Thursday, September 6, 2012

Coast to Coast, Living on the Edge, Brisbane 17-21 Sept 2012



Coastal conference examines topical development issues

There is still time to get involved in one of Australia’s premier environmental events with the Coast to Coast Conference (C2C) 2012 being held in Brisbane this month.

The preeminent event attracts around 400 scientists, academics, policy makers, managers and community workers from Australia and overseas.

C2C Organising Committee Chair, Dr Mara Wolkenhauer, said with 90 per cent of Australia’s population located on the coast, this year’s theme, Living on the Edge, is extremely relevant.

“For now and the future it pays to remain mindful of how our environmental impacts all eventually lead to the coast. Inland and upstream development, industry and agricultural activity can affect our waterways, most of which ultimately flow to the ocean,” Dr Wolkenhauer said.

“This event offers a forum to explore those challenges and aims to focus debate, discussion and learning at international, national, regional, state and local levels.”

The event will feature internationally acclaimed, historian, novelist and essayist, Ronald Wright, as one of the keynote speakers. His best seller, A Short History of Progress, inspired a recent documentary produced by Martin Scorsese titled, Surviving Progress.

Antony Funnell from ABC Radio National will host a debate “Living on the Edge – coasting along or crisis” examining if progress will push coastal communities over the edge. The debate will feature author Ronald Wright, development industry representative Dr Mark Gibbs, and leading scientists including Prof Hugh Possingham and Prof Bruce Thom, to be later broadcast on ABC Radio National’s Big Ideas program.

Coast to Coast 2012 is at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre from September 17-21. For more information visit www.coast2coastconference.com.  





www.ausmepa.org.au

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

QUEENSLAND EDUCATION RESOURCE EXPO 2012

What a great idea. 
Here is some information on what is happening in Queensland. We'll be there.


Would love to hear back from folks about whether other states are holding yearly resource expositions for educators. Contact Jody at education@ausmepa.org.au


www.ausmepa.org.au

INDO-PACIFIC BIOREGION MAP -- BLANK

Teachers wishing they had a blank map to use in classroom discussion will be very happy to find an online resource at WikkiMedia Commons 

The map shown below is one of many. It will be most useful for Australian educators as it is  centred on the Indo-Pacific Region.



Many thanks to WikkiMedia Commons Atlas for making this tool and others like it freely available to the public. 



www.ausmepa.org.au

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion model

Renewable energy sources are always of interest where they provide a pathway to conservation of  non-renewable resources. One method is to harness temperature change.



Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) is a process used to produce electricity based on the temperature difference between deep cold seawater and warm tropical surface seawater. Because this temperature difference is small, large quantities of seawater are processed with the attractive benefits of firm base load (24/7) power production, no direct carbon emissions and an environmentally sustainable plant that can provide massive levels of energy.  

See more here 

www.ausmepa.org.au

Monday, August 27, 2012

TED TALK: Jakki Mohr: How does nature do that? and Janine Benyus: Biomimicry in action

No one can argue with the millions of years that nature has been solving complex problems. This Ted Talk is a must see for people who want to understand how that knowledge can be used to rethink the way we do things. 





I guess it is a matter of just asking nature first. 


www.ausmepa.org.au

Monday, August 20, 2012

Thanks to Lynchpin for sharing this documentary




www.ausmepa.org.au

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Perpetual Ocean: An Animated Scientific Visualization


We all know about the restless sea however NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have come up with this fascinating model.





www.ausmepa.org.au