Tag: Caroline Saunders

SOS tour adds Lakes dates; Wratt in Wellington

The Saunders Oram and Salinger climate roadshow continues to rumble on through the spring, and news reaches me that they’ve just added talks in Queenstown and Wanaka on Thursday Nov 3 to their already crowded itinerary. Venues are still to be arranged, but the Queenstown talk will be in the afternoon and the Wanaka talk in the evening. All the latest details (including a confirmed gig on Waiheke Island) are in this information sheet. Jim tells me they’ve been getting very good attendances — 70 in the recent Kaiapoi session and 70 at Omakau (probably the highest per capita attendance of the lot). By the end of November they will have completed a remarkable 37 presentations. Hats off to all three of them…

Wellingtonians with a lunch hour free on Thursday (6/10) might like to note that Dr David Wratt, Director of the NZ Climate Change Centre and NIWA’s Chief Scientist (Climate) will be giving a presentation on Assessing Scientific Knowledge about Climate Change as a part of the NZ Climate Change Research Institute’s seminar series. Time: 12 – 1pm in Cotton Building 304 on VUW’s Kelburn Campus. David will cover developments since AR4 and discuss the process of putting AR5 together. Contact Liz Thomas at the NZ CCRI for more information.

SOS Roadshow: Final Days

Here’s the latest update on the Jim Salinger, Rod Oram and Caroline Saunders road show. It contains more complete information on venues and two or three additions to the list we published three weeks back. By the time the tour finishes in November they will have given 35 seminars. That’s a sterling effort which hopefully will have engaged interest from the farming community. I detected, when watching a TV panel discussion recently which included the new Federated Farmers president, reason to hope that under its new leadership Federated Farmers will be more willing to understand and share the concern over climate change than has been the case heretofore. As the road show makes clear there is economic benefit for them in facing the reality.  Continue reading “SOS Roadshow: Final Days”

SOS Roadshow Still Travelling

The last time we reported on the Jim Salinger, Rod Oram and Caroline Saunders roadshow was after their Hamilton visit in July which I attended. They haven’t finished yet, and their itinerary for September to November is posted below. Jim Salinger comments on their visits since they were in Hamilton:

“Since our Bay of Plenty/Waikato tour we have been to a few places in the South Island with great reception. First up was Tasman District and we had an enthusiastic audience of 110 at Siegfried Estate, near Richmond, followed by 60 in Nelson (we were competing with three other events going on concurrently in Nelson!). This was followed the next day by 60
in Masterton. Then the following week we spoke in Timaru to an audience of 160 – our best yet. By the time we have finished the roadshow we will have given 33 presentation presentations throughout New Zealand.”

The Nelson Mail reported their message in terms of the need for cities and businesses to focus on sustainability and innovation in order to survive and combat climate change. It’s an impressive service the three are providing, spreading out across the country and speaking in terms relevant to New Zealand and to the region they are visiting. Continue reading “SOS Roadshow Still Travelling”

SOS roadshow comes to Hamilton

I attended the Hamilton stop of the Saunders/Oram/Salinger roadshow yesterday. It was a very worthwhile occasion.  Around seventy present and the speakers introduced by the Chair of the Regional Council, himself a farmer.  Caroline Saunders was unfortunately unable to be present, but Rod Oram included her material in his talk. I won’t try to cover what he and Jim Salinger had to say in any detail, as I simply sat back and enjoyed the expertise they displayed without any thought of reporting. But Gareth wondered about a short review, so in broadest outline from an untrustworthy ageing memory… Continue reading “SOS roadshow comes to Hamilton”

Things to do in Wellington and Dargaville

Late notice, for which I apologise, but climate scientist Kevin Trenberth is giving a public lecture in Wellington on Friday (July 15th) on The Russian heatwave and other recent climate extremes. Trenberth’s talk is being organised by the NZ Climate Change Research Institute and will be at the Old Government Buildings Lecture Theatre 2, from 12:30 – 1:30pm. If you can’t make it, you can get a good idea of what he will discuss from this guest article by KT posted at Skeptical Science this week. Well worth a read. Trenberth is also holding a media briefing for the Science Media Centre tomorrow afternoon, which I hope to report on in due course.

Also this week, the Saunders, Oram and Salinger road show has added an extra gig into their Northland tour — in Dargaville tomorrow at 1-30 pm at the Kaipara District Council, 42 Hokianga Road, Dargaville. Contact Chris Donahoe for more information. Jim S also asks me to note that the title of the urban talks ( in Timaru, Auckland and Dunedin) has changed to Preparing for White Swans: Climate change and opportunities for the economy. Full tour details here (pdf).

The CCRI has just released the July edition of their What’s Hot newsletter, full of recent climate related news, linked to the original articles. It’s a good digest of recent news, worth the download.