I might be tempted to restate the title as “Hierarchical confusions in intellectual debate” – but then I’ll be accused (again) of using big words. However, it is my experience that as climate science engages more across communities and disciplines, increasingly the conversations initially miss their targets, and finding convergence requires iteration. In my dialogues… Read more »
Sitting through the late afternoon session of the 5th International Conference on Climate Services currently being co-hosted by CSAG and GERICS in Cape Town, the presenters were tackling the question: “What are effective climate services”. The panel discussion sessions spent some time looking at the question of determining the success of a climate service activity… Read more »
Dianne Scott and Chris Jack (co-authored) What are narratives? Narratives are really just an academic way of talking about stories. Narratives, or stories, have a number of important elements. They describe different actors which can be people, institutions, environments, species, etc. Some actors may be villains, others may be victims, yet others may be saviors. … Read more »
There is not yet a definitive answer to this question. But a few of us in the FRACTAL project (Di Scott, Anna Steynor, Alice McClure and I) have worked together to develop an answer, the best we can for now based on the literature we have reviewed and the experiences we have accumulated to-date. Seeing… Read more »
Wednesday, 7 September 2016, and the stage was being set for FRACTAL’s first learning lab event: a large circle of participants (40 or so) filled a workshop room that was void of tables and computers. A “safe space” for knowledge co-production was being created as participants expressed their requests for freedom of speech, creativity, honesty… Read more »
Anna Steynor, Katharine Vincent (Kulima Integrated Development Solutions), Katinka Waagsaether and Tracy Cull (Kulima Integrated Development Solutions) The establishment of a “community of practice” (COP) is an idealised vision that is often expressed as a desirable outcome of research projects. The successful establishment of a COP is seen to embody the notion of extending the… Read more »
Written by Rodger Duffett The Water Harvesting Toolkit is an extension to the Climate Information Platform (CIP) that was funded by the South African Water Research Commission (WRC) under the SmartWater Fund initiative. It provides a link between climate data stored in the CIP and a practical application of the data. The toolkit was… Read more »
Let’s try this again. This is my second attempt at writing my first CSAG blog. I made the classic error the first time around of biting off more than I can chew. And then I made the equally classic error of going to look at what others had written for their blog entries and got… Read more »
When did climate science research become about what the user wants? When did climate science start having an interested “user”? A quick google of the definition of “research”: the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions. Nowhere in that definition does it mention that… Read more »