Guest essay by Eric Worrall
University of New South Wales, which sponsored the infamous Ship of Fools melting Antarctic expedition which got stuck in the irony, is encouraged that people listened to academic advice during the Covid-19 lockdown.
Is COVID-19 the dress rehearsal for climate change?
Twitter Facebook LinkedIn 01 JUN 2020 EBONY STANSFIELD
The lessons we have learnt from the impact of COVID-19 may help businesses manage climate risk in the future.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching consequences, changing society as we know it.
Before the crisis hit, Australia was facing a climate emergency with the worst fire season to-date – taking lives, devastating towns, decimating forests and wildlife, and causing widespread fear about the future.
There has been a push for governments and companies to continue their focus on sustainability. But is it appropriate to be talking about climate risk during a global pandemic that is barely contained?
The impacts of climate change will be far-reaching for organisations, both government and private, but the repercussions of COVID-19 show that many are not ready to manage the climate risks.
Throughout May, UNSW Business School’s Responsible Business Program coordinator, Dr Louise Fitzgerald, with Tanya Dellicompagni presented four online discussions titled ‘Future-Proofing Business’, bringing together researchers, academics, business leaders and practitioners.
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“Hopefully, we’ll see people start to reject that kind of combative politics on the other side of this and they’ll want to see agreement, and they’ll want to see evidence-based policy.”
Ms Shrivell says during COVID-19 society has been encouraged to pull together and to download the app but when faced with climate change “we’re a little more encouraged to be ‘well … what can we do?’ ”
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Read more: https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/business-law/covid-19-dress-rehearsal-climate-change
Aussie academics are ready to take on a greater role in global governance. The following are words spoken by the vice chancellor of the Australian National University at Davos in February.
Unis are key to meeting our climate change challenge 5 FEBRUARY 2020
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In 2015, through the Paris Agreement, the world came together to chart a way forward to limit global warming to between 1.5 and 2 degrees. But we are nowhere near being on target to limit warming to 2 degrees, either as a world, or as a nation.
Since the Paris Agreement, CO2 has increased by an amount in our atmosphere higher than in any other four-year period in human history.
We – the global citizenry – are seeing a comprehensive failure of the global political system; a failure that has existential consequences for our collective prosperity. The university sector, in my opinion, will be amongst the most critical of all institutions, if we are to find the pathways to a prosperous and sustainable global future.
We will educate those – young and old – who will be productive in a rapidly changing world.
We will undertake much of the research that underpins the technological development required to cope with our demands on the planet.
We will be the place where much of the thinking emerges on how to marry technology with human behaviour.
And we will be the places most open to contemplating whatever changes to the world-order are going to be required to keep the peace as change occurs.
It has been the role of universities for almost a millennium to challenge orthodoxy and think big. Facing up to the challenges isn’t something we, the university sector, can’t wait for permission to do – our job is to get out in front of issues, and find answers before the calls for help.
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But it is not just technology that matters – all of this has to be underpinned by a highly rational set of policies at the local, national, and international level, as well as things like financial instruments, and public education.
We need to help design the policies that governments can turn to. We stand ready to lend our deep expertise to governments as they act to tackle this enormously complex challenge – ensuring that these do not leave individuals and nations behind. Because if they do, they either will not happen, or will create civil unrest that will undermine their implementation.
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Read more: https://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/unis-are-key-to-meeting-our-climate-change-challenge
Academics are sitting by the phone, waiting for our call. All we have to do is ask, and they will step in and offer us their expert leadership.
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” …… offer us their expert leadership.”
I would prefer professional leadership.
Expert = drip under pressure, or person in suit/dress with laptop from next county.
Professional = someone who earns an honest living doing something and sometimes makes a mistake which he/she owns up to and corrects.
Professors at uni:
“We will educate those – young and old – who will be productive in a rapidly changing world… we will be the places most open to contemplating whatever changes to the world-order are going to be required …”
The hubris and puffery of mediocre minds of today’s so-called scholars makes it hard for smart minds to know what to do with this trainwreck. An old Russian saying adaptable to this is “A hundred wise men cannot solve the problems created by one crazy person”
Definitely worth repeating. I mean, talk about a target-rich environment.
