Tag: communication

Cabot office weekly roundup – 15 June 2012

Posted on by janet.crompton

 

Source: AWH

Saturday saw us on a stall in Bristol City Centre shouting about climate change and sustainable fish.  We had a brilliant time meeting with members of the public and engaging them in an important issue.  Our marine biologist, Steve Simpson was on hand to answer the more difficult questions posed.  We also had a ‘sea’, full of (rubber) fish which big and small children could catch.  On the bottom of each fish was the name of a species which was lying in an ice box on our stand.  Having real fish on display was great to make learning about sustainable fish fun and engaging, even if people just came over to point at the fish and say ‘eurgh!’ – we got them thinking about their fish food choices.

An interesting Steering Group meeting was had on Monday.  We discussed public engagement activities, had an update from Jonty Rougier on BRISK activities and talked about gaps in Cabot’s expertise.

We have launched the Cabot Open Call for 2012/13.  We have pots of money available for pump-priming, closing date for applications is Tuesday 21 August.   See our website if you would like to learn more.

We had a thought provoking time at our Big Green Week event – called Patterns of Change.  The sold out event featured some of our top speakers talking about the changing global environment over time, intermingled with video clips from iconic environmental films Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi.  The success of the event has highlighted the need for more public engagement which we will continue to work on over the Summer.

Image from End of the Line

 

We are now on Flickr so if you fancy having a nose at recent activities, head to http://www.flickr.com/cabotinstitute

Steve Simpson also answered questions after the screening of End of the Line for Big Green Week on Thursday.  This is an incredibly powerful film which we would recommend everyone watch.  Steve answered questions on sustainable fishing and what we as individuals can do to stop overfishing.  It was a real eye opener!

John Craven

At the end of this week we have been preparing for our presence at the Festival of Nature, getting brochures, pull ups and other literature ready.  We will be in the ocean acidification area of the University of Bristol’s stand tomorrow and Sunday in Millenium Square.

And Cabot Institute Manager Philippa Bayley will be fulfilling a childhood dream of meeting John Craven when she introduces him at his talk on Saturday at 2.30 pm. See you there!

Cabot weekly roundup – 1 June 2012

Posted on by janet.crompton

A very long and tiring day on Tuesday 29 May, but well worth it because our joint event with AXA – Volcanoes and Society – was a huge success.  Here, Kathy Cashman was awarded £500,000 by the AXA Research Fund to study ash cloud dangers.

We had a fantastic turn out of volcanologists, businesses and post grads and other interested parties.  All the talks were very interesting and the whole event was filmed.  We will put this on the website once editing has been completed and we will be holding a follow up event later in the year, so stay tuned!

Also watch out on the Cabot website as we will soon be releasing case studies about NERC funded research in Cabot related areas. 

There will be no weekly roundup next week, but I will be back on Friday 15 June to update you on what happened at the Cabot Steering Group meeting

Cabot weekly roundup – 25 May 2012

Posted on by janet.crompton

The External Advisory Board went very well on Tuesday. Ties came off in the heat and we learned some very interesting things from Prof. Mark Eisler whose work in farm animal health relates to Cabot’s wider remit in food security.

Philippa Bayley went to London to the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) Adapting to Climate Change meeting. She met with people from around the world who are trying to do similar work to Cabot and are struggling with the same issues as us, e.g. how to get a critical mass of people working on the problems we face whilst maintaining a breadth of research areas.

Paul Bates has posted a blog on the successful trip to Japan, read here. I have uploaded all the presentations from the workshops at Kyoto DPRI. Thereare some really interesting presentations on natural hazards including wind, tsunamis, floods, landslides, storm surges, volcanoes and earthquakes. These presentations are a mix of science, maths, engineering and social science, showing the importance of interdisciplinary research to tackle the challenges that natural hazards produce globally.

Next week…

I will be tweeting live from the Volcanoes and Society event all day Tuesday 29 May.  Join me @cabotinstitute

Cabot weekly roundup – 18 May 2012

Posted on by janet.crompton

This week has been the busiest week I’ve had whilst working for Cabot, especially with Philippa Bayley and Paul Bates out of the office on business.  Their business this week has been visiting the Disaster Prevention Research Institution (DPRI) in Kyoto, Japan.  The DPRI, with Cabot, are holding a joint workshop called ‘Probabilistic Hazard Risk Assessment and Beyond’.

