Skip to main content

The year is gone, we are in October!

On the 30 Sep - 1 Oct I attended the 24th annual SASAS conference held the University of Pretoria. This year's theme was heritage and rain, and emphasised on the heritage of rain making. This opened up an opportunity for Dr Mathole Motshega of Kara Institute to give a key note address on opening day. 
The highlight of this conference for me was the award that was given to Ms Mary-Jane Kgatuke by the WMO for her ground-breaking work on atmospheric modeling. She received the award for the best young African scientist! 

Dr Francois Engelbrecht of Tukkies made a call,cajoling young African scientists to seize the moment of African rebirth by taking part in scientific research that will help Africa to develop its first model. He says, the fourth IPCC report did not have any model results developed in Africa.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Finally, I am taking the PhD route

It's tempting to see purpose in setbacks. While I wasn't selected for the Unit Head - Climate Change position after three applications, a PhD in climate finance feels like the right next step. The University of Pretoria will be my initial target, and I plan to spend 2024 developing a compelling research proposal. My initial interest in climate change governance has evolved towards climate finance, particularly timely with COP28 in Dubai. My city-based experience with climate finance projects has further piqued my curiosity. I'm eager to delve into the political motivations behind climate finance and explore frameworks for our city to better utilize these resources. Beyond the personal challenge, a PhD presents an opportunity to explore new career paths. While the future five years remain uncertain, my 20+ years as a climate change practitioner make this a natural progression, solidifying my expertise in the field. A long-held ambition is to document the city's envir...

Death of Black Magazines

There was a time when Tribute Magazine occupied a valuable space in many people's hearts. It was seen as a serious magazine with serious journalism. During his time as its editor, Sbu Mngadi unmasked the real person beneath the veneer of Eugene Nyathi. His name was in fact Albert Nana, a university drop out. Quite remarkably Eugene Nyathi as we came to know him, occupied our lives as this know it all political/economic analyst. In fact he was even called Dr Nyathi. Even our own Mathews Phosa, while premier of Mpumalanga, contracted Eugene Nyathi to do some weighty business, as a consultant, in that province. But this magazine has since died. In recent years there was an attempt to get it back to life, but it died - again. An equally exciting magazine called BL!NK was born about 3 years ago. It was meaty,exciting, fresh, targeted at Black men, but it died. After BL!NK came Blaque. Not quite as serious as its predecessor, but targeted at Black men all the same. It is now on a start a...

Floods: A short history.

Floods in general are not uncommon in South Africa. Recent flooding events do not come near some of the past events, both in strength and the trail of disaster they left behind. South Africa has a long record of flooding events dating back to the 1800s. Sporadic though these records are, they nonetheless give us a glimpse of what happened in the past. This past is very important to anchor our present day discussions, especially in the light of climate change. The first recorded flood event in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) was in April 1856, where 686mm of rainfall were reported. It was in September 1987, however that KZN experienced what is considered to be South Africa's greatest natural disaster in terms of lives lost and damage to infrastructure. During this disaster, 506 people lost their lives and approximately 60 000 people were affected one way or another. A few years earlier KZN was devastated by Tropical Cyclone Damoina. On January 1984 Damoina formed in the Indian Ocean to the east...