Nobody Mentioned It, But Do We Stand To Lose Our Best Defence Against Climate Change?

You've probably never heard of the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility. We hadn't. And after reading the 2017 Federal Budget, the indications are we never will again.

Here's why this matters.

The increasingly eroded Gold Coast coastline. It is just
a few km from the National Climate Change
Adaptation Research Facility, which exists to help us
manage problems like this, but whose funding
 is set to run out.

The NCCARF, in its own words, "works to support decision makers throughout Australia as they prepare for and manage the risks of climate change and sea-level rise”.

This means it's Australia's only government-funded body which takes established climate science, assesses the likely impacts of climate change, then tells us what the heck we should do about it.

You can see examples of NCCARF'S excellent work here, here or here. It provides solid, practical advice and strategies for dealing with things which affect so many Australians -- like more intense heatwaves and bushfires, and increased coastal erosion.

Read the Huffpost story - “Nobody Mentioned It, But Do We Stand To Lose Our Best Defence Against Climate Change?”

Webinars to help us better understand and counter climate change

The better we understand the implications and complications of climate change, the better the chance we have of countering this troubling dilemma.

And helping us improve what it is we know about the damage we have caused to the atmosphere and how best we should respond will be a series of webinars coordinated and presented by Australia’s National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCARRF).

The series of four webinars will be held from later this month through to May - they are free and you can register here: NCCARF Adaptation Webinars.

Climate change adaptation needs a rich social and practical infrastructure

L

eadership manifesting a rich social and practical infrastructure was among messages at Wednesday night’s Slap Adaptation forum organized by the Shepparton-based Slap Tomorrow.

Among the trio of speakers was the Director of the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCARF), Professor Jean Palutikof, from Griffith University on Queensland’s Gold Coast.

Prof Palutikof explained the facts of climate change and how what the world was experiencing was underpinned by science, and then discussed how people in the Goulburn Valley should respond.

She began her presentation with a wonderful picture of her maternal family on a farm illustrating that she had a long connection to the land.



Prof Jean Palutikof with a picture
of her maternal farming family.

The University of Melbourne’s Professor Snow Barlow, who has rich and broad experience in understanding how agricultural industries should respond to the quickly unfolding disruption, said any successful response may require a change in farming practices, and maybe even a change in what it was that people farmed.

A research officer with the Department of Agriculture and Food Systems at the University of Melbourne, who is based at the agriculture research station near Tatura, Rebecca Darbyshire, who completed her PhD under the guidance of Professor Barlow, also addressed the 30 or so people at Wednesday night’s forum.

Rebecca has a special interest in how climate change is altering the occurrence of frosts, the subsequent changes to bud-burst, what impact those slight, but important differences have on fruit quality, timing and general production.



Rebecca Darbyshire discusses the importance of
social infrastructure to climate change adaptation.

She told about how Queensland peanut growers eager to ensure they had both the needed warmth and water, invested heavily in a Northern Territory project that ultimately failed, not because of the science, but because of an inadequate social and practical and skills based infrastructure.



The event was staged with the cooperation and help of staff at the Shepparton campus of La Trobe University and it was the campus director, Sue Nalder, who welcomed those at the forum and provided the acknowledgement of country.

Fewer people than hoped for attended Wednesday’s forum, but despite that Slap Tomorrow officials were delighted with the outcome.