Seminar on training green technologists online with ebooks, Adelaide, 19 - 20 May 2010

This is to offer a seminar on green technology, professional e-learning and e-books, Monday 19 or Tuesday 20 May in Adelaide.

I am an Adjunct Lecturer at the Australian National University (ANU) and a course designer for the Australian Computer Society (ACS). I will be in Adelaide for a meeting of ACS educators at University of Adelaide. So I thought I should offer a free seminar for anyone interested, assuming someone will provide a venue (ideally at or near Adelaide University).

My "Green Technology Strategies" e-learning course is offered to
University of South Australia postgraduate students as part of the 'Hubs and Spokes' Project with ANU.

The course was originally commissioned by the ACS for their globally accredited Computer Professional Education Program (first run February 2009) and is offered in the Postgraduate Program of Open Universities Australia from second semester 2010.

The textbook is available free online in the National Library of
Australia PANDORA Archive, as well as a print-on-demand book and Amazon Kindle e-Book.

The content of the course, as well as the techniques for preparing it to be part of a globally accredited program and converting the content of the Learning Management System into into a book, may be of interest.

Some recent talks:

• Mentored and Collaborative e-Learning for Postgraduate Professional Education
• Making e-Books for e-Learning on i-Pads

ps: The environment and technology do not necessarily mix. On a previous visit to an Adelaide technology park, I could not see the buildings for the trees and got lost. ;-)

Climate Change and Development Panel

Greetings from the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy at the Australian National University in Canberra. For a free panel on "Crises in human development: Climate Change: What does Copenhagen mean for the world’s poor?" The event did not start well, with a representative of ActionAid making an attack on western neo-liberalism. I didn't think would help with climate change or development.

Guest panellists:

• Dr Lorraine Elliott, Senior Fellow in International Relations, The Australian National University: Dr Elliott asked what forum should be used for climate change negotiation. She said the G20 was not suitable as it is not a formal legal international forum, concentrates on financial issues. The UN FCCC process is flawed but is deliberative and inclusive, or superior.
  
• Annemarie Watt, Negotiator, Department of Climate Change: Ms. Watt suggested we need to fundamentally change the way we are looking at the problem and come up with new solutions. She pointed out how complex and demanding the negotiation process is, with multiple streams and limited skilled negotiators. She noed that a the Copenhagen meeting the cohesiveness of the developing nations block broke down. She has an extensive background in environmental issues in government, but curiously I could find no mention of her on the Climate Change Department web site.
  
• Mr Phan Van Ngoc, Country Director ActionAid Vietnam: Mr. Van Ngoc argues that the Copenhagen agreement was for and by the rich. This may be true, but is not a useful observation. Obviously rich and powerful nations will act in their own interests. The question is how the interests of others can also be promoted. A more useful observation was that most of the negotiations were closed and by a small group of countries. His view, which I share, is that the negotiations had no useful outcome and were a waste of resources and effort. He pointed out the effect climate change will have on Vietnam and that the country has strategies to address this. This was useful for pointed out that this is not just an abstract political problem and that nations are taking action.
  

At question time I proposed that ANU help the Australian Government provide an online forum to assist future climate change negotiations. The panel pointed out that some developing nations had only limited Internet access and that face to face meetings were needed, particularly where high level political leaders are involved. But there seemed to be some support for the idea. Ms. Watt pointed out that Department for Climate Change makes extensive use of video conference, but are concerned by the limitations of the technology particularly for large groups and with technical glitches.

Negotiate Post Copenhagen Climate Change Online

Greetings from the Australian National University, in Canberra where "Post Copenhagen: Where Do We Go Now?" was just held. The event is also streamed live online.

Professor Will Steffen, Executive Director of the ANU Climate Change Institute hosted. More than 50 ANU staff and students attended the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009. They provided insights on what happened.

Some insights:

• One Russian spokesperson make commitments one day and a different one explained these were not going to be commitments the next day,
• Developing nations argued for financial help to mitigate climate change. There were allegations that this was being used to gloss over the lack of progress. There were also issues as to if any funding would be new and would actually be paid.

The Australian Government's Climate Change Ambassador will be speaking
at ANU tomorrow. My suggestion is that ANU should host online forums on behalf of the Australian Government to provide a low emission high efficiency place to negotiate the Copenhagen Climate Change global agreement. This could include training in how to negotiate efficiently as well as how to use online technology to do it.

Post Copenhagen Climate Change Event Online

The ANU Climate Change Institute will host a free event on climate change strategies "Post Copenhagen: Where Do We Go Now?" at the Australian National University , in Canberra, 12.00 pm to 1.20 pm, 23 February 2010. The event will also be streamed live online.

Professor Will Steffen, Executive Director of the ANU Climate Change Institute will host a post COP 15 Climate Change Conference public event.Get the inside story of what went on at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December.

Take the opportunity to engage with ANU students and researchers who attended the Conference. Internet live streaming will be available for people unable to make it to ANU on the day. The event is free. Students and the general public are most welcome. There will be an opportunity to ask questions and internet participants can interact through a live web forum. ...

How do we sleep while our bats are burning?

One of the uses for the Internet is to answer odd questions. As an example has anyone done the obvious parody of the Minister for Environment's difficulties with roof insulation: "How do we sleep while our batts are burning"? It turns out there are variations: "How Can He Sleep ...", "HOW CAN YOU SLEEP...", "How do you sleep... ". These are all parodies of "Beds Are Burning" sung by the Minister when with the band Midnight Oil, on the album Diesel & Dust (1987).

More seriously, there are problems with government policies to deal with climate change which select specific technologies. This is both a political problem for the government and a problem of efficient allocation of resources for the community. Due to the need to provide a quick economic stimulus, the Australian Government decided to subsidise the installation of insulation in domestic dwellings with its Home Insulation Program. This seemed a sensible policy. However, this resulted in a very large demand for insulation and a tendency for less well trained installers. Even if there were no more than the usual number of problems with insulation, because this is being done under a specific government program, their is a political cost of the government.

An alternative strategy would be to require a level of energy efficiency for new buildings. Another strategy would be a carbon tax or trading scheme. These would have the effect of influencing householders decision making. But it would be up to the householder to decide how to achieve the needed energy efficiency or deal with the cost of energy. It would not be up to the government to have to have policies and guidelines for every detailed decision by a householder, nor risk the political consequences of each decision. However, these schemes would not have an immediate effect, as was needed by the stimulus package.

Leichardt Climate Change Taskforce

The Leichardt Council in Sydney has formed a Climate Change Taskforce and aims to carbon neutral by 2012. There are two strategies being prepared: one for the council itself and one for the community. Meetings are held every two months, with the community invited (agenda and minutes are online).

The meetings are not well attended, with only six community members attending the last meeting in November 2009. I have suggested to Mayor of Leichhardt Jamie Parker (Greens) that the Council invite input online for those who can't attend in person. It would also help if the council replaced its hard to read PDF agenda and minutes with web pages. This would also reduce the greenhouse gas emissions caused by the documents. It would also make the information more widely avialable and promote what Leichardt is doing. A good model is the Green Technology Advisory Group for the town of Westborough, in Massachusetts, USA.

