It's on for young and old

My December ‘Leaflet’ column concluded with a reference to the Billy Ocean song ‘When the going gets tough…’ The message this time is ‘Well, we have’. Got going, that is.

The CRCNPB Board has held two workshops, one in Melbourne in January and a second as an adjunct to the hugely successful ‘2011 Science Exchange’ in early February. Feedback from DIISR was reviewed and accepted as being, in general, favourable to the prospects of a re-bid in the CRC Program Round 14. Both workshops were very positive and the Board’s commitment to a re-bid was echoed at a meeting of Participants, also held during the Science Exchange.

A most encouraging feature of this event was that representatives of the CRCNPB’s researcher community and our various end-user constituencies turned up in numbers and were fully engaged over the two-and-a-half days of activities. It was particularly pleasing that a number of industry delegates spoke warmly of the continuing growth in maturity of the CRCNPB, evidenced in the excellent array of oral and written presentations.

Should the CRCNPB be obliged to close its doors in 2012 we shall be able to do so in the knowledge that we have fulfilled our commitments to the participants and to the federal Government and that a substantial legacy will be left in place. Naturally, the legacy will be much greater if we’re able, over a second CRC term, to develop from the base which so many have worked so hard to create over the past five plus years.

In the short to medium term, preparations for the re-bid need to be progressed concurrently with preparation of a CRCNPB Wind up Strategy, Plan and Deed for submission to DIISR by 30 June. Refer back to the quote in paragraph one at this point….

Fresh from the Science Exchange the CRCNPB was invited to give evidence to the Senate Rural Affairs and Transport References Committee inquiry into ‘Biosecurity and quarantine arrangements’. We understand that more than 40 submissions were made to the Committee and that the CRCNPB was one of only five entities invited to give further evidence. This provided a good opportunity for the CEO and me to highlight our activities and achievements over the past five years, and our aspirations beyond the initial term of the CRCNPB. The Committee ranged widely in its questions and appeared to be supportive of our continuing efforts. A transcript will appear in Hansard in due course.

The Committee expressed particular interest in remote diagnostics. The remote microscope is a sure fire winner with any audience. We thought they might ask about biosecurity and climate change, given that the latter has roused passions in more than one parliamentary breast. In the event we were spared this potential minefield but it begs the question as to what actually is going on with the weather?

Anthropogenic influences - elevated carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and changing temperatures - are measurable, and there is a strong body of scientific opinion which links them to global warming. But beyond that point it seems to me that the jury is out, and may remain so for some considerable time. Relating these effects to the extreme climate events which are occurring around the world isn’t easy. La Niña episodes, for example, have been reported for at least 300 years. The current event is certainly one of the strongest in recent times, but 30-odd years ago record floods in Brisbane and Cyclone Tracy in Darwin were related to a comparable La Niña event.

In the days when my academic activities including lecturing innocent Second Years on climate and plant growth, the modellers of the day were intrigued by the apparent occurrence of cyclical climate events in Australia (especially droughts) at more or less regular intervals. Thirty years was one of them. No doubt today’s computing power and ocean-atmosphere models will reveal whether the cycles were real or just wishful thinking – which brings me back to much of the ‘debate’ on climate change.

One thing is absolutely for sure, whatever changes take place in the climate, Australian and global, the plant pathogens and insects which are biosecurity’s bread and butter will be more than capable of adapting to them.