“And we will be the places most open to contemplating whatever changes to the world-order are going to b”We stand ready to lend our deep expertise to governments as they act…”
So, the blind leading the blind, then? That should work out well. Until one group of tyrants attacks the other group of tyrants.
“It has been the role of universities for almost a millennium to challenge orthodoxy and think big.”
But evidently no longer so big as to allow for the possibility that there are things going on in the universe that are bigger than we are, and bigger than big government and Big Brother can dictate.
well, wife employer not opening bldg (work from home) until September at earliest and if no vaccine then 2021 AND it was 31 deg F this morning (mid-maine) SO…they got to be related somehow.
just need to suss it out….use any data any way you want for any argument you want just like AGW crowd does.
Dress Rehearsal or Final Curtain ?
As sung by the Seekers “ The Carnival is Over “
A very generous offer to lead us into a new world order. I can’t wait to see what they have to offer apart from such unmitigated arrogance.
If academics and so-called experts want politicians to follow their advice then hold them to account, make them liable for that advice — criminally where relevant.
Academics are standing by at their phones, ready to lead us all up the garden path yet again, towards the ATM of Funding. Faced with Real World Problems, these academics could not even fight their way out of a paper bag.
“The university sector, in my opinion, will be amongst the most critical of all institutions, if we are to find the pathways to a glorious Marxist-Leninist global future.”
There, fixed it for ya.
According to a new law in the UK, having sex with someone who is not part of your household is now illegal.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/coronavirus-sex-lockdown-illegal-093127804.html
> having sex with someone who is not part of your household is now illegal.
That shouldn’t pose a problem for certain elements within the UK’s rich ethnocultural tapestry.
*slaps self on wrist for being racialist*
“We – the global citizenry – are seeing a comprehensive failure of the global political system”
The author presumes to speak for every citizen on the globe.
Did the author talk to every global citizen? Of course not. It’s blowing smoke/wild speculation.
Strikes me that this is about the reality of the Bonfire of the Vanities. The global political system must mean the United Nations – which has comprehensively failed when put to the test regarding CV19
“Before the crisis hit, Australia was facing a climate emergency…”
Suggesting that once the ‘crisis’ hit, the climate emergency went away.
Wuhan Flu fixed the Climate Emergency! All Praise Wuhan!
/snarc
Protests to show solidarity for Black Lives Matters in US gets more numbers than a climate protest. It’s like a greek tragedy … one is supposedly going to end the world the other is an event in another country.
The slow March through the institutions sees the capture of some in governments by universities. One reads reports like this from University of New South Wales with scepticism precedent, the expectation of an unbalanced, left leaning set of words that heap criticism on others.
It is so bad in Victoria that the Premier, comrade Daniel, describes the university education of paid, foreign students as Victoria’s biggest industry. Problem is, most of said students are from China and many have little to no comprehension of English language, so the Aussie Victorians see travel of these students in and out of China as a productive path to spread Covid-19 nasties.
There is now an embargo on international incomings. This means Comrade Dan can see a loss of income. On the news today, he floated a plan to allow students to bypass the embargo, plus making them stay in quarantine for a fortnight, plus having the taxpayers here pay for the cost of quarantine. I think airfares are also paid, not sure.
So, at a time of stress and worry by Aussies here, with some dislike of Chinese Communism for concealing Covid at the start, we have a Premier in love with Communism, certainly not doing what most Victorians would wish.
Government out of control and 2 years before the next State election. God help Victoria. Geoff S
Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. { Richard Feynman }. In my years as a Registered Engineer, I have found that advice useful.
Don’t poke the lefties Alberto-
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/virus-still-potent-says-who-after-claim-by-italian-doctor/ar-BB14U3ZT
Mind you it does make you wonder why the Spanish Flu didn’t keep on keeping on slaughtering millions.
Because when you think about it viruses and bugs attack the aged and senescent fatally if you watch plants and animals. It’s inevitable that as they spread and transfer to the younger stalwarts they’re modified in turn just as they create defence mechanisms in the hosts. No critter is unchanged by such interaction as a permanently deadly virus to a species faces it’s own demise with the demise of the host. Equilibrium occurs when the virus can survive largely on the frail senescent and the odd young with compromised or out of whack immune systems leaving the bulk of the host largely unscathed. Covid19 should be no different unless it’s a Black Swan virus but Alberto reckons it’s not.