Trio of webinars will boost our understanding of climate change

A trio of upcoming webinars will help people better understand the implications and complications of climate change.

Australia’s National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF) has organised the three webinars.

The first of the webinars, “Climate change, extremes and sea-level rise - where are we heading?” is on Friday, February 23, at 3:00 pm in Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania and the ACT, 2:00pm in Queensland, 2:30 pm in South Australia, 1:30 pm in the Northern Territory and midday in Western Australia.

The February 23 panel will include 

• Professor Jean Palutikof (NCCARF Director) - Moderator

• Dr Karl Braganza (Bureau of Meteorology)

• Dr Kathy McInnes (CSIRO)

The second webinar on Monday, March 5, will be “Good weather guaranteed - how climate change might transform tourism”.

Those on the panel for that event will be:

• Dr Sarah Boulter (NCCARF) - Moderator

• Professor Catherine Pickering (Griffith University)

        • Professor Susanne Becken (Griffith University) 

The times for this second webinar will be the same as for the first.

Coming up for the third webinar on Monday, March 19 will be “Coastal planning and governance under climate change and sea-level rise”.

Speakers for that event will be :

• Professor Jean Palutikof (NCCARF Director) - Moderator

• Jo Mummery (University of Canberra)

        • Bruce Thom (Wentworth Group of Concern Scientists) 

The times for this third event will be the same as for the first two.

Each webinar will feature two experts and an opportunity for those going the webinars to ask questions and interact with our experts.

Those keen to participate should register for the webinars at Eventbrite.

'Sad' - funding withdrawn from NCCARF at critical time

The demise of the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility [NCCARF] is personally distressing for many reasons.

First, at precisely the time when the Australian Government should be plunging money into a project whose role it to understand climate change adaptation, it is heading in the opposite direction cutting NCCARF’s funding.

Storms of unprecedented intensity rage in parts of Australia, presently in Queensland and New South Wales, and other parts are in climatic disarray as they struggle with human-induced weather changes that have produced fires and conditions so dry that it would be a brave person prepared to declare we are not in drought.

Secondly, and personally, NCCARF gave me my “15 minutes of fame”, so to speak, in that it allowed me national exposure of my climate change mitigation idea – the “Four-hour Work Day”.

Although unable to attend the 2011 annual NCCARF conference in Melbourne as I was in Queensland with my brother who has cancer, the conference organizers were good enough to permit the showing of a poster about my idea.

Being unable to attend the conference and speak to my poster, I created a blog explaining the idea, but sadly I haven’t paid it much attention over the past several weeks, but the idea seems to be even more important now – here is the blog address: http://fewerhours.blogspot.com.au/?view=classic.

Concern for the demise of NCCARF was raised following a story on the ABC headed: “Key climate change body loses Government funding”.

Second call for climate change abstracts

Those with something to say about climate change should submit an abstract to The National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF) for its 2012 annual conference.

The conference, which has the theme of “Climate Adaptation in Action: sharing knowledge to adapt”, will bring together researchers, practitioners and decision makers to share knowledge and research approaches.

This knowledge and subsequent approaches will inform policy and practice in planning for climate change with the goal of ensuring Australia is adapting well to climate change.

This is the second call for abstracts and submissions close on February 17, 2012 and any abstract should be no more than 300 words.
To register for the June 26-28 conference at Melbourne’s Sebel Hotel or to submit an abstract visit the NCCARF website.

NCCARF helps us understand climate change risks

Those considering their response to climate change would do well to spend some time looking through the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility’s (NCCARF) website.

NCCARF is the leading the research community in a national interdisciplinary effort to generate the information needed by decision-makers in government and in vulnerable sectors and communities to manage the risks of climate change impacts.