Mike Young new Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser chair of Australian Studies at Harvard University

Mike Young, founding Environment Insitute Executive Director, will today be announced as the Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser chair of Australian Studies at Harvard University for next year.

Professor Mike Young

The Chair in Australian Studies at Harvard University was established in 1976 through a grant by the Australian Government, in recognition of the American Bicentenary, to further American understanding of Australia. Over this time, Harvard has invited distinguished visiting scholars on an annual basis, to hold the Chair and to present courses and seminars on topics related to Australia and its culture. Over this time the Chair has been occupied by some of Australia’s most outstanding intellectuals, including historians Manning Clark and Geoffrey Blaine.

In 2010 the Chair was renamed in recognition of the two prime ministers who, from opposite sides of politics, negotiated and founded this important initiative.

Read Mike Young’s interview with The Australian to find out what his plans are in this role at Harvard.

Read the University of Adelaide Media Release.

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Farewell from Mike Young

Three years I took on the challenge of setting up the Environment Institute.  Over the years that I have been doing this, I have missed the opportunity to do the policy research that I love.  A new opportunity to pursue this research agenda has emerged and I have decided to seize it.

Early in the New Year, I will be moving to the Faculty of Professions to start, as one would predict, with some research on water.  This will soon spread out to include climate change, biodiversity and other environmental policy issues.  My academic focus will be on what economists call public choice theory.  I lay terms this means about the search for guidelines about the best way to make transformational decisions that affect the future of human kind.

In this new role, I hope also to bring together some of the University’s social and humanity science research capacity and make it easier for these people to interact with people in the Environment Institute.  I also plan to spend time helping to nurture some of the marine, biodiversity corridor and carbon initiatives that Simon Divecha and I have been developing.

The search for a new Director will start in the New Year.  In the interim, Bob Hill will act as the Institute’s Director.  I will be spending the last part of January in Europe attending two water management meetings.

In closing, I would like to thank everyone for the tremendous contributions that they have made.  Collectively, we can be proud of what has been achieved.

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Environment Institute Members get involved with Earth Station

Attending WOMAD Earth Station this Friday, Saturday and Sunday? Make sure you get along and hear Environment Institute members presenting as part of the sustainability program for this year’s festival.

Environment Institute members involved are:

• Our Executive Director, Mike Young, will be hosting a session 1pm on Saturday in the University of Adelaide Pavillion called Greening Australia’s Economy.
• Associate Professor David Paton is speaking on Sunday at 3pm in the University of Adelaide Pavillion, in a session called ‘River, Estuary, Sea- Who cares about the Coorong?’
• Our Business Manager, Simon Divecha, is hosting a discussion between Environment Institute members Professor Corey Bradshaw and Professor Barry Brook on Sunday at 7pm in the University of Adelaide Pavillion. The session, titled ‘So you’ve heard the Science – How do we save the World?’ will be the second to last session of the weekend and will explore the application, and frustration, of science in changing public consciousness and our society’s policies.

We hope to see a lot of familiar faces around, and make sure you follow us on Twitter (@environmentinst) and get involved with the discussion by using the hashtag #earthstation.

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The Big Challenges for Economics

In an era of economic challenges, a forum providing an opportunity for analysis of the state of the economy, and highlighting the key economic challenges facing Australia over the forthcoming one to two years and into the medium term, is a much anticipated event.

The Australian Economic Forum, an initiative of the Economics Society of Australia provides an opportunity for economists, business professionals and public servants across all levels of Government to come together and discuss targeted economic issues.

The Environment Institute’s Executive Director, Professor Mike Young, University of Adelaide, is a participant at the forum where he will discuss the challenges surrounding Environmental Economics.

When: 22-23 September 2011

Where: Dockside, The Balcony Level, Cockle Bay Wharf, Darling Park, Sydney

To find out more about this event or to register, click here.

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Professor Mike Young’s Presentation at World Water Week

Professor Mike Young, Executive Director of the Environment Institute, recently spoke at the World Water Week conference in Stockholm.