Climate Change Taskforce

Council has formed a Climate Change Taskforce to investigate:

• The policies and actions required for the Council to become carbon neutral by 2012 with an emphasis on carbon reductions and enhanced ecological sustainability; and
• To develop a program of actions that will reduce the carbon footprint of the community by addressing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, education and engagement with the wider community, and lobbying and advocacy.

The Climate Change Taskforce - Corporate Strategy and Community Strategy meet bi-monthly on the 1st Wednesday of the month commencing in March.

The Corporate Strategy meeting is held from 6pm - 7pm and the Community Strategy meeting is held from 7pm - 8pm in the Leichhardt Town Hall Supper Room. The community is welcome to attend the Community Strategy session.

2009

Agenda	Minutes
Climate Change November Agenda Community (127.02kB)	Climate Change November Minutes Community (281.79kB)
Climate Change November Agenda Corporate (673.06kB)	Climate Change November Minutes Corporate (126.19kB)
Climate Change September Agenda Community (391.75kB)	Climate Change September Minutes Community (25.20kB)
Climate Change September Agenda Corporate (694.48kB)	Climate Change September Minutes Corporate (49.61kB)
Climate Change July Agenda Community (134.67kB)	Climate Change July Minutes Community (187.71kB)
Climate Change July Agenda Corporate (182.74kB)	Climate Change July Minutes Corporate (23.38kB)
Climate Change May Agenda (60.00kB)	Climate Change May Minutes (236.98kB)
Climate Change Taskforce March Agenda (29.24kB)	Climate Change Taskforce March Minutes (33.66kB)

From: Climate Change Taskforce , Leichardt Council, 2009

Climate Change and Development

Ms Louise Hand, Australian Ambassador for Climate Change will be part of a free panel on "Crises in human development: Climate Change: What does Copenhagen mean for the world’s poor?" at the Australian National University in Canberra, 24 February 2010.

Guest panellists:

• Dr Lorraine Elliott, Senior Fellow in International Relations, The Australian National University
• Ms Louise Hand, Australia ’s Ambassador for Climate Change
• Mr Phan Van Ngoc, Country Director ActionAid Vietnam

Speaker/Host: Actionaid and Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy
Venue: APCD Lecture Theatre, Hedley Bull Centre ANU
Date: Wednesday, 24 February 2010
Time: 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Website: http://apcd.anu.edu.au
Enquiries: Frederique Blanc on 02 9565 9119, Andrea Haese on 02 6125 7983

Environment Department Wasting Energy on Letters

On 8 January I sent an email message to the Minster for Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts suggesting Internet enhanced meetings for post-Copenhagen climate change negotiations. Today I received reply from the Ministerial and Parliamentary Services. This anonymous message had a facsimile image of a letter attached (signed with an unreadable signature). The letter thanked me for my email and said my letter (I didn't send them a letter) had been referred to the Minister for Climate Change.

The attached letter was in the form of an image. The resulting file was about 100 times larger than it need be and would not be readable by those with limited vision. Government guidelines (and Australian law) require services to be provided in a way does not discriminate against people with a disability, including the blind. Routinely generating correspondence in the form of an image may constitute unlawful discrimination.

If communication was necessary (which it wasn't) all that was needed was a brief email. This would have been more readable and would used much few resources.

The Ministerial and parliamentary services handled about 20,000 items of ministerial correspondence last year. Assuming that a message similar to the one I got (about 40 kbytes of unnecessary data) was sent to each, that represents about 800 Mbytes of data. As this is correspondence the department will need to keep a copy on file for some years, wasting resources (including greenhouse gas causing energy) and increasing costs. So the Department's response to my suggestion for reducing greenhouse gas emissions has been to increase theirs.

The Australian Government has some excellent guidelines on how to handle communications (some of which I helped write). The Ministerial and Parliamentary Services of the Australian Department of Environment perhaps should read some of them.

Green Technology Strategies Hardback Book in Print

After some problems with the LuLu publishing system, the hardback edition of my book "Green Technology Strategies" is avialable (ISBN: 978-0-9806201-4-6) This took two hours to create, starting from the paperback edition.

The process of producing a hardback edition of an existing paperback book was something I thought would take a couple of minutes. LuLu.com have a button to push to create a hardback if you have already set up the files for a paperback. This seemed to work, copying all the book details to the hardback. I just had to specify if I wanted the book covered in cloth (with a dust jacket) or have a glossy printed paper cover (I went for the glossy paper).

The cover and book content were unchanged from the paperback. But then I noticed there was no where to enter the ISBN of the hardback (issued by Thorpe Bowker) which is different to the paperback. A check with the LuLu help files and some head scratching told me I had to go back a step before the one I started at. The problem was that LuLu assumed I would use an ISBN issued by them.

Then the subtitle on the cover did not quite line up the way it did on the paperback. This might be due to the slight difference in the size of the cover. A hardback cover extends a few mm beyond the pages of a book, whereas a paperback cover is the same size as the pages. I had to manually break the text in the subtitle so "carbon emissions" was on one line.

Then I found the LuLu price calculator kept rounding the price up one cent more than the amount I entered.

That all took about an hour to fix. Then I realised I had to modify the content of the book to include the new hardback ISBN in the front matter (LuLu automatically generates the ISBN and barcode for the book cover, but leaves the interior up to the book's creator). That required generating a new PDF file of the entire book and checking the pagination and paragraph numbering, then uploading it. Also I had to remember to upload the new front matter to the web version of the book and the e-learning version in the ANU Moodle content management system (which is the version my students actually read).

Last of all I found that the preview of the book (so people can browse before buying) was missing. The LuLu preview generator appeared to be producing a blank preview. After going through the process a few times I discovered the preview was being generated, just not displayed.

One thing which did work was that LuLU linked the downloadable e-book, paperback and hardcover editions of the book together, so that customers can see they have three versions to choose from.

All that took another hour. I guess that publishers earn their money after all. ;-)

White roofs and computers to combat climate change

I will be interviewed on Eastside 87.9 FM Radio in Sydney at 4pm Wednesday about how to save energy to combat climate change. This was promoted by a media report that the the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Robert Doyle, has proposed roofs of inner city buildings be painted white to make them cooler. According to ABC TV's Green Guru, this is plausible. However, before doing this I would suggest looking at insulating the roof. The Australian Government's Home Insulation Program provides up to $1,200 ceiling insulation in homes. But hopefully we will get around to talking about how computers and telecommunications can be used to reduce energy. In the case of high rise inner city buildings, the roof area is relatively small and painting it will make little difference to the energy use of the building.

In the case of apartments what will make a difference is lowering the amount of energy used in lighting, particularly by replacing halogen down-lights with more efficient compact fluorescent or LED lights. For office buildings what will make a difference is lowering the amount of heat generated by office equipment. Office equipment wastes energy in two ways: by directly using electricity and by the waste heat having to be extracted from the building by air conditioning. Some simple measures are to turn off screen savers of computers, set energy savings setting to turn the screen and disk drives off after a few minutes of non use and switch the computer to low power or off. Other measures include buying more energy efficient and less equipment. Two of my favourite savings are to buy lower power (cheaper) computers and to buy fewer printers.

ps:I n some cases Insulating Paint Additive might help for a roof. Perhaps even more exotically, reflective paint might be used. This would allow a roof to appear to be a dark colour, but would reflect light strongly from the direction it was shone. In the case of sunlight, it would be reflected back up into the sky.

