Hundreds of
pairs of children's shoes have been laid in front of Brisbane's City
Hall to demonstrate the impact of climate change on future generations,
in a silent protest by Extinction Rebellion.
The circular installation set up in King George Square on Saturday morning used shoes temporarily donated by charities.
Hundreds of pairs of children’s shoes laid out outside City Hall for an Extinction Rebellion protest. Credit: Lucy Stone
Organised by a west Brisbane branch of the climate change activist group, the installation was titled For Our Childrens' Sake and was inspired by other protests across the world during the year.
Activists
Sue Melloy and Bill Cruickshank said it was important to send the
message to governments that while current generations were experiencing
the impacts of climate change, "it's actually going to be far worse for
our children, and our children's children"."We've
laid out these hundreds of pairs of children's shoes to give that
message, for a fairly COVID-safe protest," Ms Melloy said.
"Many people in XR are grandparents and very middle-class, very law-abiding people stepping up to the game.
They were laid out in concentric circles, with messages. Credit: Lucy Stone
"So we just wanted to do an action that was at the other end of the spectrum, so very law-abiding, more of a vigil."
Ms
Melloy said both of them still believed in the XR ethos of disruption
to get attention, and had been arrested for breaking the law at other
protests.
Mr
Cruickshank said multiple scientific reports clearly showed delaying
action on climate change would worsen the lives of future generations
significantly.
The
shoes were laid out in concentric circles, each pair side by side, with
several Extinction Rebellion flags in the centre and messages written
on paper and cloth along several pairs of shoes.
"Our children and
their children are, in all probability, going to have a worse life
because of climate change than we do," Mr Cruickshank said.
"Things are on the decline if we don't do something about it."
A futuristic demonstration of emerging renewable energy material – printed solar cells, is being trialled in a public setting for the first time as it nears commercial readiness.
The University of Newcastle renewable energy tech - which is ultra light-weight, ultra flexible, recyclable and cheap to manufacture, will power interactive public lighting in Sydney. The material, similar in thickness and appearance to a chip packet, is manufactured using conventional printers.
Lane Cove is the only public place in Australia where the printed solar can be viewed.
Creator of the organic printed solar material, Physicist Professor Paul Dastoor from the Faculty of Science
said his team were excited to take their ‘science to the streets’ in
what represented significant progress toward commercial availability of
the material.“
Globally, there’s been so few of these
installations, we know very little about how they perform in a public
setting. This installation is the next critical step in accelerating the
development and commercialisation of this technology. It presents a new
scenario for us to test performance and durability against a range of
new challenges,” said Professor Dastoor.
“Located within Lane Cove
Council’s vibrant new urban space ‘The Canopy’, this demonstration
plucks extraordinary science from behind sealed lab doors, and places it
in an ordinary environment, where people will interact with it as they
go about their grocery shopping, play with their children in the park,
or enjoy food in one of the nearby restaurants. It’s an effortless and
subtle way to spark conversation and showcase ‘what’s next’ in energy
generation to thousands of people.”
Video: Public debut of printed solar cells
Professor Dastoor said he was hopeful the public installation would
prompt further discussion on the subject of energy as the Federal
Government considered submissions to its technology investment roadmap.
The
government is seeking to bring down carbon emissions over the next 30
years and the community has been very engaged on this subject. Globally,
there are many research groups like ours working on sustainable energy
technologies and now, via the technology investment roadmap, is our
opportunity to ensure we invest in and deliver clever solutions,” said
Professor Dastoor.
“The printed solar project highlights the
transformational research coming out of NIER through valued partnerships
with government, industry, and the community in critical areas such as
new energy technologies,” said Professor Broadfoot.
A new advanced manufacturing industry for Australia
This
installation follows a successful commercial-scale public sector
installation with CHEP in late 2018. Professor Dastoor said global
interest in printed solar was the highest he had ever witnessed and that
an advanced manufacturing facility for printed solar in NSW was the
imminent goal for his team.
“We have a world-class manufacturing
facility at the University’s Newcastle Institute for Energy and
Resources (NIER), which has been generously supported by the Australian
National Fabrication Facility (ANFF). This print facility can
manufacture hundreds of metres of material a day, however we’re now
reaching the point where we need to significantly scale this level of
production,” said Professor Dastoor.
This technology
will really disrupt and revitalise the contracting print industry.
Printed solar is manufactured on conventional printers – our lab-scale
system previously manufactured wine labels.
“As a
diverse team of physicists, chemists, engineers and educators, we’re
considering not just the scaling of material production, but the
education and training framework that will wrap around the industry to
train and retrain an entirely new workforce.
