Peter Oliver's retirement lecture.

Peter Oliver's retirement lecture

Bill Dennison ·
24 August 2012

Dr. Peter Oliver gave his "Retirement Lecture" at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre in Queensland, Australia on 23 August 2012. I provided the introduction to Peter's lecture and the text of that introduction is what comprises this blog post. Peter provided a thought provoking, funny and well delivered talk, with audience participation and interaction. He also sang songs, culminating in 'Dugong Rock'.

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(left to right) Scott Nixon, Ivan Valiela and Carlos Duarte preparing for the press conference associated with the symposium.

Scott Nixon nourished our ecological souls

Bill Dennison ·
23 May 2012
Science Communication | 

Today I learned of the untimely death of my colleague Scott Nixon from the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography. There will be eloquent eulogies in the ensuing weeks and months, as Scott had a profound impact on many students and colleagues. While I will leave the eulogies to those former students and colleagues who knew Scott well, I did have a wonderful experience with Scott in October 2007 in Madrid, Spain that I am reflecting on.

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Regional assessment framework, based on habitats expected in each island type. Each applicable habitat would be assessed independently and the results integrated to arrive at an overall environmental condition assessment.

Samoa State of the Environment 2012

Heath Kelsey ·
9 May 2012
Environmental Report Cards |     2 comments

Developing an environmental assessment framework in the Pacific … In collaboration with the Secretariat for Pacific Regional Environment Program (SPREP), Heath Kelsey, Tracey Saxby, and Adrian Jones traveled to Samoa (Tracey and Adrian will be there until the end of this month) to help develop an environmental assessment framework for Pacific island countries. This current work follows on from a workshop in Nadi, Viti Levu, Fiji, in March this year.

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Kayakers starting to rope of the half acre area.

Connect the Dots climate action day at Blackwater

Jane Hawkey ·
8 May 2012
Environmental Literacy | Science Communication | 

Organized by 350.org, the global climate action day Connect the Dots event at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge on Sat May 5 was a great success. In advance of the event on May 4, we had a little local press coverage - Maryland Daily Record and Baltimore Sun - via a telephone conference call arranged by Mike Tidwell of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. This was my statement:

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The loss of wetlands to open water is dramatic.

Global Day of Climate Change - Blackwater event on May 5

Jane Hawkey ·
30 April 2012
Environmental Literacy | Science Communication | 

350.org, as part of their movement to solve the climate crisis, has declared May 5 to be Climate Impacts Day. They have a network of people in 188 countries who are concerned about the effects of climate change and the lack of action, globally and locally. May 5 is the day they are rallying this network to create a global day of action by holding "Connect the Dots" events all over the world.

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Bill Dennison presenting the overall report card scores.

Chesapeake Bay 2011 report card release at Baltimore Harbor

Bill Dennison ·
18 April 2012
Environmental Report Cards | 

The following remarks were made at the 17 April 2012 release of the Chesapeake Bay report card: Welcome to the 2011 Chesapeake Bay report card release. My name is Bill Dennison, and I am with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science or UMCES. For the past six years, a group of scientists associated with a partnership that we formed between UMCES and NOAA called EcoCheck has been producing annual report cards for Chesapeake Bay.

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Great Barrier Reef Foundation workshop participants (left to right): Paul Marshall, Eva Abal, Heath Kelsey, Cath Collier, Britta Schaffelke, Theresa Fyffe, Katharina Fabricius, Jane Thomas, Norm Duke, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Claire Hanratty, Bill Dennison

Assessing the vulnerability of the Great Barrier Reef to climate change

Bill Dennison ·
5 April 2012
Environmental Report Cards |     1 comments

The Great Barrier Reef Foundation is an organization which funds research that protects and preserves the Great Barrier Reef, particularly in the face of climate change. The Foundation convened a workshop to develop a synthetic publication that charts the vision for assessing the vulnerability to climate change. The Great Barrier Reef components used in this assessment of climate impacts included coral reefs, seagrass meadows, mangrove forests and catchment runoff.

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