I am at conference this week - it's a biannual event and one I always try to get to called "coast to coast". The theme this year is 'living on the edge.' This week I have now seen several talks on surfing including one on beach nourishment for surfers and wider beaches and another on the economic benefits that surfing brings to communities and one on beach and surf tourism and recreation in Australia: vulnerability and adaptation.

You can all rest assured that the talks have gone well and people are taking us seriously!!! There are people out there building tools to influence govt policy makers....the TOS issue has been well discussed. And no there have been no cookies or funny shaped cigarettes being passed round. Lots of evening beers and good food though

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Ted the Kiwi said...

I am at conference this week - it's a biannual event and one I always try to get to called "coast to coast". The theme this year is 'living on the edge.' This week I have now seen several talks on surfing including one on beach nourishment for surfers and wider beaches and another on the economic benefits that surfing brings to communities and one on beach and surf tourism and recreation in Australia: vulnerability and adaptation.

You can all rest assured that the talks have gone well and people are taking us seriously!!! There are people out there building tools to influence govt policy makers....the TOS issue has been well discussed. And no there have been no cookies or funny shaped cigarettes being passed round. Lots of evening beers and good food though

wow Ted, thats awesome. Its good to see these issues are being discussed.

Sounds a lot more interesting than my pathetic 2 day annual conference

Because we're the biggest branch all the interstate people get to come to Sydney, we never get to go to other states.

And the venue is in crappy old Brighton le sands.

Bit Too far from a quick and Dirty surf before or after each days boredom sessions.

The other big difference is that there ain't too many academics at our conferences

Is there an unusually tall and relaxed guy called Dan there?

He is an academic working for Bond Uni researching the $ Value of the resource provided by the coastline.

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CMC said...
Is there an unusually tall and relaxed guy called Dan there?

He is an academic working for Bond Uni researching the $ Value of the resource provided by the coastline.

Yep he was there and yes he is is tall and a super smooth presenter - those fellas and the guys at Grifith are doing some great work at the moment......and yes Simondo that's the one. Hopefully the next one is in WA so work can pay my flights over to get some first hand experience of those sharks

Conference is now over for me and I am sitting in bumper to bumper traffic leaving Bris Vegas for the joys of Byron. Expect a few pics this side trip is for work though so I have a few jobs to do.

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obct said...
Sounds a lot more interesting than my pathetic 2 day annual conference

Because we're the biggest branch all the interstate people get to come to Sydney, we never get to go to other states.

And the venue is in crappy old Brighton le sands.

Bit Too far from a quick and Dirty surf before or after each days boredom sessions.

The other big difference is that there ain't too many academics at our conferences

I hear ya obct.....must say that in recent times my conference venues have been far from exciting as well.....although better than Brighton la sands - but Tamworth was a weird one! One of my colleagues is in northern peru at a conference at the moment - knew I should have been a volcano man!

Here is my abstract for my talk if anyone is in interested. Gives u an idea on the sort of stuff I do for a living.

In NSW, as elsewhere in Australia, migration to the coast and its continued development is leading to large concentrations of population, property and infrastructure at risk to the natural coastal processes. Legal disputes between the rights of private property owners and local councils have festered and recent changes to the Coastal Protection Act have failed to arrest this situation. Byron Bay, home to one of the most iconic pieces of coastline in Australia has become the poster child for these disputes. This paper documents the history of the local area in respect to coastal management, related changes to the law and the implications of these changes for the property rights of landowners and other stakeholders. It finds that planning for an uncertain future is over-shadowing more immediate issues. On the one hand, we have the 'precautionary' principle of planned retreat that purports to deal with climate change-induced sea-level rise; and on the other, emergency protection works permitted under the new legislation are impractical. There is nothing in place to deal with the immediate and medium term problems of coastal erosion affecting beach users and property owners. In our view, science and engineering solutions are being ignored by local government for ideological reasons, leaving it exposed to legal liability from other parties.

Your last sentence tells us much, because the practical solutions to many of today's environmental malaise do often take a back seat to ideology, and the desire to appease all parties, lest you be seen as being in some way prejudicial towards any group.

Although the bulk of my own work relates to sustainability, I don't for one second believe that in a real world I'm benefiting the environment, even though I could be benefiting the environment. That's because I'm what could be termed a neo Malthusian, someone who believes that no matter what we do, provided we continue to consume, we will inevitably consume everything.

So why would I not say over populate? If I was a true Malthusian, that's what I might say, but Malthus himself was wrong by predicting that England would run out of food in the Victorian era. I believe population can regulate itself, but what it can't do is regulate its consumption. The more we have the more we want and the more prosperous one becomes the more one consumes until you reach the point where a single person of reasonable means is consuming the equivalent of 15 others of less reasonable means.

So 1 is equal to 15

And the saddest part is, because of the way exponential growth works, those that carry our genetic codes onto the future, long after we are gone, probably won't know it until it's too late.

Owning a chuck of beachfront property in an erosion zone is consuming, ergo, 1 persons desire to maintain the right to property and to ensure that no stabilisation plantings are done that will spoil the vista or access, could be seen as the equivalent of 15 others going there every day and eroding the beachfront.

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Ted the Kiwi said...

CMC said...
Is there an unusually tall and relaxed guy called Dan there?

He is an academic working for Bond Uni researching the $ Value of the resource provided by the coastline.

Yep he was there and yes he is is tall and a super smooth presenter - those fellas and the guys at Grifith are doing some great work at the moment......and yes Simondo that's the one. Hopefully the next one is in WA so work can pay my flights over to get some first hand experience of those sharks

Conference is now over for me and I am sitting in bumper to bumper traffic leaving Bris Vegas for the joys of Byron. Expect a few pics this side trip is for work though so I have a few jobs to do.

Hope you had a good trip, Dan lives next door so I'll ask him about the conference, sounds interesting.