Internet enhanced meetings for post-Copenhagen climate change negotiations

This is to propose the use of Internet enhanced meetings for the post-Copenhagen climate change negotiations. The 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP-15) ended inconclusively without a binding agreement. There will be a need for ongoing extensive negotiations. Also there were problems with the format of the conference in Copenhagen, with it difficult for so many delegates to be heard. An alternative is for smaller face to face meetings, with Internet access to people not at the venue to take part.

The recent Realising Our Broadband Future forum sponsored by the Australian Government provides a model for such events. I suggest the Australian Government could take a leadership role in hosting climate change talks. Australian universities and their counterparts around the world could assist with technology and venues for this.

A global electronic infrastructure now exists for information communication and online discussion. I suggest it is time that this infrastructure be put to work for global governance.

The Australian National University provided the venue for the first "Public Sphere" event, which Realising Our Broadband Futures grew out of. The Prime Minister recently announced a National Security College to train senior public servants. Given the security implications of climate change, global negotiations on the topic would seem a reasonable to explore.

Copenhagen Climate Change Challenge

Greeting from the Professor Roel Snieder, Colorado School of Mines, who is talk on "The Global Energy Challenge" at the Australian National University. He is the author of A Guided Tour of Mathematical Methods for the Physical Sciences and The Art of Being a Scientist. The talk is part of the Toyota-ANU Public Lecture Series 2009, which is timely as John Ward mentioned in his introduction, the Prime Minister launched Toyota's Australian made hybrid Camry last week. Professor Snieder talked about another car, the Tata Nano, now being made in India, which while it will use less fuel than a larger vehicle, it will still use a large amount in the numbers predicted to be sold. He made the point that this fuel was created over millions of years and is being used up. Exactly when the rate of oil production will peak is debatable, but it will peak within a few decades.

Professor Snieder discussed alternatives to oil for fuel. Ethanol can be used, but currently competes with food crops for feedstock. If cellulose can be converted to fuel this would allow non-food plants to be used, but this requires scientific breakthroughs. Conversion of shale oil or coal to fuel is feasible, but will produce CO2 emissions.

Ironically at this point someone called me from the Copenhagen climate change summit so I had to nip out of the talk and missed a bit. When I returned Professor Snieder was talking about the effect of the loss of ice. Sea level rises will result in the loss of parts of Florida, Holland and Bangladesh. He pointed out that the people effected are not necessarily those who caused the problem.

Professor Snieder then presented the "good news": 60% of energy in the US is wasted. This is good news, as it provided the opportunity for energy efficiency to reduce carbon emissions, as well as fossil fuel use. He used the example of a hotel he stayed in recently where both the room heater and air conditioner were on at the same time. Energy saving measures will save money in the long term. Government incentives can help with this and create jobs at the same time.

Professor Snieder quoted Michele Tolela Myers: "I think we have a responsibility to insist that education is more than learning job skills, that it is also the bedrock of a democracy (from "A Student Is Not an Input" NY Times, March 26, 2001). He argued that there is a role of students to push for energy conservation and they can do projects about it. However, I would argue that green job skills can also be incorporated in courses, as I do in teaching "Green Information Technology Strategies" (COMP7310) to masters students at the ANU.

The Professor ended by inviting anyone to read and download the slides from his presentation. He welcomed reuse and changed of the slides, but asked if they were changed to please change the attribution.

At question time he pointed out that carbon sequestration was the most expensive option.

Professor Snieder is also conducting a short course for research students at ANU and will gie a talk on carbon sequestration at ANU on Thursday at 4pm.

Global Energy Challenge

Professor Roel Snieder, Colorado School of Mines, will talk on "The Global Energy Challenge" at the Australian National University at 6pm.

Public Lecture
The Global Energy Challenge

This lecture will be introduced by Mr Jon Ward, Manager, Environmental Policy, Toyota Motor Corporation Australia.

A stable and sustainable energy supply is one of the major issues of this Century. World-energy demand is expected to increase by about 70% in the coming 20 years, while the production of petroleum — our main source of energy — is likely to peak in this period. The combination of rising demand and declining production of conventional oil raises the question: What is the plan?

In the absence of a plan for a sustainable energy supply, coal and non-conventional oil are likely to become the main source of energy. These energy sources lead to much higher CO2 emissions per unit energy than the sources currently used. Combined with the expected increase in energy use, this aggravates global warming. We face the challenge to develop a strategy to develop a sustainable energy system with acceptable environmental impact.

In his presentation Professor Snieder will give examples what one can do as a teacher, student, consumer, businessman and as a citizen to make progress towards a more sustainable energy system.

Professor Roel Snieder holds the Keck Foundation Endowed Chair of Basic Exploration Science at the Colorado School of Mines. He received in 1984 a Masters degree in Geophysical Fluid Dynamics from Princeton University, and in 1987 a PhD in seismology from Utrecht University. In 1993 he was appointed professor of seismology at Utrecht University, where he was Dean of the Faculty of Earth Sciences from 1997-2000. In 1997 he was a visiting professor at the Center for Wave Phenomena.

Snieder served on the editorial boards of Geophysical Journal International, Inverse Problems, and Reviews of Geophysics. In 2000 he was elected as Fellow of the American Geophysical Union for important contributions to geophysical inverse theory, seismic tomography, and the theory of surface waves.

He is author of the textbooks A Guided Tour of Mathematical Methods for the Physical Sciences and The Art of Being a Scientist published by Cambridge University Press. Since 2000 he has been a fire-fighter in Genesee Fire Rescue. Professor Snieder is an International Visiting Fellow at the Research School of Earth Sciences, ANU College of Physical Sciences.

This lecture is presented by the Research School of Earth Sciences and is part of the ANU Visiting Fellow Series and Toyota-ANU Public Lecture Series 2009.

This lecture is free and open to the public. Please register attendance with ANU Events. Enquiries: T: 6125 4144 or E: events@anu.edu.au

Speaker/Host:	Professor Roel Snieder, WM Keck Distinguished Professor, Colorado School of Mines
Venue:	The Finkel Theatre, The John Curtain School of Medical Research, Building 131, Garran Road
Date:	Tuesday, 15 December 2009
Time:	6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Enquiries:	ANU Events on 6125 4144

Green Technology Strategies Book in Print

After some problems with the LuLu publishing system print on demand copies of my book "Green Technology Strategies: Using computers and telecommunications to reduce carbon emissions" have arrived. So I have pushed the button to have the book distributed by Amazon.com, Baker & Taylor, Barnes & Noble, NACSCORP. Retail book stores will also be able to order the book through wholesale suppliers. This will all take two to six weeks.

Also the book will be available via , and the Espresso Book Machine which prints book on demand in store. The University Bookshop and Melbourne University Library were to take delivery of one of these machines, in 2009. This will be handy for students of my Green Technology Strategies course at Monash, RMIT and Swinburne universities.

The book printing machine is surprisingly complicated, consisting of a laser printer for the inside of the book, a separate colour printer for the cover and a binding and trimming machine. There is scope here fore an industrial designer to produce a simpler device.

