developments across a range of areas including climate change science and impacts, international mitigation progress, carbon pricing, land, innovation, and the electricity sector. Professor Garnaut will deliver his final report to the Prime Minister on 31 May 2011. At this forum, he will discuss the key findings of his update and present his recommendations for action on climate change in the national interest. For further information see www.garnautreview.org.au.
Thursday June 16, 6:30 – 7:30pm
This public lecture is presented to you by the University of Melbourne, the Faculty of Business and Economics, the Melbourne Energy Institute and the Melbourne Sustainability Society Institute.
The lecture is full – Please REGISTER to receive webcast link information.
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National Day of Action: Support a Carbon Price
Posted in Events by Kate Archdeacon on May 26th, 2011
| 5 June , 2011 | ||
| 11:00 am | to | 1:00 pm |
National Day of Action: Melbourne
Over the next few weeks the Government will decide whether to be ambitious when setting their carbon price and investments in renewable energy, or whether to give in to the big polluters. As we’ve seen before, often the loudest voice wins. That’s where you come in. We have one thing the opponents of a carbon price don’t: people power. We’re joining with organisations that together represent over three million Australians to organise massive rallies across the country on June 5. But people power is like a muscle: if you don’t use it, you lose it. Can you join us on June 5 for a fun, family-friendly rally to say “yes” to a price on pollution and clean energy?
Come along to the family friendly National Day of Action and show the government that the Australian community supports real and effective action to solve climate change. You can RSVP on the Get Up site.
On June 5 – come along to the State Library of Victoria at 11am. Say ‘Yes’ to cutting carbon pollution and to a cleaner Australia!
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Photo: Walk Against Warming, 2009, © Get Up! Action for Australia
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Transitions to Sustainability in Agriculture: Public Lecture
Posted in Events, Research by land-environment on May 17th, 2011
| 24 May , 2011 | ||
| 5:30 pm | to | 7:00 pm |
Date: Tuesday 24th May
Time: 5.30pm
Speaker: Professor Pamela Matson
Chester Naramore Dean of the School of Earth Sciences
Stanford University
Richard and Rhoda Goldman Professor of Environmental Studies
Location: Lower Theatre, Melbourne School of Land and Environment Building, University of Melbourne
Earth is undergoing rapid population growth, urbanization, industrial growth, and consumption of natural resources, with concomitant changes in the global life support systems. How can we meet the needs of the 9 billion people while at the same time sustaining the ecosystems, air, water and climate systems on which we rely for our and future generations’ well-being and survival? Professor Matson will discuss some of the critical challenges at the nexus of food, water and global environmental change, and will present research examples from a multi-disciplinary project in Mexico in which use-inspired research both improved scientific understanding and contributed to sustainable management approaches.
To register, please visit: http://www.land-environment.unimelb.edu.au/deanslectures/matson
There Once Was An Island: Australian Premiere
Posted in Events by Kate Archdeacon on May 17th, 2011
| 20 May , 2011 | ||
| 6:30 pm | to | 8:00 pm |
There Once Was An Island: Australian Premiere
The Indigenous people of Takuu, a tiny low-lying atoll in the South Western Pacific, have an impossible decision to make. Water is rising, and as their land starts to disappear, their way of life is under threat. But there are more immediate dangers. As they prepare for a terrifying tidal flood to rip through their community, they must ask the question: do we stay, or do we leave our homeland forever? There Once was an Island reveals the human face of climate change in the Pacific, challenging audiences everywhere to consider their own relationship to the earth and the other people on it.
6:30 pm, Friday, 20 May 2011
ACMI, Australian Centre for the Moving Image
Part of the Human Rights Art & Film Festival: http://hraff.org.au/
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Liveable & Just Toolkit: Regional Workshops
Posted in Events, Research by Kate Archdeacon on May 6th, 2011
| 12 May , 2011 | to | 17 June , 2011 |
Source: Victorian Local Governance Association via Mt Alexander Sustainability Group Inc (MASG)
The Liveable & Just Toolkit is the culmination of a project to explore how local governments across Victoria are responding to the social and equity impacts of climate change.
In June 2009 the Victorian Local Governance Association (VLGA) and Melbourne University’s McCaughey Centre travelled across the state to hear directly from local governments about issues of priority, success stories, challenges, and lessons learned in addressing the social and equity impacts of climate change. Workshops covered crucial issues such as heatwaves and bushfires, rising costs of water, energy and transport, physical and mental health, and the heightened vulnerability of groups such as the mentally ill, homeless, aged, and infants. In response to workshop outcomes and recommendations, the Liveable & Just Toolkit provides a practical framework to help integrate responses to the social and equity impacts of climate change across council activities. It also presents ideas and suggestions for local government to respond to climate change in ways that simultaneously promote social justice.
Toolkits available for download from the website:
- Addressing social and equity impacts of climate change: The case for local government action
- Reducing vulnerability: Strategies for local government to identify and help reduce vulnerability to climate change
- Engaging communities: Tips for effective and inclusive climate change community engagement
- Building resilience: Ideas for local government to strengthen community resilience to climate change
The toolkit is designed for use by those in roles of varying seniority within the local government sphere and across a range of council activities including sustainability, health and wellbeing, economic and community development, and planning. The toolkit will also be highly relevant to community organisations working alongside or in direct partnership with local governments.
Visit the website for more information on the toolkit.
