In this issue

Child Health Now

Communicating Climate Change when our brains are wired to ignore it

Book launch: Meat the Future

What will it be like to live in the ACT in 2060?

The Wrap is the monthly newsletter of the Institute for Sustainable Futures

E: isf@uts.edu.auW: www.isf.uts.edu.au

T: +61 2 9514 4950F: +61 2 9514 4941

Postal address:PO Box 123, Broadway NSW 2007

Street address:Level 11, UTS Building 10235 Jones StreetUltimo NSW 2007

THE WRAP:NEWSINSTITUTE FOR SUSTAINABLE FUTURES FEBRUARY 2015

Child Health Now

Child Health Now is World Vision’s glob-ally coordinated campaign to reduce the number of preventable deaths of children and their mothers by calling for change at local, national and global level, aligned with MDGs and other global policy commitments.

Child Health Now links office networks in developing and developed country contexts to campaign more effectively on localised issues of child survival. In mid-2014, 33 developing countries where World Vision works, as well as 15 support office countries including Australia, Canada and the UK adopted Child Health Now into their policy and public campaigns agenda.

Now, the Institute for Sustainable Futures is working in Partnership with World Vision International to evaluate Child Health Now in its first five years.

The evaluation will be carried out during 2015 in two phases. The first phase of the evaluation will explore the campaign model and its contribution to strengthening the

work of local offices to campaign to decision makers and local governments for improved commitments and action for maternal and child health. The second phase to start in October will assess the effectiveness of the campaign and its contribution to policy change and implementation, and improved maternal and child health.

Working in collaboration with World Vision, a team of researchers from ISF have prepared a plan to guide the evaluation. In line with evaluation of advocacy practices, a Theory of Change approach will be used as a framework to analyse existing World Vision reporting and key informant inter-views. It is hoped that the evaluation will inform World Vision’s decisions on advocacy strategy in the longer term, including new globally coordinated campaigning and con-tinued investment in advocacy.

For more about the Child Health Now campaign see http://www.wvi.org/childhealthnow

Image © World Vision International 2015

Life’s Bottleneck: Sustaining the World’s Phosphorus for a Food Secure Future This new chapter in the Annual Review of Environment & Resources provides an updated and integrated synthesis of the biophysical, social, geopolitical, and institutional challenges and opportunities for sustaining phosphorus for a food secure future. http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-environ-010213-113300

THE WRAP:NEWSINSTITUTE FOR SUSTAINABLE FUTURES FEBRUARY 2015

Book launch: Meat the FutureProfessor Stuart White and Dr Dana Cordell invite you to the

Australian launch of the new book Meat the Future: How Cutting Meat Consumption Can Feed Billions More at UTS on Tuesday 3 March. They’ve written one of the book’s chapters – explor-ing the disproportionate burden an increasingly global meat-heavy diet is placing on phosphorus, with implications for food security.

Never before have our food choices had such a profound impact on human health, the wellbeing of animals and the land, water and climate we all rely on to sustain us. In Meat the Future, publisher Nicolaas G. Pierson Foundation asked lead-

ing scientists and researchers to investigate the environmen-tal issues linked to meat consumption, and to explore exciting developments in the benefits of meat alternatives and plant-based diets.

Prof White and Dr Cordell will be joined at this special event by guest speakers Mr Philip Wollen (Winsome Constance Kindness Trust), Ms Tammy Fry Kelly (Fry’s Family Foods) and Mr Emmanuel Giuffre (Voiceless).

Canapes and drinks will be served throughout and copies of the book will be available to buy. We hope you can join us for an enlightening and inspiring evening.

More details and RSVP at Eventbrite

Communicating climate change when our brains are wired to ignore it

Given everything we know about the threat of climate change, why do many still ignore it?

In his landmark book Don’t Even Think About It, renowned UK author and communicator George Marshall draws on psychological and social research to explain why.

George Monbiot called Don’t Even Think About It : ‘the most important book published on climate change in the past few years. It is a transformative book’.

The Institute for Sustainable Futures is very pleased to host George Marshall’s two public appearances in Sydney on 24th February. George will deliver a Masterclass on communicating climate change in the afternoon and will speak at a public forum in the evening.

MasterclassThe Masterclass will provide an introduction to the latest

research behind climate change communications. Participants will leave with an understanding of the theory, new tools to analyse their existing communications, new ideas to try, and a step by step process for developing and testing narratives and language around shared values, including values of Australian national identity.

The Masterclass is evidence-based, suitable for all levels, and highly interactive. George has promised us a fun, fast-moving experience that will challenge conventional attitudes about how we communicate climate change. Participants will engage in practical case studies on communicating with new and challeng-ing audiences, especially sceptical and conservative groups.

Tickets are selling fast for this one, so get in quick. There is a registration fee of $50 ($25 for students). Register on Eventbrite here for details (http://bit.ly/1BgGILG)

Free public forumIn the free public forum, George will give an overview of his

work on communicating climate change. He will be joined by a panel of experienced climate change communicators, includ-ing John Connor, CEO of The Climate Institute, and Amanda McKenzie, CEO of the Climate Council.

This is a free event but space is limited, so please RSVP at Eventbrite here. (http://bit.ly/1vOwYXl)

Recent climate projections for the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) sug-gest heat waves, heightened bushfire danger and changes to the water cycle will increasingly drive social, environ-mental and technological changes for the region. Research examining pathways to minimise vulnerability and navigate to a safer future for the ACT is pub-lished in a new report by Brent Jacobs, Louise Boronyak-Vasco and Nicholas Mikhailovich, researchers at the Institute for Sustainable Futures’ Adaptive Communities Node.

The EnAACT report presents a synthesis of the findings from two participatory workshops conducted as part of the Enabling Adaptation in the Australian Capital Territory (EnAACT) project. Working in collaboration with Catherine Keirnan and staff of the

ACT Government’s Environment and Planning Directorate, and Storm Watson of the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage, the ISF team aimed to build a shared understanding of the ACT’s vul-nerability to climate change and to cata-lyse adaptation through responses that are sensitive to the reality of regional sys-tems. The workshops were conducted in September 2014 with 71 representatives drawn from the six Policy Directorates of the ACT Government.

Informed by climate projections prepared by Professor Will Steffen of the ACT Climate Council and drawing on the knowledge of ACT Government service providers, the report develops a snap shot of vulnerability that consid-ers climate and non-climate drivers of change, direct and indirect impacts of these drivers and the capacity for the

ACT to adapt. The report describes six models of change that set out safe transi-tion pathways to the future covering the major service delivery areas in the ACT: community health and well-being, disaster and emergency management, settlements and infrastructure, water, natural resources and ecosystems and agriculture.

The ISF report identifies barriers and enablers of change to the creation of transformed systems for each service delivery area and outlines whole-of-gov-ernment transition projects developed as first steps towards achieving transforma-tion in the ACT. The information gath-ered from the consultation will inform the ACT Government’s efforts to enable adaptation to climate change in the ACT and the broader South East region of NSW.

THE WRAP:NEWSINSTITUTE FOR SUSTAINABLE FUTURES FEBRUARY 2015

What will it be like to live in the ACT in 2060?