Copenhagen Climate Change Train

The International Union of Railways (UIC) and DB (German Railways) cashed in on the in on the COP15 Copenhagen climate change talks with a "Train to Copenhagen" in conjunctions with UNEP and WWF.

The train left from Brussels on 5 December, travelling through Cologne and Hamburg (a route I have travelled) then Copenhagen for the conference. The usual train from Brussels to Cologne is the Thalys (using French TGV trains) From there through Berlin to Hamburg , using DB's ICE train.

It was claimed the rain ran on electricity from renewable sources. The renewable claim would be hard to prove and it is likely that at least part of the journey would be made using French nuclear generated power. This is not to say this is not a much more environmentally friendly means of transport that by aircraft, overall.

ps: Models of the Thalys and ICE are popular.

Connecting up online automatically

Greeting from CSIRO ICT at the ANU in Canberra, where Peter Fox (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) is talking on "The Semantic eScience Framework; toward a configurable data application format?". The aim, as I understand it, is that scientific data will be available online in a way that it can be easily queried. A major application for this technique is measuring the effects of climate change. This is more complex process than a simple web search as the data is structured. I found Dr. Fox's presentation disappointing as there was not demonstration to show that any of what was claimed actually worked in practice. It is very easy to make claims in a presentation using Powerpoint slides.

Some issues I can see with Dr. Fox's approach are those of security of the data and cost. Most e-science systems assume that all the data is available to anyone and is free. However, data access may need to be limited due to contractual agreements, privacy and national security. Also accessing the data and processing it may cost money. As a result one consideration in working out the answer to a question is what data you can get and what it will cost. Dr. Fox ended his talk by mentioning that educators should have access t summary data and that open source has potential, but it was not clear to me how this fitted with the discussion which went before.

As well as the implementation technology using ontologies, what I found of interest was a development methodology. This might have applicability to projects like the NBN, where there is a need to rapidly develop a system which negotiates between components owned by different organisations. It may also be useful for quasi-commercial applications. As an example the smart meters project has the potential to supply data from hundreds of thousands of electricity meters in real time. Apart from billing, this data could be very useful for researching energy use and reducing it. But a system will be needed to easily provide access to the data.

CSIRO ICT

The Semantic eScience Framework; toward a configurable data application format?
Peter Fox (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) ...

ABSTRACT:
This talk is a forward looking, technical one discussing current work including Drupal, Opendap, Virtual Observatories, Provenance, and ontology modularization, and including a summary of the keynote presented at The Australasian Ontology Workshop on December 2.

BIO:
Professor Peter Fox, now of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the Tetherless World Constellation in the US (and previously of UCAR, University Corporation for Atmosperic Research) is known for his work in applications of ontologies to e-science, especially virtual observatories. He is also president of OPeNDAP which has developed standards used by NASA and NOAA to serve satellite, weather and other observed earth science data. See http://tw.rpi.edu/wiki/Peter_Fox

Peter is available for discussions and meetings from 2--4 December. Contact Kerry Taylor 6216 7038 Kerry.Taylor@csiro.au to arrange. ...

ICT at the UN Climate Change Conference

The UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP 15) will have an associated exhibition called "iSeeT @ the Climate Change Kiosk", showing how information and communication technologies (ICTs) can help. I have offered the materials from my Green Technology Strategies Course for the Kiosk.

... exhibition at the UN Climate Change Conference - COP 15, 7-18 December 2009, Copenhagen Information and communication technology (ICT) to increase awareness and support action on climate change.

UNFCC) will focus on how information and communication technologies (ICTs) are helping to increase awareness and to support concrete action on climate change in both developing and developed countries.

The exhibition will tell stories about current ICT-related projects undertaken by governments, United Nations and other intergovernmental organizations, nongovernmental organizations and media organizations on their own or with private sector partners. Among the contributors are the United Nations (UN), UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the International Institute for Sustainable Development's Reporting Services (Earth Negotiations Bulletin) among many others.

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is contributing a special programme of daily "business talks" by leaders in the ICT sector from both developing and developed countries.

Theme

Using ICTs as the main theme, the Kiosk will seek to show, display, present and exhibit practical examples of existing and upcoming technologies and practices along with related products and services showing how ICT is and can be used to combat climate change. The Kiosk will also serve to highlight the role that governments, the private sector and civil society are playing in using ICTs to bring about technological innovation and technology transfer to support mitigation and adaptation (e.g. how ICTs are being used to help reduce emissions by replacing unnecessary air travel, in "energy-smart" technologies and in disaster risk reduction).

Overall goal

Participants visiting the Kiosk will come away with ideas, information and contacts on practical ways in which ICT is currently helping people around the globe to combat climate change, and what is available that may be applied or transferred to other countries, especially in support of the deal struck in Copenhagen.

Programme of demonstrations and presentations

Programme will be developed by the UNFCCC secretariat in cooperation with the Government of Denmark, interested governments, UN organizations, and relevant NGOs accredited to the UNFCCC process. Governments and organizations having established relationships with private sector ICT companies will be able to invite companies to participate in their demonstrations and presentations.

The programme will cover up to 11 days of programming and will be managed throughout to ensure a representative presentation of information, including private sector partners.

The programme will be of two types: demonstrations and exhibits of projects and tools in 1 of the 4 thematic demonstration spaces, and presentations on selected topics in a central presentation space.

Demonstration spaces

The demonstration spaces will each be focussed on 4 themes. Each of the 4 spaces will have 2 LCD screens allowing 2 demonstrations to occur at the same time. Each LCD screen will be equipped with a networked laptop connected to a screen and the Internet. A small counter and 2 stools for each of the 2 demonstration areas will accommodate the laptop/staff for each demonstration. It will be possible to distribute a brochure or factsheet.

Demonstration and exhibits of tools may be scheduled for varying periods of time in order to allow as many participants as possible to visit each demonstration, e.g. about 100-200 visitors for each demonstration per day. Demonstration periods are: half day, full day, 2 days.

Themes of the 4 demonstration spaces

1. data management and visualization of information for analysis and decision-making;
2. collaboration, social networks, e-communities and virtual work groups
3. outreach, dissemination, e-government and public participation;
4. capacity building and technology transfer to support developing countries, including Internet connectivity and training.

Presentation space

The central presentation space will be equipped with a Cisco TelePresence (CTS 1000) suite - allowing for external presenters to present to participants in the COP 15 venue from 61 countries, and an LCD screen that may be used by presenters to show PowerPoint slides or show a movie on DVD. Some presentation will be webcast on demand on the Internet.

Presentations will be given each day between 13h00-15h00 and 18h00-20h00. Presentation periods will be maximum 1 hour. During periods when presentations are not being given, the central presentation space will be used for half day demonstrations.

Online presence

An online, Internet website will provide a repository for all presentations and demonstrations as well as on demand webcasts.

Note to participation

In principle, all contributors to iSeeT@theKiosk must be Parties to the UNFCCC or be participants from approved observer organizations. Any individuals who wish to be present at their respective demonstrations or presentations must be officially registered through their government or observer organization. No funding is available for travel or other expenses that may be related to a demonstration or presentation at the Kiosk.

Information on formats and options for demonstrations will be forthcoming e.g. PowerPoint, video on DVD, etc. ...

