Lectures, discussions, webinars and actions coming up
Eastern Bays Climate Resonse Network

If you have climate related events, resources, requests, suggestions or any other information you would like to share please send it to us.

Things are happening!

The showing of Simon Lamb’s documentary Thin Ice (also online) was a great success. More than 75 people gave up one of our few wonderfully sunny afternoons to learn more about the science of climate change. It is a wonderfully informative film showing the dedication of scientists in different parts of the world as they explore the effects of climate change on our world.

Also well attended was the Coastal Restoration Series created by Janet Andrews and Simon Hoyle (Southlight / Days Bay) which can also be viewed online

Dr Dave Lowe (author of The Survivalist) gave a talk to the Hutt City Council (available for viewing soon) and is giving a talk in Eastbourne this week (details below).

Campaign to reduce car journeys from Eastbourne to the ferry.

We are planning to use the completion of the Eastbourne to Days Bay section of Tupua Horo Nuku / Eastern Bays Shared Path to launch a campaign to persuade ferry commuters to get out of their cars, or at least share the ride, bike or walk to the ferry, and also reduce car journeys the other way – particularly for Days Bay kids going to Muritai School.

We are starting by gathering data on how people travel to the ferry so we can see how this could be changed. If you would like to help with this project contact simonjshaw@xtra.co.nz 0292789947 or Ginny Horrocks vjhorrocks@gmail.com 0212308210

In this update

  • Series: Wai Aotearoa: What's the news about our water?  3,10,17,24,31 May
  • Webinar: The Limits of Degrowth: Rod Oram - Wednesday 17th May
  • Talk: Dr Dave Lowe on Climate Change (informal), East Harbour Women's Club Thursday 18th May 2023
  • South Coast Climate Adaptation Briefing Sunday 21 May 2023
  • Inaugural lecture: Earth, life, and climate: in search of nature's 'invisible hand' Thursday 1 June

Reading / Watching / Listening

Tupua Horo Nuku

The pace of construction is picking up on Mā-koromiko. Mean time work has been done to the Bird Protection Area (BPA) adjacent to Shortt Park to provide more protection for the penguin nesting boxes to be placed there. This is in anticipation or relocating birds from the Sunshine Bay shoreline to make it ready for development. https://www.huttcity.govt.nz/council/our-projects/cycleways-and-shared-paths/cycleways-and-shared-paths-eastern-bay-shared-path

Consultation

  • HCC Draft Annual Plan 2023-2024 (survey concluded)
  • HCC Indigenous Biodiversity Strategy (survey concluded)
  • GWRC What's your 10 year vision for your region?
  • GWRC Annual Plan 2023/24 (closed)
  • GWRC Significance and Engagement Policy (closed)

Wai Aotearoa: What's the news about our water? (series)

The state of water, especially freshwater, in Aotearoa New Zealand has been a matter of public concern since the 1990s. There have been a number of initiatives involving governments, iwi and multiple stakeholders to improve the way we manage water, and therefore land, in both town and country. But controversy continues, most recently around wastewater, stormwater, and drinking water infrastructure, which makes it timely to reflect again on the big picture.

Where are we now and what lies ahead of us?

The Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies aims to address these questions in its annual seminar series beginning on 26 April. The seminars will discuss not just our freshwater—rivers and streams, lakes and groundwater—but also touch on estuaries and the sea into which our rivers flow.

Series dates 17, 24, 31 May

 Find out more     Register 

The Limits of Degrowth

Our Climate Declaration - next webinar is by Rod Oram on Wednesday May 17, 7pm.

Humanity’s greatest challenge is to meet its needs within the limits of the Living Earth. But currently both sides of that relationship are heading fast in the wrong direction.

Our population could grow by another 20 percent to some 10 billion people by 2050; and the way we use the Earth's resources is ever more rapidly diminishing the Earth's ability to support us and all other forms of life.

The quest for a healthy relationship between people and planet takes many forms such as degrowth and other changes in behaviour, economics, values, technology, and other drivers of human activity.

In this session, Rod will examine the weaknesses of degrowth in particular; and offer some other ways humanity can re-establish its right relationship with the Living Earth.

ZOOM LINK
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82975895583?pwd=ZUlSMUU0RGtBSzBrTysrZTQ3ZXhZdz09
Meeting ID: 829 7589 5583

Passcode: 199129

Dr Dave Lowe - author of award winning "The Alarmist" will talk informally about Climate Change.

 

The Alarmist - Dr Dave Lowe

East Harbour Women's Club, Thursday 18th May 2023 at 6pm. Cost $15, Refreshments and snacks included.

 

 

 

 

Dave spoke recently at HCC Council Climate meeting and gave a very local (Dave now lives in Petone) perspective with a few anecdotes. Dave was the lead scientist that set up the Baring Head Atmospheric Monitoring Station (still operational) - the first such station in the southern hemisphere and 50 years ago was showing the rising CO2 levels which are contributing to global warming. (Baring Head is definitely worth a visit to find out more).

 

 

South Coast Climate Adaptation Briefing

Hapori Takutai – Huringa Āhuarangi

 

Agenda

Sunday 21 May 2023 at 3.00 - 4.30pm

Wellington South Baptist Church Hall, 284 The Parade Island Bay

 

90 minute information session. We will have a few speakers to bring us up to speed with a number of climate-related issues.

 

Professor Jonathan Boston, ONZM

Our key speaker is Professor Boston, a member of the Expert Working Group on Managed Retreat, which is advising our Ministry for the Environment on how NZ should prepare for the storms of the future and accelerating sea level rise. Jonathan spent several days recently in Napier/Hawkes Bay surveying some of the extensive damage from Cyclone Gabrielle, which struck in mid-February. 

“Some of the destruction and devastation we witnessed near Napier was sobering, confronting ... almost unbelievable. It is a terrible harbinger of what is in store for countless communities around the world over the coming decades and beyond, especially those living on or near the coast and in river valleys and flood plains. This is why it is essential to take precautionary measures to move people and property out of harm's way ... and, of course, reduce our GHG emissions.”

 

Wellington City Council

We will have a short update from WCC on where we are at with much-needed impact assessments, and the City’s Climate Change Adaptation road map.

 

Julie Anne Genter MP

Green MP Julie Anne Genter will give her perspective on the The Big Picture – the factors that are driving climate change, as well as what it means to communities like ours, and the need to devolve funding and responsibility to local levels – the need to resource communities.

 

Fleur Fitzsimons

Former Councillor and candidate for Rongotai, Fleur Fitzsimons will share her thoughts on the need for communities to organise to face these kinds of challenges. 

 

Come and find out and ask questions. If you can’t make it, let us know and send your questions to: 4cwelly@gmail.com.

 

Invitation as PDF 

Inaugural Lecture

Professor Nicholas Golledge
Earth, life, and climate: in search of nature's 'invisible hand'

 

Everything in the world that we see today is there because of processes that over four-and-a-half billion years have gradually refined the ways that simple building blocks are put together. This process of assembly has given rise to complex structures that exhibit complex behaviours, even though the laws of physics dictate that it should be chaos rather than order that increases over time.

In this lecture Professor Golledge will discuss how processes of self-organisation enable complexity, and the characteristic patterns of behaviour that many natural systems share - from plate tectonics to ecological biodiversity, the global climate to the beating of our hearts.

Thursday 1 June, 6-7pm, Hunter Council Chamber.  Register now

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