'Wisterian' to give his farewell lecture at University of Melbourne

A longtime friend of Beneath the Wisteria will this week give his farewell lecture at the University of Melbourne.

Professor
David Karoly.

Professor David Karoly became a “Wisterian” soon after the group was set up in 2011 and because of that connection has visited and spoken in Shepparton several times. He also spoke at the Tatura Transition Towns first annual film festival.

And only recently he visited and spoke at Beneath the Wisteria.

The climate scientist will soon be leaving the university to take up a position in Melbourne with the CSIRO.

That final lecture, entitled “Reflections on a decade of climate change research” will be held in the Fritz Lowe Theatre at midday on Wednesday, February 14 at the university’s School of Earth Sciences and ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science.

Professor Karoly said, “I joined the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne in May 2007 as an ARC Federation Fellow, with more research funding, more independence and more opportunities to tackle interesting problems than I’d ever had before.”

Pointing to Wednesday’s lecture he said, “I will reflect on the state of climate change science in 2007, at the time of the release of the IPCC Fourth Assessment. 

“I will then describe outcomes from some of the research projects I undertook with a group of outstanding graduate students and research fellows. These include attribution of extreme weather events, evaluation of impacts of climate change, multi-proxy paleoclimate reconstruction for Australia, and coupled stratospheric chemistry and climate modelling. 

“I will also reflect on developments in global and national climate change policy since 2007, a period of many ups and downs, and describe some of my engagement at the science-policy interface and in the media over the last decade. It certainly hasn’t been boring!” he said.

More information is available from Clair Denby at the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute.

‘Daring to Doubt': Tony Abbott to address London climate sceptic group

Former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott is to give the annual lecture to a London-based climate sceptic group.

Tony Abbott will give his speech, entitled Daring
to Doubt, to the London-based Global Warming
 Policy Foundation on 9 October.

Abbott will give his speech, entitled Daring to Doubt, to the London-based Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) on 9 October.

The GWPF is led by former UK chancellor Nigel Lawson, who recently incorrectly told the BBC the global temperature had “slightly declined” in the past decade. The BBC was heavily criticised for allowing Lawson to make factually inaccurate assertions unchallenged.

Abbott becomes the second former Australian prime minister to be hosted by the GWPF. In 2013, John Howard – Abbott’s old boss and political mentor – delivered the annual address.

Read Karl Mathieson’s story on The Guardian - “‘Daring to Doubt': Tony Abbott to address London climate sceptic group.”