From: iSeeT@theClimateChangeKiosk, secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Chang, 2009

Cities for People

Greetings from the The Shine Dome in Canberra where Professor Jan Gehl is presenting the 2009 Walter Burley Griffin Memorial Lecture. Professor Gehl conducted the "Sydney CBD Public Life and Public Spaces Survey" and is the author of "Life Between Buildings: Using Public Space". He started with Robert Mann New York traffic engineer, he proposed the "lomax" (Lower Manhattan Express way). In response Jan Jacobs rallied the neighbourhood and went on to write "The Death and Life of Great American Cities". He then went on to talk about after graduation and learning how people use architecture and what was wrong with architectural education. He strives to go beyond two dimensional rendering which architects use to worry about the dynamics of human use of architecture.

Professor Gehl was critical of Le Corbusier's 1924 planning, where the citizens may only get some greenery on a wall to look at. He also criticised the CIAM Athens Charter 1933 which aimed to separate people and transport. From the 1950s as cars became affordable, the problem became to find more space for cars and planners had become traffic engineers. The result was tall buildings with all the spaces between them taken by cars. The dignity of people was lost in the process with the car taking precedent. Cities are valuable because they allow people to meet each other face to face and cars degrade this.

In the eighties old urbanism was rediscovered with housing tower blocks demolished.

The 1998 Second Athens Charter of City Planning reversed the previous charter arguing that housing and transport should be unified. Many architects were already practising this, but some not. In 2009 in Dubai, Frank Gehry is still proposing 1920s Le Corbusier style impersonal buildings. Professor Gehl described this as "Bird Shit" architecture, dropped from the sky to pollute the urban fabric. He showed the example of Kenzo Tange's, Singapore waterfront high rise.

Professor Gehl used Copenhagen 1962 to 2009 as an example of what to do. In 1962 the main street was pedestrianised, with great success. Progressively 18 public squares were turned from parking lots into people squares. He charted the change in reasons for visiting the city, which changed from "Necessity" in 1900, "Transport" 1950, Shopping 1960, to Enjoyment in 2000. An illustration of this is the growth of the cappuccino culture. Even in Cophenagan's climate, people are happy to be outside all but two months of the year.

In the 1960's Copenhagen considered phasing out bicycles, but this was reversed by the first oil crisis. Copenhagen developed a network of bicycle paths separated from car traffic. They also have priority traffic lights for bicycles and green lanes. The lights are timed to allow a continual flow of bicycles, with cars having the wait. This is the reverse of the trend in Beijing, where bicycles are being squeezed off the roads.

In Copenhagen new roads are being designed with only one lane in each direction for cars, plus bicycle lanes, but in such a way they have a higher car capacity than a four lane road. Taxis and trains are also equipped to carry bicycles.

Professor Gehl contrasted Brisbane and Copenhagen bicycle use. Bicycle use in Brisbane was much lower, with ,most cyclists being young males treating it as an "extreme sport", whereas Copenhagen has almost as many women as men at a much more relaxed pace. However, the Copenhagen cyclists looked hardy when cycling through snow storms.

Discussing Australia, Professor Gehl detailed Melbourne's success at attracting people to the city. He saw a similar positive future for Sydney, with trams and bicycle lanes planned.

Open University Green ICT Course

Open Universities Australia is now offering my Green ICT Strategies course (ACS25). This is through the Computer Professional Education Program of the Australian Computer Society. The course is available to students of Curtin University, Griffith University, Macquarie University, Monash University, RMIT University, Swinburne University and the University of South Australia.

The course uses the same materials as COMP7310, in the Graduate Studies Select program of the Australian National University (first run July 2009). The course materials are published as "Green Technology Strategies: Using computers and telecommunications to reduce carbon emissions".

Open Universities Australia
2010 Unit Profile

Unit Code ACS25
Unit Title Green ICT Strategies
Provider Australian Computer Society
Unit Type PGD
Level of Study Postgraduate
EFTSL 0.0
Delivery Method Fully Online

Unit Overview
The unit is offered in response to an explosion of interest in climate change and sustainability, including a growing realisation of the high contribution of ICT. This unit investigates the contribution of ICT to carbon emissions and how technology can reduce those emissions. The
topics are drawn from practices being developed in the public and private sectors internationally.

Topics

1. Introduction to Green ICT
2. The Global ICT Footprint
3. Enabling ICT
4. Energy saving - Data Centres and Client Equipment
5. Materials Use
6. Methods and tools
7. Business process improvement
8. Improving Data Centre Energy Efficiency
9. Enterprise Architecture
10. Procurement
11. Energy Star Program and Quality Management
12. Compliance audit
13. Review and discussion for assignment 2
...

Apple needs to close the door on global warming

Walking past Apple Computer's flagship store in George Street Sydney on Friday, I was hit by an uncomfortable blast of icy air. The doors to the store had been left open and refrigerated air was flowing out and into the very hot street. Apart from making it unpleasant for passers-by this is wasting energy and contributing to global warming. Apple's Sydney store has a similar design to Apple's Fifth Avenue Store in New York, about which similar energy use concerns have been raised. Apple needs to provide doors on its store to keep the air in. Otherwise this detracts from Apple's good record on energy saving.

Keeping the air in while welcoming customers can be difficult. This can be a problem in older buildings as well as new. Yesterday I noticed one solution at the National Innovation Centre, at the Australian Technology Park while at "Startup BarCamp Sydney". This building was part of the historic Eveleigh Railway Workshops. The building has large brick arched entrance, which could not be made airtight on the outside without detracting from the historic look of the building. Instead the a large glass wall has been built inside the entrance. From the outside the glass is not noticeable.

Apple could consider this approach building a glass box inside the doors of its store (which in itself is a large glass box). The inner wall created could have self closing or revolving doors.

While smaller historic buildings could not afford the space that ATP and Apple have, they could consider a similar approach by leaving the wood door open and using a modern glass one to close the entrance for air-conditioning, while retaining an open look for customers. There are detailed guides to making historic buildings energy efficient.

Mash-up Government Data to Save the World

Greetings from GovHack at the ANU in Canberra.This is an Australian Government supported event being held at the ANU. The Australian Government is providing access to government data sets and seeing what the community can do with the data.

I met the GovHack team at the Purple Pickle Cafe at the ANU this morning. I am actually in Sydney for a Climate Change talk by Professor Lambeck, of the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences. The disturbing result from the extensive research presented by Professor Lambeck is that new models predict a larger rise in sea level than those used by the IPCC.

The situation with sea level rise due to climate change is much worse than previous thought. More and more prompt action will be required to address sea level rise than is being planned in current political processes. None of the proposals currently being prepared by government for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen December (UNFCCC CoP 15) are sufficient to avert a global disaster.

One technology we have to mitigate and adapt is the Internet. Because the Internet is already widely available and is being rapidly expanded, it can be deployed far faster than other technologies, such as new power generating stations, carbon sequestration or sea walls. One resource to be used is existing government data which the Internet can make available for climate change.

One area the Australian Government could provide data to combat climate change is with its $100M Smart Grid Project. The government could require the successful bidders to make the data available in real time to authorised users and in near real time freely to the general public.