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Regional Workshops: May-June 2011
The VLGA will deliver a series of workshops in regional Victoria in May and June, sponsored by mecu Ltd and hosted by local governments and regional cities. These will enable you to use the toolkit to build on existing organisational and community strengths in addressing a range of climate-related social and equity impacts.
Workshop dates and locations – all sessions run 9.30am-4pm
Bendigo: Thursday 12 May Capital Theatre, View St
Ballarat: Thursday 19 May Town Hall, Sturt St
Wodonga: Thursday 26 May Wodonga TAFE, 87 McKoy St, West Wodonga
Mildura: Friday 3 June Alfred Deakin Centre, 180 Deakin Ave (Cnr 12th St)
Latrobe: Friday 17 June Quality Inn Latrobe Convention Centre, Princes Hwy Traralgon
Visit the workshop website to register or find out more.
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Why We Disagree About Climate Change: Public Lecture
Posted in Events, Opinion, Research by land-environment on April 27th, 2011
| 3 May , 2011 | ||
| 5:30 pm | to | 7:00 pm |
Climate change is not “a problem” waiting for “a solution”. It is an environmental, political and cultural phenomenon that is reshaping the way we think about ourselves, about our societies and about humanity’s place on Earth.
Based on some of the ideas contained in Prof. Mike Hulme’s recent book, Why We Disagree About Climate Change, this lecture dissects this idea of climate change – where it came from, what it means to different people in different places and why we disagree about it. It also develops a different way of approaching the idea of climate change and of working with it. Rather than seeing “stopping climate change” as the universal project around which the world must be mobilised at all costs, the idea of climate change gives us new resources – new insights, new vocabularies, new myths – which can be used creatively in our bewildering diversity of human projects. We must use the idea of climate change to open up new spaces for innovation, change and diversity, rather than try to align the world in search of one unattainable utopia. And we must accommodate disagreement by adopting a plural approach in our responses to climate change.
Biography:
Mike Hulme is professor of climate change in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia (UEA). He was the Founding Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research from 2000 to 2007. His work explores the idea of climate change using historical, cultural and scientific analyses, seeking to illuminate the numerous ways in which climate change is deployed in public and political discourse. His two most recent books are Why We Disagree About Climate Change: understanding controversy, inaction and opportunity (2009) and, with Henry Neufeldt, the edited volume Making Climate Change Work For Us (2010) which is a synthesis of the research findings of the EU FP6 Integrated Project ‘ADAM: Adaptation and Mitigation Strategies’. He is editor-in-chief of the new review journal: Wiley’s Interdisciplinary Reviews (WIREs): Climate Change.
Tuesday 3rd May
Time: 5.30pm
Speaker: Professor Mike Hulme
Professor of Climate Change
School of Environmental Sciences
University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
Location: Lower Theatre, Melbourne School of Land and Environment Building, University of Melbourne
To register, visit: http://www.land-environment.unimelb.edu.au/deanslectures/hulme/
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Farmers Cannot Afford to Ignore Climate Change: Article
Posted in Movements, Opinion by Kate Archdeacon on April 8th, 2011
Image: Looking Glass via flickr CC
From “Climate Change Convert” by Kate Dowler in The Weekly Times:
Farmers cannot afford to ignore climate change, whether they believe in the science or not. And if agriculture does not have a seat at the negotiations table with big industries such as coal, they will “end up on the menu”.
This is the view of leading Western District farmer, Mark Wootton, a self-described climate-change sceptic turned renewable energy lobbyist. The trained geographer says his view changed as the weight of scientific evidence that human actions were causing climate change grew, and he now accepts the validity of the mainstream scientific view. Now he argues that whether they “believe” the science of climate change or not, farmers can benefit by learning more about carbon markets. And he says farming is to play a big role in solving climate change but to enable this, governments urgently need to put more money into extensive agricultural research and development.
Mr Wootton began looking at climate change from a business-risk perspective in the late 1990s. “The risk is there’s a high probability that the science is absolutely correct,” he said. “From a farmer’s perspective, I think we have to accept we’ve moved into a carbon-constrained world. Forget about the politics and look at the risk to your business.” Mr Wootton runs 5000ha at Hamilton with wife Eve Kantor. They produce beef, wool, lambs, crops and agroforestry. He also chairs the Climate Institute, a non-partisan, independent research organisation. “My fear now is there’s a high probability that the climate is changing much quicker than the scientists’ earlier models showed,” he said, “What is unfortunately becoming clearer is that predictions were way too conservative.”
“From a business perspective, I’ve concluded the cost and advantages of acting are not detrimental to our business; if we can be more energy-efficient, if we can be better converters of feed so we produce less methane, if we can use shelter belts for stock protection and increasing lambing percentages – all of those aspects we can do on an integrated, carbon-constrained farm, then they are good for business.”
Read the full article by Kate Dowler in The Weekly Times.
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Victorian Food Supply Scenarios: Impacts on Availability of a Nutritious Diet
Posted in Research by Kate Archdeacon on April 6th, 2011
The report of the Victorian Food Supply Scenarios: Impacts on Availability of a Nutritious Diet project has been released. This VEIL-led research project was funded by VicHealth and undertaken in partnership with the CSIRO, Deakin University and the Victorian Department of Planning and Community Development.
The purpose of this project was to develop and demonstrate a new methodology to link land and resource use with availability of a nutritionally adequate food supply for Victoria’s population.
To do so, it has built the capability of the CSIRO stocks and flows model as a platform for on-going ‘what-if’ investigation of Victorian and Australian food supply security.
The full report and a summary version are available for download on the VEIL website. www.ecoinnovationlab.com
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