Follow ISSS conference activity

Current ISSS president David Ing is keeping track of many of the ISSS conference activities on his Blog.  The postings are worth a look.

Climate change adaptation navigator launched

A Climate Change Adaptation Navigator has recently been launched for the State of Victoria.    This web-based application is designed to assist local and state governments as well as regional organisations in the process of adapting to the impacts of climate change. It arises from research funded under VCCCAR and more specifically a  research project ‘Framing multi-level and multi-actor adaptation responses in the Victorian context’.  The framework was developed in collaboration with three local governments in Victoria with input from state government stakeholders. Researchers came from RMIT the University of Melbourne and Monash (more specifically the Systemic Governance Research Program within Monash Sustainability Institute).

As the introduction to the Navigator says:

 'Adapting to climate change is a complex task. The Climate Change Adaptation Navigator is a flexible guidance framework to allow indviduals and organisations to explore and find their way through climate change adaptation. 

This guidance framework has been designed with decision makers at the local, regional and state level in Victoria (Australia) in mind. However, it may also be useful for government organisations in other parts of the world, private sector organisations or interested individuals from various backgrounds.'

More great jazz - with a tango leitmotif

Friday night the Christians Kirche was an excellent venue for Danish quintet, the Tangoorkestret.  The music was original and engaging and the acoustics helped make it immediate. I was sorry to have to leave before hearing Sophisticated Ladies who made their first appearance Saturday night. 

photo by Nils Olander 

Great Jazz last night

In a precursor to the Copenhagen Jazz festival which starts today we took in a great concert last night at Jazz House Monmartre.  The systemic nature of the performance was a delight with all aspects of feedback processes and emergence to be experienced.  Paolo Fresu was brilliant on trumpet and horn as was Jan Lundgren on piano.  Their album together has sold over 50,000 copies.  The base player (Jesper Lundgaard) and drummer (Morten Lund) were of an equivalent high standard.  A great night and a fitting way to celebrate a recent bithday and the conclusion of a successful PhD training course in Systems Thinking in Practice  as part of the European Farming Systems Research Conference in Aarhus.

Shareholder pride

Hepburn Wind in Victoria has won the World Energy Award 2012!

The World Wind Energy Conference is winding up in Bonn, Germany with the special focus this year being ‘Community Power – Citizens Power’, recognising the power of the community energy model.

We are delighted and humbled to have been awarded the prestigious World Wind Energy Award 2012.

At the invitation of the World Wind Energy Association, our Community Officer, Taryn Lane, presented a paper on the Hepburn Wind story. (No member funds were applied to Taryn’s visit to Germany.)

Last night Taryn accepted the award on behalf of all who have worked to bring the project to fruition. In particular she acknowledged the vision and critical contributions to the project of our founder Per Bernard and our Chairman Simon Holmes à Court, as well as key contributions from project partners, including Sustainability Victoria.

The WWEA Board has recognised our work in introducing large scale community wind power to Australia, as part of a citizen’s movement aiming at a fundamental energy transformation.

The WWEA appreciates in particular that other communities in Australia are now using the ‘Hepburn Model’, as it is commonly referred, in order to develop their own community power projects. The WWEA made particular reference to the role that Embark is playing to catalyse the sector.

Stefan Gsänger, Secretary of the WWEA said:

“The award is given to the initiators of the Hepburn wind farm for launching Australia's first and groundbreaking community initiative that led to a 4.1 MW community owned wind farm, an excellent answer in particular in order to increase social understanding and acceptance of wind power. Seen from outside of Australia, the project may appear small. However, the Hepburn wind farm stands for a social movement outside the strong fossil lobby in Australia.

WWEA would like to express its willingness to work closely with the Australian wind and in particular the community wind sector and to extend its full support and cooperation in fostering the transformation of Australia towards 100% renewable energy and a strengthened understanding of the importance of sustainability.

With the award, WWEA would also like to encourage the government of Victoria and Australia as well as governments around the world to support communities in their efforts to harvest clean and inexhaustible wind power, for their own benefit and for the benefit of our planet.”

The award joins an impressive list of accolades that now ranges from local to national and now through to global recognition including the Climate Alliance Innovator Award 2010, the Victorian Premier’s Sustainability Award 2011, the Banksia Environment Award 2011 and the Ethical Investor Australian Sustainability Award 2011.

As a shareholder I am delighted with this award.

Rio+20: a contribution from The Open University (UK)

Althought the Rio+20 Declaration has been signed and heavily criticised, the issues that shaped and flow from the Rio conversation are critical to us all.  As a contribution to the Rio+20 discourse eight Open University academics concerned about sustainable development joined together to reflect on the Rio+20 progress and prospects, and demonstrate that international gatherings of political leaders are not (fortunately?) the only game in town.

Lugano Systems Summer School

I have just received a Post Card from Werner Ulrich and his partner Kathy who, with Peter Checkland are in the midst of running the last ever Lugano Systems Summer school.  It is pleasing to have had several of my own PhD students, as well as many OU Masters students attend over the years.

Greetings from Lugano!

Dear Ray

Receive our greetings from LSS 2012, which is well under way with an excellent and very sympathetic group of participants.

Three of them come from the OU and we appreciate them all very much.

As I am very, very busy, pardon me for being so short --

Kind regards from beautiful Lugano
Werner (with Kathy)

Unpacking the 'systems' in Earth Systems and social-ecological systems thinking

On Monday next I am a guest of the Stockholm Environment Institute where I will be presenting a BBL Seminar (brown bag lunch) entitled:  “'Earth System', 'Social-ecological system':  what is meant by 'system'?” at 12.15.  

For some time now I have been concerned about the lack of reflexivity in the use of the concept System and what this means for policy and praxis, particularly moves towards systemic governance. 

This is potentially a critique of a different kind to that delivered by Maarten Hajer recently (see from minute 53 on) and that discussed in this recent post from David Ing. 

New Chapter, New Book

At the invitation of the editors I have contributed a chapter to this book entiled'   

Ison. R.L. (2012) A cybersystemic framework for practical action. In Murray, J., Cawthorne, G., Dey, C., and Andrew, C. eds. Enough for All Forever. A Handbook for Learning about Sustainability, pp. 269-84. Champaign, Illinois: Common Ground Publishing.
 

This book can now be purchased from the publisher's online bookstore.