Those involved from Cabot are:

Professor Paul Bates
Professor Colin Taylor
Professor Wendy Larner
Dr Katsu Goda 
Dr Jeremy Phillips 
Dr Susanna Jenkins 
Dr Philippa Bayley 
ProfessorWilly Aspinall
Dr Jonathan Rougier

 

The workshop themes revolve around several key areas:

  • climate change impacts
  • decision-making and disaster risk reduction under uncertainty
  • new mathematics and models, defining and using worst case scenarios, interconnected hazards
  • human and social dimensions of a disaster.

This should be a great relationship building event and also a fantastic opportunity to exchange interdisciplinary knowledge on issues that are very important to our world today.

Meanwhile, back in the office I have been completing the organisation of the Volcanoes and Society event to be held on 29 May at M Shed.  Name badges…done.  Hotels and catering…booked.  Press release… checked.  Flyers… printed.  Finances…sorted.  Phew!

Next week….

Saving Species

Posted on by janet.crompton

Last night the Cabot Institute hosted a recording of the BBC Radio 4 programme Saving Species from the Great Hall here at the University of Bristol. The panel comprised the philosopher and activist Dr. Vandana Shiva, the Executive Director of the European Environment Agency Professor Jacequeline McGlade, Professor Aubery Manning of the University of Edinburgh and the Cabot Institute’s own Dr. Jon Bridle, who is a Senior Lecturer in Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences. As Cabot’s Director I was delighted to welcome such an eminent panel to the University and to run an event with the very dynamic Julian Hector from the BBC Natural History Unit which is based here in Bristol. The topic of the show was “Saving species: sustaining life” which the panel debated in response to audience questions. The idea was to explore the extent to which an increasing human population can be made compatible with efforts to preserve the natural world.

The thing that amazed me is how effortless every involved in the production, both the BBC crew and the major events people here at the University, made it look. I’ve rarely been to such a large event that has been pulled together so quickly and yet which seemed so serene. I wandered along a hour before the event to help with last minute panics and found myself very surplus to requirements. In the end I really could just stroll around meeting and greeting which was great. The other pleasing thing was that even on a wet and cold Monday evening in November the city of Bristol still turned out an audience of over 700 to watch the recording. I don’t know many other cities where this would happen and where the audience questions would be so perceptive and challenging.

I guess the crux of the programme was the extent to which one adopts an essentially neo–Malthusian stance and argues that there are finite limits to population growth that can only met through population control, or whether one argues that it is not only how many people there are but how those people actually live that matters. The paradox seems to be that the things that lead populations to naturally restrict their growth (female education and emancipation, access to better healthcare and contraception, growing economic opportunities etc) have also historically led to significant increases in resource consumption: the development of aspirational middle classes in the developed world has significantly increased the total amount of the Earth’s resources that we use. How we construct a future development path for the planet that doesn’t lead to the resource depletion associated with the current western world economic model is a tough question to answer. There were some quite radically different views on this expressed by the panel, but instead of spoiling the plot I’ll let you listen to the broadcast to find out.

For me the event was excellent, and hopefully the audience enjoyed things too. If you’d like to listen to the programme it will be broadcast on Radio 4 at 8.00pm on Friday 23rd December.

Professor Paul Bates is Director of the Cabot Institute at the University of Bristol and undertakes research into flood risk and uncertainty.

Launching the Cabot Institute blog

Posted on by janet.crompton

Blogs are about ideas and conversations – sharing ideas and starting conversations with interested, and interesting, people.

Cabot is about the same things; we want to help find new ways to address some of the biggest challenges we face as a society – how we live with environmental uncertainty – and we want to bring together the broadest possible group of people to do that.  So although we’re based at the University of Bristol, and students and researchers here are our primary constituency, we also feel very strongly about engaging beyond the institution, with business, industry, third sector, public sector and community organisations, as well as interested individuals.  We’d be delighted if you wanted to join the conversation.

The blog is a space to freely discuss ideas – nascent research ideas, ideas provoked by current affairs, events, other people’s writing.  You’re welcome to comment on anything, or if you want to post to the blog then let me know and I will add you.  If you are interested in staying abreast of events and opportunities, then our mailing lists are the place to go.  For the time being (until it’s fully automated), send an email to cabot[hyphen]enquiries@bristol.ac.uk telling us whether you want research news and events (weekly; for researchers and collaborators, within and outside the University), or public events (monthly).  All public events are also featured in the research news.

I hope we can encourage you to be part of Cabot.

Philippa (Cabot Institute Manager)

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