Valuing our Life Support Systems Summit 2014

This is just a really quick blog about a small point that came up during the first panel discussion this morning at the Natural Capital Initiative summit.

Terminology.

It's such an important factor in the whole discussion of natural capital and ecosystem services. One of the panel said that he used different terms merely to avoid repetition. Terms like ecosystem services, natural capital, natural environment, environment systems, nature and many others are used regularly and interchangeably although in a dictionary they would all have different meanings.

Is it important? Is it an issue? It's difficult to tell as it only comes to light in direct questions or when a problem occurs.

The idea of an external glossary was brought up, which I think is an excellent idea, for identifying what the terms mean within different contexts. Though the point was also brought up that we need to focus our time on solving the issues rather than being hung up on the terms we use to get there. Two sides to everything, as usual.

But what if clearing up the definitions elucidates the solving of issues, saving both time and money.

In my survey one of the questions was 'at which temporal scale do you work?' most of the participants said they work at a 'medium term'. When asked to identify what they thought 'medium term' meant there were responses ranging from 1-50 years. So everyone thinks they are working at the same time scales, thus there are no mismatches or problems. But that is not the reality.

Is it not worse that the problems don't get identified because we don't know they're there?

I thought this was just going to be a super short blog. But I really do have a passion for terminology and clarity.

I'll blog more about the actual summit over the weekend.

Policy Internship

I mentioned before about getting an interview for a three month policy internship, and how giddy I was, and proud of myself for getting the interview.

Well.

Last night I found out that I got it. I get to spend three months working for the Government Office for Science. In Westminster, so close to the Abbey that I imagine the entirety of the three months will be to the soundtrack of the choir boys!

The GO Science internship will involve me writing briefing notes, and background papers and organising workshops and meetings. I am so excited about this opportunity, I just want to start now.

This internship will give me the experience needed to get closer to my dream career in the science/policy sector. Doing a PhD used to be my ultimate dream, and now I am over half way through attaining that goal, I have realised the importance of the integration of science and policy, and I want to be involved in that.During the internship I'm going to meet a lot of people that I want to be when I "grow up", specifically Sir Mark Walport the Government Chief Scientific Adviser.

All I know as yet is that I have it, I don't yet know when I start, or what projects I'll be working on. But I do know that I have found the perfect super chic A4 sized bag to save up for, so I can carry all the important documents I'll be writing.

The next step is to reply to my offer with an acceptance, and work out how I'm going to live in London, or deal with a massive daily commute.

Bayesian belief networks

"Hey Zoe, I've heard you've started modelling"

One of my Cranfield colleagues said that to me the other day, and I'm fully aware I'm not camera shy, but if someone was using my face in some sort of modelling campaign then I wanted to know about it, so I could tell everyone! It was a few seconds into the conversation before I realised they were talking about my survey, modelling my data and Bayesian belief networks (BBN).

Now, I'm not an expert on BBN, as yet, so I have included a link to the wikipedia site which has some great links on it if you want to read a bit more into it.

What I know is that I can use BBN to model my data in a way that allows me to see the degree of belief that a child node will be in a particular state given the states of the parent nodes. This sentence took a while for me to understand, but if you see the picture below, you can see that the 'LocalIs' and 'TemporalScaleWork' boxes are the child nodes and the 'Policy' box is the parent node. 

If a respondent identified as working in Policy in the Private sector then it can be said that there is a 17% probability that they feel they work in the short term and an 83% probability that they work at the medium term, temporally. Their identification of what the term Local means is shown in the 'LocalIs' box. 

One of the reasons that I am using BBN is because of how interactive it is, by selecting the different options within the nodes you can show the interaction between the different bits of information. Another reason for using it is it is possible to feed in data from different sources, as it doesn't all need to be uniform data. This will be useful when I begin my workshops and want to integrate the data I collected.

I really like using BBN and I use the Norsys Netica software to build my networks, it's very user friendly, and has a great 'help' mode.One of the best things that has come of this so far is that I have managed to start answering my own questions about BBN, so I really feel like I'm getting a grasp of how it all works.

Achievements

Just having a think about all the little achievements that I have accomplished, as I am half way through my PhD, and struggling to stay sane. I'll go into more detail about each one, as and when they get even more exciting.

