CLIMATE CHANGE - THE SCIENCE, THE BUSINESS...

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Dear Catalysters,

Welcome to our first Early Warning System newsletter for 2024.  I hope you had a fun and restful break and all the best for a healthy, happy, more peaceful and less divisive New Year.

Thanks to a cheeky email and lucky timing, we are thrilled to announce our 2024 Catalyst Kōrero will start off on Thursday, February 15, with a visual tour of the science of climate change led by UK-based Kiwi John Lang, co-founder and lead of the international project Net Zero Tracker and founder of Kiwis in Climate.
 
He and his wife are visiting New Zealand, and he’s accepted our invitation to stay for a while and lead a discussion, among other things, of what “good net zero” looks like, and what companies and individuals can and should be doing to bend the emissions curve downwards.
 
John has produced ‘explainer infographics’ to make IPCC reports understandable (check out our Facebook page post of November 29), is with the London-based Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, holds a Master of Laws in environmental law and policy from UCL, and runs Consult Climate and ‘the e-nvironmentalist’, a climate communication blog.
 
He does offer hope.  “Even if we do cross 1.5 C, which is obviously very very likely, extremely likely… we can return.”  But, he adds, “the burden of doing so is going to fall on future generations.”
 
More details on our website, Facebook and Eventbrite pages.  Registration required to reserve your seat and please bring your cash koha for Sustainable Queenstown. Numbers are limited.
 
Then on Tuesday, March 26, we are focusing on Predator Free 2050 – what does it mean, how does it work and why should we care?
 
Three Whakatipu experts in predator control will cover the multiple connected issues from local, national and international perspectives. From the Southern Lakes Sanctuary, to training New Zealand’s predator detection dogs, to how can endangered albatross be saved from killer mice on South Africa’s Marion Island?
 
Registration will open on our Eventbrite page a month prior to this event and all koha will be given to Southern Lakes Sanctuary, where some 1000 local volunteers are working to control predators in 163,000ha of our hinterland to give threatened species a better chance of survival. Work that has already seen the return of takahē chicks to the Whakatipu late last year.

If you have been forwarded this EWS, you can enrol on our website to make sure you don’t miss out on hearing about our events in future. You can follow us on Facebook, where we also post news of other events to help create a thinking community in the Whakatipu and media tidbits relevant to topical issues and our previous events/speakers.

If you have any ideas on potential speakers or events, please get in touch. And if you would like to join our small but enthusiastic team, we would love to hear from you!

Ngā mihi nui

Cath Gilmour, Catalyst Trust co-chair.

Venue: The Rees Hotel, Luxury Apartments & Lakeside Residences

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Related documents:

• Catalyst Newsletter January 2024 (PDF, 122.92 KB)

• Print Event