Skip to main content

Cabot office weekly roundup – 15 June 2012


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!

Popular posts from this blog

Converting probabilities between time-intervals

This is the first in an irregular sequence of snippets about some of the slightly more technical aspects of uncertainty and risk assessment.  If you have a slightly more technical question, then please email me and I will try to answer it with a snippet. Suppose that an event has a probability of 0.015 (or 1.5%) of happening at least once in the next five years. Then the probability of the event happening at least once in the next year is 0.015 / 5 = 0.003 (or 0.3%), and the probability of it happening at least once in the next 20 years is 0.015 * 4 = 0.06 (or 6%). Here is the rule for scaling probabilities to different time intervals: if both probabilities (the original one and the new one) are no larger than 0.1 (or 10%), then simply multiply the original probability by the ratio of the new time-interval to the original time-interval, to find the new probability. This rule is an approximation which breaks down if either of the probabilities is greater than 0.1. For example

1-in-200 year events

You often read or hear references to the ‘1-in-200 year event’, or ‘200-year event’, or ‘event with a return period of 200 years’. Other popular horizons are 1-in-30 years and 1-in-10,000 years. This term applies to hazards which can occur over a range of magnitudes, like volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, space weather, and various hydro-meteorological hazards like floods, storms, hot or cold spells, and droughts. ‘1-in-200 years’ refers to a particular magnitude. In floods this might be represented as a contour on a map, showing an area that is inundated. If this contour is labelled as ‘1-in-200 years’ this means that the current rate of floods at least as large as this is 1/200 /yr, or 0.005 /yr. So if your house is inside the contour, there is currently a 0.005 (0.5%) chance of being flooded in the next year, and a 0.025 (2.5%) chance of being flooded in the next five years. The general definition is this: ‘1-in-200 year magnitude is x’ = ‘the current rate for eve

Coconuts and climate change

Before pursuing an MSc in Climate Change Science and Policy at the University of Bristol, I completed my undergraduate studies in Environmental Science at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. During my final year I carried out a research project that explored the impact of extreme weather events on coconut productivity across the three climatic zones of Sri Lanka. A few months ago, I managed to get a paper published and I thought it would be a good idea to share my findings on this platform. Climate change and crop productivity  There has been a growing concern about the impact of extreme weather events on crop production across the globe, Sri Lanka being no exception. Coconut is becoming a rare commodity in the country, due to several reasons including the changing climate. The price hike in coconuts over the last few years is a good indication of how climate change is affecting coconut productivity across the country. Most coconut trees are no longer bearing fruits and thos