• I have an interview for a science policy internship in Westminster
• Just having the interview alone is so exciting, as I had to write a few different pieces of work for the application. Knowing that what I have written is good enough to get through to interview is a huge achievement.
• I have had my poster abstract accepted at the BESSfe conference in Lille.
• I get to go to Lille and use my poster as a catalyst for talking about my work, and I will hopefully make lots of really useful contacts.
• I have closed my survey
• No longer dedicating any time to pushing it, or finding new places to advertise it and try to make people do it. I really want this whole chapter of my thesis to be written, done and dusted by the end of this year. 
• I have (almost) mastered using Netica to build Bayesian Belief Networks.
• This is rather specific, and will mean something to some people, but nothing to others. I am rather proud of myself for this one as statistics have been the bane of my life since I began my academic career, so to actually know how to use a data interpretation programme is super exciting.
• I have made business cards
• When they come through I think that will be when I finally realise I am an adult.
• I am still half sane, and halfway through something that I constantly tell myself I can't do!

Climate Change

Well! How exciting was yesterday re: climate change?? If I wasn't passionate about it already, listening to Leonardo DiCaprio saying "For the economy itself will die if our ecological system collapses" at the UN Climate Summit would have definitely inspired me to really start thinking. I am aware that there have been many passionate and exciting speeches surround the real threat that climate change is, but it is the way that the media, and social media have grasped this Leo speech that is exciting me most. We need to talk about it, and open conversations, the more people get talking, the more ideas can start flowing. It is not something that needs to be left to the ideas of just scientists, it needs to be opened up to everyone,new innovations are needed. 

Climate change is a huge threat to our continuing to live on this planet. It is looming and there isn't enough being done. I've always thought that there is a feeling of "why does recycling matter?" and "there's no point, what difference can one person make?", but the information about that difference, and why recycling matters needs to be disseminated and communicated to everyone, clearly. We know that we should, and we know that it is 'good for the environment', but is that enough?

There can't be the change in thinking and the shift of ideas that is so desperately needed if we don't know WHY it is we need to do it. Not just the why of 'or else we're going to be submerged by the sea, and all of the planets creatures are going to become extinct', but the why behind the actions. How recycling relates to climate change, why turning the tap off whilst brushing your teeth is important, why you should turn the lights off when leaving a room, and why you probably shouldn't hire a hot tub for your birthday weekend even though you super want to!

I think that might be my next blog, all the things that we are constantly told to do, and why?

Gloucester Services

I had an amazing weekend in Bristol celebrating my best friend turning old, and since her birthday has passed, I can officially begin the countdown to mine (6 weeks 6 days).

On the journey back up to Leicester we stopped off at Gloucester Services on the M5. And what a treat it was. It got me excited, as it shows that although we have to have services stations, they don't have to be eyesores full of fast food! They can have green roofs, vegetable patches and ponds, and be full of local produce. I do have a bit of a love for green and brown roofs, they require a little bit more work in the beginning, but they are an amazing way to capture carbon, create habitats, improve air quality, absorb water and they are great insulators.  After a quick Google I found that the staff are even bussed in, a great way to keep emissions down.

Obviously, I don't have the expertise to know whether it's all just green bells and eco whistles, but I think it is definitely a step in the right direction. I don't think it is going to increase traffic, people drive cars, a lot, and having less service stations isn't going to change that. But if we can improve those service stations, to move them forward in this kind of direction, then wouldn't that be brill?

I'm Back

Hello again, so I'm back, and hopefully back to stay! I only really left because I thought that maybe I should blog less and work more, but I'm now feeling more confident in what I am doing, and how it is going, so I'm back!

What really spurred me on to start blogging again, is wanting to document my experiences of MSc supervision.

It was so fun, I loved it. I loved seeing the two students that I had through from the beginning to the end of their projects. I feel really lucky to have had two completely different students too.

I had KC who, like me, likes to know his targets and goals and exactly what is expected of him. He started off slow, but then once he had a clear picture in his head he ran with it.

Then there was Joshua, who had written about 2000 words before our first meeting, he had his head down and was focussed, and never thought that what he had done was enough. He was constantly looking for more to do.

I was so immensely proud of them when I went to see them  at the Cranfield Masters Research Exhibition yesterday!

Well done guys, and thank you so much for throwing me into the process of supervision at the deep end!