Some other proposals I put to the APEC Climate Change Symposium in Canberra this week:

1. Green Technology Strategies education: Broaden the content and add multimedia, mobile phone and village classroom options to the Green Technologies strategy course to make it available in APEC countries at the local level.
2. Innovation Climate Change: Expand the InnovationACT project to the APEC region. In a one year trial Australian and Korea will have teams of students working online on climate change innovations. Prizes will be awarded for the best project. Teams
3. Green Certification: Expand the COA Green ICT certification scheme to APEC, providing web tools to ICT green certify organizations.
4. Protect cultural records from climate change: Climate change represents a significant risk to cultural records in the Asia Pacific region. Many cultural institutions are located near the sea and will be at threat from inundation. The ANU course Systems Approach to the Management of Government Information would be expanded to provide training and resources for government and non-government cultural institutions to catalogue and digitally preserve their materials. Background: Report on a Workshop on the Use of Technology for Museums of the Pacific Islands Region 2005 and Semantic Web for Museums
   Final Report.
   

Sea level rises worse than predicted by IPCC

Greetings from the University of Sydney where Professor Kurt Lambeck, of the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences and President of the Australian Academy of Science, is presenting Climate Change through the lens of the geological record: the example of sea level the Royal Society of New South Wales. The disturbing result from the extensive research presented is that new models predict a larger rise in sea level than those used by the IPCC. The situation with sea level rise due to climate change is much worse than previous thought. My conclusion from this is that more and more prompt action will be required to address sea level rise than is being planned in current political processes. None of the proposals currently being prepared by government for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen December (UNFCCC CoP 15) and preparations in the background are sufficient.

Professor Lambeck started by showing a rock platform a metre above sea level from 6 thousand years ago. On Orpheus Island fossil coral is dated at 5,000 years 1 metre above current sea level and 4,000 years on Lizard Island. In contrast in the Mediterranean ancient fish tanks underwater indicate the sea level has been rising over the last few thousand years. Similarly in Bonaparte Gulf 21,280 years ago 120 metres below the present. He then took us on a fascinating world tour with a few equations up to the present.

ABSTRACT

Climate Change has been with the planet since the time of the formation of the oceans and atmosphere and is recorded, albeit imperfectly, in the geological record.

One of these records is the change in sea level through time, a complex variable that contains implicit information not only on climate but also on the tectonic and geological evolution of the planet. He will address aspects of the underpinning science and what we can learn from it, focussing on the best-known part of the record, that for the last glacial cycle.

The modern instrumental record is much more precise and has higher resolution but will also contain in addition to the `natural' variability any new signals that may result from human impact on climate. The challenge is to separate these "natural" and "anthropogenic" forcings if forecasts of future change are to be meaningful.

The problems encountered are similar to all other indicators of climate change – of separating natural and human forcing from instrumental and geological or historical records when the length of the latter are about the same as the time that human impacts may have been effective.

Professor Lambeck will use the sea level record as an illustration of many of the issues that need to be understood for a meaningful interpretation of the evidence. In so doing he will raise the role of the IPCC and where the IPCC findings are tracking in 2009; and how the public debate on climate change appears to be becoming increasingly confused while the underpinning science is becoming more robust.

APEC Symposium on Climate Change in Canberra

Greetings from the working group of the APEC Symposium on Climate Change at the ANU Canberra. About 20 delegates from around the Asia pacific are discussing issues in the lead up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen December (UNFCCC CoP 15). I gave the symposium a presentation on "Technology transfer by collaborative online education for climate change mitigation" with the message that online collaboration and mentoring could be used to accelerate the distribution of knowledge of how to deal with climate change. I used the example of the postgraduate green technology course I run for the Australian Computer Society and the Australian National University. The deligates were particularly interested in the fact that the notes were available freely as web pages, as well as a paperback book and down-loadable e-book.

Also they asked about the role of mobile phones and traditional face-to-face teaching, so I was able to explain the course material was prepared in a format which could display on a smart phone and be printed. I was asked if this form of education could be expanded to a wider audience, not just postgraduate students. This would be feasible, but take much more work in preparing introductory material, and using multimedia. ANU is installing equipment and software for more easily developing multimedia and I am trialing this

The afternoon session started with a video linkup with the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research in Japan. The technology worked for the connection, but there was confusion as to from which end of the link the slides would be displayed, which took some time to sort out. The event continues tomorrow with small groups preparing proposed initiatives.

Here is the program so far:

APEC Symposium on Climate Change

28th - 30th October 2009

Background

In the lead up to the Australia-Korea Leadership Forum in November and the UNFCCC CoP 15 in Copenhagen in December, the CCI, through AusAID sponsorship, is hosting a closed workshop consisting of APEC member economies....

Workshop Objectives

• Identify opportunities to promote collaboration between business, government and educational and
  research institutions in the Asia-Pacific region on climate change issues, including:
  • Identify mechanisms for technology development and transfer to support action on climate change
    mitigation and adaptation;
  • Technology underpinning knowledge creation and transfer; and
  • Turning research into outcomes.
• Identify impediments and solutions to effective collaboration around key issues, including:
  • IP challenges;
  • Knowledge gaps;
  • Capacity building; and
  • Governance.
• Where to from now?
• Identify achievable outcomes and timeframes; and
• Road map ahead. ...

Workshop Outcomes

Workshop outcomes will include:

• A road map for APEC economies to progress the challenges of knowledge transfer;
• High level plan to turn research into outcomes;
• Identification and potential solutions to impediments to effective collaboration;
• Opportunities for AusAID to provide continued support in the Asia-Pacific region;
• Road map ahead for follow up workshops / conferences; and
• Report of proceedings.

SESSION 1

9:00 – 10:45 CHAIR – Ms Octavia Borthwick
Assistant Director General, Asia Regional Branch, AusAID
Timing Speakers
08:45 - 09:00 Arrival and registration
09:00 - 9:05 Welcome and Introduction (Prof
Will Steffen) Executive Director, ANU Climate Change Institute
09:05 – 09:15 Ms Octavia Borthwick (Australia) ADG, Asia Regional Branch, AusAID
09:15 - 09:40 Dr Heesu Park (R Korea) Policy Advisor, Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA)
09:40 – 10:05 Prof Haibin Zhang (PR China) Director, Centre for International Organisation Studies, Peking University
10:05 - 10:30 Dr Nguyen Dai Khanh (Viet Nam) Director, Technology and International Cooperation, National Hydro-Meteorological Service, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment
10:30 – 10:45 Questions & discussion
10:45-11:00 MORNING COFFEE & TEA

SESSION 2

11:00 – 12:30
CHAIR – Prof Will Steffen ANU Climate Change Institute
Timing Speakers
11:00–11:25 Dr Carmel Gacho (Philippines) Senior Science Research Specialist, Industrial Technology Development Institute, Department of Science and Technology, Philippines
11:25–11:45 Mr Tom Worthington, Green ICT e-learning Designer, ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science and the Australian Computer Society
11:45–12:00 Questions & discussion
12:30-13:45 LUNCH

SESSION 3

14:00 – 14:50 VIDEO CONFERENCE
CHAIR - Prof James Fox, Frank Fenner Building, ANU Medical School Director, ANU Korea Institute
Timing Speaker(s)
14:00 – 14:30 Mr Tetsuro Fujitsuka (Japan) Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN), Japan
14:30 – 14:50 Questions and discussion ...