“As an educator and a
father my greatest hope is that we may, through this public display,
inspire young people interested in STEM to imagine the exciting and
entirely new career possibilities that will exist for them, brought
about through new industries like these. Young people inspired by this
demonstration could become our first, pivotal wave of high-tech workers
helping to bring printed solar to fruition – that’s an incredibly
exciting idea.”
Solar cells at night.
An outdoor science museum
In
something more akin to a scene from Red Dwarf, visitors to the
installation will be treated to a one-on-one augmented reality
experience featuring an immortalised, holographic Professor Dastoor.
“Compared
to familiar energy technologies, this material has almost a surreal
quality - it’s supremely light, hyper-flexible and incredibly thin. As
this will be the first time people interact with this material
unaccompanied, we wanted to create a way for one of our Centre for
Organic Electronics (COE) scientists to be there to provide
interpretation, and so in one of the stranger moments of my career thus
far…I’ve become a hologram,” said Professor Dastoor.
Attached to a
highly sculptural, modernistic arbour and (for this application)
toughened by a polycarbonate encasing, the panels generate power during
the day, which is battery stored to power a dazzling, interactive light
display at night.
“We’ve installed sensors as part of the display
so the lights will actually detect movement and follow people as they
move along the arbour. The lights are programmable so we can set them to
specific colours to celebrate awareness events or other significant
moments,” said Professor Dastoor.
Benefits and applications
Printed
solar is cheap to manufacture, at a production cost of less than $10
per square metre and rapid to produce, with commercial scale equipment
capable of producing kilometres of material a day.
“No other
renewal energy technology can be manufactured as quickly. The low cost
and speed at which this technology can be deployed is exciting as we
need to find solutions, and quickly,” said Professor Dastoor.
With
over 99 per cent of the panels consisting of PET, the material can be
recycled - a distinct advantage over traditional silicon panels.
“We’re
currently investigating recycling processes for this material. Our hope
is that we can separate the outer PET layers and reuse them to make new
panels with minimal processing,” said Professor Dastoor.
The
low-cost, light weight, flexibility and durability of the material are
inspiring a range of possible applications including disaster relief and
recovery applications; retractable recharging systems for electric
vehicles, caravans/camping and the defence industry; floating covers for
dams and pools; yacht sails; smart blinds for residential and high-rise
buildings; greenhouse covers and more.
Professor Dastoor said his goal was to coat as many surfaces as possible with the material.
Imagine
a world where everyone has access to electricity, and where every
surface can generate clean, low cost, sustainable energy from the sun.
That’s a world I want to live in,” said Professor Dastoor.
There is an increasing likelihood that annual global temperatures could potentially exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels (which scientists have set as the ceiling for avoiding catastrophic climate change) over the next five years, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization released Thursday.
A young demonstrator holds a sign outside the Portuguese parliament in Lisbon during a worldwide protest demanding action on climate change, Friday, Nov. 29, 2019. Students worldwide are skipping class Friday to take to the streets to protest their governments' failure to take sufficient action against global warming. (AP Photo/Armando Franca)
KEY FACTS:
Under the 2016 Paris Agreement, 189 countries committed to keeping the increase in global average temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, while aiming to limit the rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
However, according to the latest WMO report, there is an approximately 20% chance that global average temperatures could exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius in at least one of the next five years.
Previous studies had estimated that the short-term odds of exceeding the 1.5°C threshold at 10% - that's now doubled, and increasing with time.
There is also a roughly 70% chance that the 1.5°C cap will be eclipsed in one or more months in those five years, the assessment claims.The WMO forecasts, based on models from climate prediction centers around the world, state that annual global temperature is likely to be at least 1°C warmer than pre-industrial levels (defined as the 1850-1900 average) in each of the coming five years.
According to CNN, climate experts have repeatedly warned that exceeding the 1.5°C threshold "will contribute to more heatwaves and hot summers, greater sea level rise, worse droughts and rainfall extremes, wildfires, floods and food shortages for millions of people."
CRITICAL QUOTE:
"This study shows — with a high level of scientific skill — the enormous challenge ahead in meeting the Paris Agreement on Climate Change target of keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius," WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a statement.
KEY BACKGROUND:
A study published earlier this month in the journal Science found that rising global temperatures may pose "a grave threat" to the fish populations throughout the world by the end of this century. Atlantic cod, Alaska pollock, sockeye salmon, swordfish, barracuda and brown trout are among the many species potentially at risk. "60% of the fish species examined could struggle to reproduce in their current habitat ranges by the year 2100 if the climate crisis continues unchecked," according to the researchers.
TANGENT:
In June 2017, President Trump announced his intention to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement. In November of 2019, the Trump administration formally notified the United Nations that the U.S. was withdrawing. The withdrawal will be complete in November of 2020, after a one-year waiting period has elapsed.
