The 2013 Ecosystem Services Come to Town  conference will bring people from many different professions and backgrounds together to understand how we can adapt cities to climate change by working with nature.

It was lovely to host Chris at Unisa the past week. Herewith an article* on his lecture published on Unisa’s Internal Newsletter today.

Chris, thanks again for an excellent lecture. Your own local experience and success have added tremendous value to this discourse.

September 21 is the International Day of Peace.  Irina Bokova, the Director-General of UNESCO in her message says that we should join together “to make education a force for peace”. What does this mean for those of us working on issues of social justice, engagement and social responsibility within higher education?

On my way to work the other morning, I traveled on a part of the highway. When the car was moving on a clear road, it almost crashed into a wheel-barrow placed on the topmost lane by a sweeper who himself was just a few yards away. There was no advance warning that such a ‘barrier’ was about to come ahead (absence of systems). It wasn’t obvious why such an activity cannot be done at a time which is not peak rush hour (poor systems)?

As part of the European Environment Agency’s major publication “Late lessons from early warnings: science, precaution, innovation” (EEA, Copenhagen, 2013) Hartmut Grassl and Bert Metz wrote a chapter on “Climate change: science and the precautionary principle” that analyses the interplay between science and politics on climate change over the last 25 years.