Online collaboration for climate change mitigation in APEC

This is to request comments and corrections of "Technology transfer by collaborative online education for climate change mitigation". These are my notes for a short talk at an AusAID sponsored APEC Symposium on Climate Change in Canberra on Thursday, in the lead up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen December (UNFCCC CoP 15). The aim is to promote collaboration between business, government, education and research organisations in the Asia-Pacific on climate change. My suggestion is the use of online collaboration and mentoring, as used in the postgraduate green technology course I run for the Australian Computer Society and the Australian National University (with notes available as free web pages, a paperback book and down-loadable e-book).

Sustainability In The Pub Sydney

Sydney Environmental Educators Network is holding "Sustainability In The Pub", in Sydney, 21 October, 6.30pm. These are fun events.

The Sydney Environmental Educators Network invites you to join us for Sustainability In The Pub in October - an evening of ideas, discussion and sharing for environmental educators.

Wednesday 21 October, 6.30pm start.

ARRIVE BEFORE 6.30PM TO ENTER OUR LUCKY DOOR PRIZE AND THE CHANCE TO WIN A BOTTLE OF ORGANIC WINE, courtesy of the Agincourt Hotel!

Agincourt Hotel, cnr George and Harris Street Sydney.
FREE, No RSVP required.

"Choice, Imagination and Sustainability"

We all know that climate change is probably the biggest threat to mankind ever, but often trying to change people's thinking and behaviour creates the opposite effect.

How do we avoid the self righteous, evangelistic approach?
How do we influence people without being didactic?
How do we tap into people's deeper needs and aspirations?

In this discussion with two innovative environmental educators, Thor Blomfield and Kylee Ingram explore creative approaches to a more sustainable future.

Thor Blomfield co-founded Leapfish Environmental Education 6 years ago and since has created a range of effective arts based programs. Kylee Ingram established Australian Documentaries 7 years ago which partners with NGOs and the government sector to create media for sustainability and positive change.

Kind regards,

SEEN.

Climate Change and sea level

Professor Kurt Lambeck, President of the Australian Academy of Science, will present Climate Change through the lens of the geological record: the example of sea level, 30 October at the University of Sydney.

Australian Academy of Science President to present lecture on climate change

23 September 2009

Professor Kurt Lambeck, President of the Australian Academy of Science, will present the Clarke Memorial Lecture in Geology, Climate Change through the lens of the geological record: the example of sea level on Friday 30 October at the University of Sydney. The Clarke Memorial Lecture is a biennial event of the Royal Society of NSW, which is jointly sponsored by the University of Sydney and the Geological Society of Australia.

Professor Kurt Lambeck will present 'Climate Change through the lens of the geological record: the example of sea level'

Kurt Lambeck is Distinguished Professor of Geophysics at the Australian National University. His research interests range through the disciplines of geophysics, geodesy and geology with a focus on the deformations of the Earth on intermediate and long time scales and on the interactions between surface processes and the solid earth. Past research areas have included the determination of the Earth's gravity field from satellite tracking data, the tidal deformations and rotational motion of the Earth, the evolution of the Earth-Moon orbital system, and lithospheric and crustal deformation processes. His recent research work has focused on aspects of sea level change and the history of the Earth's ice sheets during past glacial cycles, including field and laboratory work and numerical modelling.

Professor Lambeck has been at the Australian National University since 1977, including ten years as Director of the Research School of Earth Sciences. Before that he was at the University of Paris and the French Space Agency (1970-1977), and at the Harvard-Smithsonian observatory (1967-1970). His doctorate is from Oxford (1967) and his first degree from the University of New South Wales (1963). He was elected to the Australian Academy of Science in 1984 and became its President in 2006. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society (1994), a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (1993), the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (1994), Academia Europaea (1999), the Académie des Sciences, Institut de France (2005), and the US National Academy of Sciences (2009).

For further information about the Clarke Memorial Lecture visit: http://nsw.royalsoc.org.au/awards/clarke_lecture.html

Lecture details:
Date: Friday 30 October 2009
Venue: Eastern Avenue Auditorium, University of Sydney
Time: 5:30pm
Bookings: RSVP with the number of seats you require ...

From: Climate Change through the lens of the geological record: the example of sea level, The University of Sydney, 2009

Education for Climate Neutrality

In addition to reporting current greenhouse gas emissions, the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment has a strategy of "Education for Climate Neutrality". This includes a list of Examples of Education for Climate Neutrality and Sustainability at member institutions:

1. Arizona State University: School of Sustainability: Established in 2007, the School of Sustainability, part of the Global Institute of Sustainability...
2. Berea College: Sustainability and Environmental Studies Program: Established in 1999, the Sustainability and Environmental Studies (SENS) Program is an important part of Berea College’s efforts to develop a sustainable campus. SENS links the formal curriculum of the classroom to the many opportunities for experiential learning. ...
   
3. Cape Cod Community College: Natural Sciences and Life Fitness Department Environmental Technology Program: Environmental Technology is a career field that utilizes the principles of science, engineering, communication, and economics to protect and enhance safety, health, and natural resources. ...
4. Cornell University: The Cornell Center for a Sustainable Future (CCSF): CCSF is a campus wide "umbrella" organization designed to bring together many existing programs and to nucleate new efforts in sustainability. ...
5. Dakota County Technical College: The Instructional Action Team: The Instructional Action Team is looking at ways to integrate sustainability into selected aspects of program curriculum. The Instructional Action Team has developed a "Sustainability Across the Curriculum Survey".
6. Emory University: The Piedmont Project: The Piedmont Project emerged as a grassroots effort on the part of a group of concerned faculty to strengthen Emory’s engagement with sustainability and environmental issues. ...
7. Goshen College: Merry Lea, Goshen College’s 1,150-acre nature preserve has recently finished construction on Rieth Village, created to house Goshen College’s expanding environmental science program.
8. Kalamazoo College: Sustainability Guild: The Sustainability Guild will foster connections between the many elements of life at Kalamazoo ...
9. Lane Community College: Sustainability and Learning Committee: The Sustainability and Learning Committee is working on a plan to integrate eco-literacy into all discipline areas at Lane ...
   
10. Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD): As part of its Green Building Initiative, LACCD has developed the e7 Internship Program providing students hands-on high-tech experience for modern careers in architecture and engineering.
11. Northern Arizona University: The Ponderosa Project: The Ponderosa Project at Northern Arizona University (NAU) is an interdisciplinary faculty group effort to incorporate environmental sustainability issues into university courses ...
12. Ohlone Community College: The Ohlone College Newark Center for Health Sciences and Technology is the first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum College in the world.
13. Unity College: Unity College makes sure that students have the intellectual tools they need to solve the problems of our time through “hands-on” learning. All students must study sustainability before they graduate, and the campus strives to be as sustainable as is physically and fiscally possible.
14. University of New Hampshire: CORE: Curriculum, Operations, Research and Engagement: At the University of New Hampshire, sustainability encompasses climate and energy, ecology, food systems and culture across what they call the CORE: Curriculum, Operations, Research and Engagement. ...
    

