Climate change and the new work order

The audiovisual trolley in my primary school was a thing of majesty. An industrial-grey metal tower housing stacks of heavy plastic VCRs and a convex-screened television, it would herald its entry to the classroom with gentle squeaks, rolling slowly with a train of yellow and grey cords in its wake. Its arrival was a rare but invariably exciting portent of good tidings: an hour or more sitting cross-legged on the sand-flecked carpet in cool semi-darkness rather than sitting at our fluorescent-lit desks. It was in such a constellation that I experienced my climate epiphany, one afternoon in the spring of 1989.

We won’t solve the biggest challenges if they’re not reflected in the work we do.

I don’t remember the name of the documentary we watched, or even the teacher who showed it to us, beyond his spectacular moustache and fondness for lessons on “bush survival skills.” But I will never forget the graph I saw on the screen that day: a lime-green line, superimposed across an image of the earth, charting the rise of global surface temperatures since 1960. The line went up and steadily up, fading into ominous red as it approached the 1980s. There was no violent up-tick at the end, like the “hockey-stick graph” that would feature in An Inconvenient Truth seventeen years later. Nor did the line end in the splayed fingers of alternative “shared socioeconomic pathways” like the graph in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report twenty-eight years later. It nevertheless made a deep impression on me.

It was clear, from that line, that we were all going to have to do something, very urgently, to get it to go back down again.

Read the story from Inside Story by Frances Flanagan  - “Climate change and the new work order.”

Climate change and the new work order

The audiovisual trolley in my primary school was a thing of majesty. An industrial-grey metal tower housing stacks of heavy plastic VCRs and a convex-screened television, it would herald its entry to the classroom with gentle squeaks, rolling slowly with a train of yellow and grey cords in its wake. Its arrival was a rare but invariably exciting portent of good tidings: an hour or more sitting cross-legged on the sand-flecked carpet in cool semi-darkness rather than sitting at our fluorescent-lit desks. It was in such a constellation that I experienced my climate epiphany, one afternoon in the spring of 1989.

I don’t remember the name of the documentary we watched, or even the teacher who showed it to us, beyond his spectacular moustache and fondness for lessons on “bush survival skills.” But I will never forget the graph I saw on the screen that day: a lime-green line, superimposed across an image of the earth, charting the rise of global surface temperatures since 1960. The line went up and steadily up, fading into ominous red as it approached the 1980s. There was no violent up-tick at the end, like the “hockey-stick graph” that would feature in An Inconvenient Truth seventeen years later. Nor did the line end in the splayed fingers of alternative “shared socioeconomic pathways” like the graph in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report twenty-eight years later. It nevertheless made a deep impression on me.

It was clear, from that line, that we were all going to have to do something, very urgently, to get it to go back down again.

Read the Inside Story essay by Frances Flanagan - “Climate change and the new work order.”

Solar success for school

Congupna Primary School sailed into second and third place at the Australian International Model Solar Challenge on Sunday.

Principal Adam Cleary said it was a great achievement for the Years 4, 5 and 6 students who worked hard to create the best solar-powered boats they could.

 Parent Corey Rogers, teacher Clark Pettigrew,
 parent Robert Morley, students Josh Rogers,
 Mason Papadopoulos, Danielle Jarman,
 Stephen Morley and Ryan Lee.

The school has been entering the Victorian Model Solar Challenge for a number of years and has consistently done well.

This year the school was fortunate to have two teams, Sea Shockers and Solar Smashers, make it through to the national competition in Adelaide.

Sea Shockers took second, while Solar Smashers came third.

Mr Cleary said the school was thankful to the community for their ongoing support in helping the students go to Adelaide.

‘‘For a lot of them it was the first time they left the state or boarded an aeroplane or left home,’’ he said.

Mr Cleary said taking second and third place in a national competition was a great way to finish the year.

‘‘They really have done a fantastic job this year and everyone’s been so supportive in the Goulburn Valley,’’ he said.

Congupna Primary School is thankful to the following sponsors: The Fairley Foundation, Goulburn Valley Trades and Labour, Deakin University, Scienceworks, Moretto Building, Zeerust Plumbing and Gas and Kiwanis Club of Shepparton Sunrisers.

Story by Sionnie Kelly from today’s Shepparton News - “Solar success for school.”