For many years, Melbourne has dined out on being recognised by The Economist as “the most liveable city in the world;” and is now second to Vienna. While this global recognition is a source of great pride and an excellent marketing tool – is this measure of “liveable” fit for purpose, when considering the residents of Melbourne? Drawing on almost a decade of research, Professor Billie Giles-Corti will consider: What is a [...]
Human pressures on the planet as a whole – the ‘Earth System’ – have now become so great that scientists have proposed that we have now left the Holocene, the geologic epoch that has been humanity’s accommodating home for the last 11,700 years. It’s proposed we’ve entered a new geologic epoch, the Anthropocene, characterised by extremely rapid changes to the climate system and the biosphere, driven primarily by a range [...]
The 2021 Howitt Lecture Presented in partnership with the Geological Society of Australia (Victoria Division). Associate Professor David Kennedy is a coastal geomorphologist who specialises on the impacts of climate change, storms, tsunami and sea level rise on coastal landforms, particularly coral reefs and islands, rocky shorelines (cliffs and shore platforms) and estuaries. Surveying using total stations and remote sensing (eg. LiDAR) technologies are central to his research, which is combined with [...]
Extreme bushfires and the age of violent pyroconvection Professor Jason Sharples School of Physical, Environmental and Mathematical Sciences UNSW (Canberra) Over the last few decades, Australia and other fire prone parts of the world have seen an apparent increase in the occurrence of large destructive bushfires, such as those experienced during the 2019/20 Black Summer. These fires defy suppression, consistently result in the loss of life and property, and further [...]
Society as an information processing system, and the influence of the media Dr Erik Aslaksen FRSN Physicist, Engineer, and Author We are concerned about our environment, and rightfully so: the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, and threats to this environment from global warming, loss of biological diversity, and many other concerns. These are all concerns about our physical environment, much as an ice bear [...]
Australia installed more renewable generation in the last three years than in the thirty years prior. It seems that every week a new renewable energy record is smashed. Yet despite this, Australia has the highest per-capita greenhouse emissions of any advanced economy, we’re on track to miss our Paris Agreement commitments and we’re nowhere near achieving net zero. How did we get here, and how can we turn it around? [...]
In a ‘post-truth’ society, fuelled by soundbites and status updates, opinions and personal theories are often presented with unwavering certainty but remain untested. In this climate, it can be confusing when we hear from scientists reluctant to deal in absolutes, who instead engage in conversations about ‘degrees of certainty’. In the world of science, a ‘theory’ is the closest something may ever come to being ‘the truth’. To understand what [...]
Ideas@theHouse: July 2021 Presented by Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC QC, Governor of NSW “Music as a Superfood: How music can help us live longer, sleep better, calm down, find flow, and feel happier” Greta J. Bradman Writer, broadcaster and psychologist About the talk: Greta Bradman will discuss how music can help us live longer, sleep better, calm down, find flow, and feel happier. The talk will include explorations of the [...]
Dr Abersteiner is the 2020 Royal Society of Tasmania's Doctoral Award winner. His PhD focused on kimberlite, an igneous rock that originates deep within the Earth and is the primary source of diamonds. He will deliver an online webinar and speak about how his work greatly improves our understanding of the Earth’s deep interior. For details...read more.
The Intimate History of Evolution: The Huxleys 1825–1975 Professor Alison Bashford FRSN FAHA FRHistS FBA Laureate Professor of History UNSW (Sydney) For webinar registration and details...read more. At Life Magazine’s 1947 photoshoot, Julian Huxley self-consciously arranged himself in front of a portrait of his grandfather, Thomas Henry Huxley. In the foreground, a well-known mid-twentieth century science writer, zoologist, conservationist—that generation’s David Attenborough. In the background, a mid-nineteenth century natural scientist – Darwin’s [...]