 A green economy is essentially an economy that really invests in looking after the environment by putting money into the environment. The work is revealing. In fact, you can have faster economic growth and development.

To hear Professor Young’s successful talk in full, click here.  To view photos from the conference click here.

World Water Week Conference

Professor Young is also writing the chapter on water for a U.N. Environmental Program report on the green economy and blogged “How green should our economy be?” during World Water Week.  To read his blog, click here.

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WOMAD Earth Station – New Acts Announced

WOMAD’s new festival – Earth Station – has announced further acts.

An opportunity to receive and transmit ideas, issues and solutions towards a more sustainable planet, this innovative event melds the intellectual and cultural energies of leading scientific minds with a performance program featuring some of the world’s most accomplished and diverse musicians. The festival audience will be inspired by a refreshing and rare combination of discussion and music during a weekend of forums, displays and performances.

The line-up for the performance program is -

• The Kronos Quartet (USA)
• Abdullah Ibrahim (SOUTH AFRICA)
• Rickie Lee Jones (USA)
• Zakir Hussain (INDIA)
• Toumani Diabate (MALI)
• Konono No. 1( DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO)
• The Tallest Man on Earth (SWEDEN)
• The Audreys (AUS)
• The catholics (AUS)
• Emma Donovan Band (AUS)
• Frank Yamma & David Bridie (AUS)
• Iwantja Band (AUS)
• Ellis Pearson – “Man Up a Tree” (SOUTH AFRICA – site artist)
• Mark Atkins (AUS)
• Mista Savona (AUS)
• Pacific Curls (NZ)
• Paris Wells (AUS)
• Shanghai Chinese Orchestra (CHINA)
• Stan’s Cafe “Of All the People in All the World” (UK – site piece)
• Vika & Linda Bull (AUS)
• Wu Man (CHINA)
• The Yearlings (AUS)

The Planet Talks program includes -

• Bruce Thom AM (Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists and Emeritus Professor University of Sydney)
• Cate Blanchett & Andrew Upton (Sydney Theatre Company)
• Giselle Weybrecht (USA) (Author of The Sustainable MBA)
• Hunter Lovins (USA) (Founder of Natural Capitalism Solutions)
• Samantha Mostyn (Founder of the ‘1 Million Women’ movement)
• Robyn Williams (ABC: The Science Show)
• Ian Lowe OA (President of Australian Conservation Foundation)
• John McTernan (UK) (Global expert on public service leadership, adviser to Tony Blair)
• Matthew Wright (Director, Beyond Zero Emissions)
• Rod Quantock (Australian Comedian)
• Mike Young (Director, Environment Institute Adelaide University)
• Mike Sandiford (Director, Melbourne Energy Institute & Professor of Geology Melbourne University)
• Paul Gilding (Author of The Great Disruption, former Head of Greenpeace International)
• Peter Cosier (Director, Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists)
• Prof Lesley Hughes (Head of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University and Climate Change Commissioner)
• Roy Neel (USA) (Vice President Al Gore’s Chief of Staff)
• Paul Willis (Director, RiAus)
• Stephen Pekar (USA) (Assoc Professor School of Earth & Environmental Science, Queens College New York State)
• Tim Stubbs (Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists)
• Bernie Hobbs ( ABC: The New Inventors)
• Associate Professor David Paton
• Dominic Skinner (Freshwater Ecology Expert)
• Associate Professor Keith Walker
• Dr Graham Turner (Senior Research Scientist, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems)
• Fiona Heinrichs (Author, Sleepwalking to Catastrophe)

THE SUSTAINABILITY PROGRAM – is being developed in collaboration with the Environment Institute and the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists.

Read more

When: 21-23 October 2011
Where: Long Gully, Belair National Park

To book your tickets

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How green should our economy be?

Following is a post from Professor Mike Young, Executive Director, Environment Institute University of Adelaide, who we invited to be a guest blogger as part of World Water Week.