Adapted from: Examples of Education for Climate Neutrality and Sustainability, American College & University Presidents Climate Commitmen, 2009

Atlas of the Global Water Cycle

An Atlas of the Global Water Cycle by Wee Ho Lim and Michael L. Roderick is available free online from ANU ePress. This has maps of estimated rainfall, evaporation and runoff for the 20th century and predictions for the 21st century. There are maps for the globe and more detailed ones for Australia.

The book is available for free in PDF format chapter by chapter, as one large PDF file or can be ordered as a paperback. The data files used can also be downloaded.

Unfortunately the PDF is difficult to read having been formatted for print publication, not for on-line viewing. The text is in multiple columns, making it difficult to read on screen and the maps are small and blurry. However, this is a useful publication.

An Atlas of the Global Water Cycle

Based on the IPCC AR4 Climate Models

Wee Ho Lim and Michael L. Roderick

ISBN 9781921536885 (Print version) $95.00 (GST inclusive)
ISBN 9781921536892 (Online)
Published July 2009

• Preliminary Pages
• 1 Introduction
  • 1.1 Rationale & Motivation
  • 1.2 Atlas Contents
• 2 Methods
  • 2.1 Models and Scenarios
  • 2.2 Definition of Regions
  • 2.3 Calculations
• 3 Results
  • 3.1 Maps and Tables
  • 3.2 Time Series Precipitation
  • 3.3 Global Hydrologic Summary
  • 3.4 Australian Hydrologic Summary
  • 3.5 The All-Model-Runs Average: Maps and Tables
  • Additional content: spreadsheets of data sets for Chapter 3 (Excel format)
• 4 Discussion
  • 4.1 Global Hydrologic Balances
  • 4.2 Australian Hydrologic Balances
• 5 Acknowledgments
• 6 References
• Appendix

- Whole Book (8.7 MB)

What do climate models predict for the rainfall where you live? What about evaporation or runoff? Should your local community consider constructing new dams or do the existing water storages appear adequate? What about the availability of water for irrigation farming? Do the predictions differ between different climate models or do all the models basically predict the same changes in water availability where you live?

These are all simple questions but it is surprisingly hard for an individual, whether they be a farmer, water resources engineer, teacher or interested citizen, to answer them. As researchers active in the field we could not answer the questions either. In fact, we had never seen a compilation of the rainfall, evaporation and runoff predictions made by all the different climate models.

The Atlas contains maps and tables that document model predictions contributed by international climate modelling groups to the 2007 4th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The predictions are made available here via the wonders of the internet and ongoing cooperation by the international climate modelling community who routinely archive their results.

The maps and tables in the Atlas document rainfall, evaporation and runoff estimates for the 20th century along with predictions of the same quantities at the end of the 21st century. Whatever your interest, we hope you find the Atlas as helpful as we do.

Climate science on the Road to Copenhagen

Greetings from the Australian National University Climate Change Institute Open Day in Canberra. Professor Will Steffen is presenting "What does the science really say about climate change?" This follows the release of his report "Climate Change 2009: Faster Change & More Serious Risks" (Department of Climate Change, 22 July 2009) and the Synthesis Report of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference (March 2009). He started by debunking climate change sceptic arguments. I missed the morning sessions as I was presenting to the ANU Green ICT Working Group, so I missed: the Southern Ocean, terrestrial ecosystems, Smart grids and renewable energy, but there are brief audio previews available on: Climate change and public health, smart grids, the global carbon cycle. Last on the agenda is a panel discussion "The Road to Copenhagen".

My question for the panel is: "The evidence for climate change is now clear, so shouldn't the research effort change to economic, social and political processes to help governments, business and the community make changes to their behaviour?". In my own Green ICT Strategies COMP7310 course at ANU, we only spend about half the course on the science and technical theory and the other half on how to communicate this to business leaders and to change business practices.

Another question would be: "Why aren't you practising what you preach? Why isn't this event online so people can attend without expending addition energy? The room is full to capacity, so clearly this is something which many more people, that the few here want to hear about". As you can see from this posting the room is online and facilities are available.

ps: "The Road to Copenhagen" is also the name of a web forum, chaired by several well known personalities, for providing non-government input to the next round of climate change discussions at COP15, 7 to 18 December 2009. Despite being sponsored by several multi-national companies, this seems to be a genuine effort to get community input to the process.

ANU Climate Change Institute Open Day

The Australian National University is holding a free Climate Change Institute Open Day in Canberra on 27 July 2009. There are three audio previews: Climate change and public health, smart grids, the global carbon cycle.

ANU Climate Change Institute
ANU Climate Change Institute Open Day
Hedley Bull Lecture Theatre
Monday 27 July 2009

The Climate Change Institute Open Day will profile the breadth and depth of ANU climate change research to both the ANU community and to the broader Canberra and region community. The speakers will make a brief presentation of research in their area of expertise, focusing on the unique contributions that ANU can make but placing it in a broader national or international context.

Speakers will be representatives from the seven ANU Academic Colleges:
· CAP College of Asia and the Pacific
· CPS College of Physical Sciences
· COL College of Law
· CASS College of Arts and Social Sciences
· CBE College of Business & Economics
· CMBE College of Medicine, Biology & Environment
· CECS College of Engineering & Computer Sciences

SESSION 1
9:00 – 10:30 CHAIR Prof AIDAN BYRNE (CPS, CMBE)
09:00–09:15 Assoc Prof Janette Lindesay, CMBE Integrated approaches to mitigation and adaptation in Canberra and the region
09:15–09:30 Dr Andy Hogg, CPS The role of the Southern Ocean in past and future climate change
09:30–09:45 Prof Brendan Mackey, CMBE The role of Australia’s terrestrial ecosystems in mitigating climate change
09:45–10:00 Prof David Hill, CECS Smart grids – integrating multiple sources of electricity in a single grid
10:00–10:15 Prof Andrew Blakers, CECS Achieving rapid and deep CO2 emission reductions with renewable energy
10:15–10:30 Questions & discussion
10:30-11:00 MORNING TEA

SESSION 2
11:00 – 12:30 CHAIR Prof STEVE DOVERS (CMBE)
11:00–11:15 Prof Tony Capon, CMBE Impacts of climate change on human health
11:15–11:30 Dr Katherine Morton, CAP Melting glaciers and climate adaptation on the Tibetan plateau
11:30–11:45 Dr Kirrily Jordan, CASS Indigenous Australians and climate change
11:45–12:00 Dr Hayley Stevenson, CASS Global Governance and Climate Change
12:00–12:15 Dr Frank Jotzo, CAP Developing countries and climate policy:
contrasting China and Indonesia
12:15–12:30 Questions & discussion
12:30-13:30 LUNCH

SESSSION 3
13:30 – 15:30 CHAIR Prof STEPHEN HOWES (CAP)
13:30 – 14:00 Prof Will Steffen What does the science really say about
climate change?
14.00 – 15.30 PANEL DISCUSSION THE ROAD TO COPENHAGEN
Prof Stephen Howes, CAP Moderator
Prof Tony McMichael, CMBE Impacts
Prof Warwick McKibbin, CBE Economics
Dr Kylie Catchpole, CECS Technology
Mr Andrew Macintosh, COL Law
A/ Prof Lorraine Elliott, CAP International relations
Prof Will Steffen, CAP Science
Mr Ian Fry, CMBE Negotiator

From: ANU Climate Change Institute Open Day program, ANU, 2009