Cabot office weekly roundup

Cabot office weekly roundup – 20 July 2012

Herbert Huppert

This week we have been holding our Cabot Summer School on risk and uncertainty in natural hazards. The week has gone very well and I have received some very positive comments from attendees. We had some fantastic speakers including Herbert Huppert, Jonty Rougier, Steve Sparks, Willy Aspinall, Li Chen, Tamsin Edwards, Philippa Bayley and Thorsten Wagener. Cabot would like to say a great big thank you to all of you for making the Cabot Summer School such a success. We’re very much looking forward to next year.

Paul F. Hoffman

This week, Cabot member Rich Pancost secured Paul F. Hoffman of Snowball Earth fame as the next Science Faculty Colloquium speaker in September.

I saw the new templates for our website today. Its all looking good and I’m quite excited about the implementation of its new look. By the end of the summer I hope to have it all up and running.

We would like to congratulate Cabot member Professor Mark Eisler and his team who evaluated the effectiveness of a low-cost decision support tool as a diagnostic aid by observing whether its introduction to veterinary and animal health officers undertaking primary animal health care in Uganda could lead to changes in clinical practice. Improved diagnosis is necessary for the effective management of endemic cattle diseases in sub-Saharan Africa.

We would also like to congratulate Gareth Jones, Stephen Harris and Emma Stone who received £559,705 from NERC for a project on ‘Experimental approaches to determine the impacts of light pollution: field studies on bats and insects’.

Powering the economy through the engine of Smart Local Energy Systems

How can the Government best retain key skills and re-skill and up-skill the UK workforce to support the recovery and sustainable growth? This summer the UK’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) requested submission of inputs on Post-Pandemic Economic Growth. The below thoughts were submitted to the BEIS inquiry as part of input under the EnergyREV project . However, there are points raised here that, in the editing and summing up process of the submission, were cut out, hence, this blog on how the UK could power economic recovery through Smart Local Energy Systems (SLES). 1. Introduction: Factors, principles, and implications In order to transition to a sustainable and flourishing economy from our (post-)COVID reality, we must acknowledge and address the factors that shape the current economic conditions. I suggest to state the impact of such factors through a set of driving principles for the UK’s post-COVID strategy. These factors are briefly explained belo

Farming in the Páramos of Boyacá: industrialisation and delimitation in Aquitania

Labourers harvest ‘cebolla larga’ onion in Aquitania. Image credit: Lauren Blake. In October and November 2019 Caboteer Dr Lauren Blake spent time in Boyacá, Colombia, on a six-week fieldtrip to find out about key socio-environmental conflicts and the impacts on the inhabitants of the páramos, as part of the historical and cultural component of her research project, POR EL Páramo . Background information about the research can be found in the earlier blog on the project website . Descending down the hill in the bus from El Crucero, the pungent smell of cebolla larga onion begins to invade my nose. The surrounding land transforms into plots of uniform rows of onion tops at various stages of growth, some mostly brown soil with shoots poking out along the ridges, others long, bushy and green. Sandwiched between the cloud settled atop the mountainous páramos and the vast, dark blue-green Lake Tota, all I can see and all I can smell is onion production. Sprinklers are scattered around, dr

IncrEdible! How to save money and reduce waste

The new academic year is a chance to get to grips with managing your student loan and kitchen cupboards. Over lockdown the UK wasted a third less food than we usually would. This is brilliant, as normally over 4.5 million tonnes of edible food is wasted from UK homes every year. For students, it’s even higher. The average cost of food waste per student per week is approximately £5.25 - that's about £273 per year ! It’s not just our bank accounts that are affected by food waste – it’s our planet too. The process of growing, making, distributing, storing and cooking our food uses masses of energy, fuel and water. It generates 30% of the world’s CO₂ greenhouse gas emissions. The same amount of CO₂ as 4.6 million return flights from London to Perth, Australia! So it makes sense to keep as much food out of the bin as possible, start wasting less and saving more. Start the new term with some food waste busting, budget cutting, environment loving habits! Here’s five easy ways to reduce

Cabot Institute for the Environment blog

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