Professor Mike Young

I write this blog as I fly to Stockholm to help launch the Water Component of a UNEP study on Green Economies.

In Australia, the need for and benefits of putting a price on greenhouse gas emissions are becoming understood.

Internationally, especially within the European Community, discussions have widened to focus on the benefits of shifting to a green economy.  If it makes sense to put a price on carbon, then it probably makes sense to put a price on all forms of pollution and all forms of resource depletion.

Green economies are characterised by a suite of programs that seek to reflect the full costs of resource use and to make polluters pay the full costs of resource use. The cost of “externalities” – as economists like to call all the bad things we do to each other and to future people – are brought into the market place and become part of the cost of everything we think about doing.

After Australia has a carbon price in place, what other pollution charges should be introduced?  How green should our economy be?  Should it, for example, extend to include a wide array of arrangements that protect the erosion of biodiversity values?

In green economies, a considerable amount of effort and time is put into quantifying how the condition of all our renewable resources is tracking.  When the direction is downwards, assessments are immediately made of the cost of reversing such trends.  Is this something that Australia should be doing?

Green economies are characterised by a series of programs that encourage investment in the reclamation of a nation’s natural capital.  The government’s programs that are investing in bringing health to the Murray Darling Basin, in the promotion of carbon farming and investment in biodiversity corridors clearly fall into this category.

Economic theory would suggest that as we consume non-renewable resources we should be investing more and more in the development of opportunities to use renewable resources.  If we were in Europe many people would be calling for a significant mining tax and for some of the resultant revenue to be used to increase the productivity of our renewable natural resources.  Food for thought.

UNEP’s green economy report can be downloaded here.

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Leadership in a Changing Climate – a free public forum on leadership and climate change

We are pleased to announce that Minister Penny Wong and Professor Mike Young – along with a panel of three more South Australian leaders – are participating in a free public forum on the complex and ‘wicked’ problem of climate change.

Currently, we struggle to get our climate change discussion past immediate hip-pocket lines. In our public debates it is difficult to talk about the sort of future we want for ourselves, our families, our communities, Australia and globally.

This forum will tackle the issue head on. What type of leadership is required? What does it take to create and manage significant and complex change? And could it be that we’re actually seeing a lot of this leadership but missing the wood for the trees?

The forum is not a debate on the science of climate change. We have more than enough knowledge about human impact to act. However, given most people in our community accept the science but the debate about how best to act can seem viciously polarised and stuck, what should our leaders do?

Book now! This will be a very popular event and there are limited places despite the selected venue.

We hope to see you Thursday, 29 September, 6-7:30pm at the Masonic Hall, 254 North Terrace, Adelaide.

This event is being held as a partnership between the Environment Institute and the Leaders Institute of South Australia

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Adaptive Sustainable Diversion Limits create Murray Darling water incentives

The Murray-Darling Basin Authority is about to release a draft plan for the management of the Murray-Darling Basin.

Mike Young from the Environment Institute, The University of Adelaide, and Jim McColl, Resource Economist, Adelaide, discuss how sustainable diversion limits are being defined so that there is ongoing incentive for all to continue to search for ways to improve management of the Basin’s water resources.

A good Basin Plan needs to plan for droughts and flooding rains. If the Murray Darling Basin Authority can be as innovative as it wants to be SDLs could be published in the Basin Plan in 2012 but specified as the starting point in a continuous search for better ways to manage and use the Basin’s water resources.

To read more or download this droplet click HERE.

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Mike Young Awarded AARES Distinguished Fellow Award

Mike Young was given a Distinguished Fellow Award by the Australian Agricultural & Resource Economics Society.

The Director of the Environment Institute at The University of Adelaide was presented with the award at the AARES 54^th Annual Conference, held at the Adelaide Convention Centre on Wednesday night.

The Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society (AARES) is an independent association of persons and organisations interested in agricultural, resource and environmental economics.

Congratulations Mike!

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