Working on something...

Am still here ... currently working on a couple of items for the blog concerning sea level rise and ethanol. More soon. Do not intend to post unless there is something useful to say...

Internet workshop

Last week a workshop was held here in Guyana which was a milestone in the development of internet governance in the region. It passed almost unnoticed. Not really surprising since the internet infrastructure involved is not much understood by users and is largely hidden.
The workshop was on DNS (Domain Name Service) and was for those in the Caribbean involved in running the various country 'top level domains' or ccTLDs which allow internet addresses (domain names) ending in .gy (Guyana), .tt (Trinidad), .jm (Jamaica) etc to function. Pretty technical stuff but very necessary if the Caribbean is to catch up in terms of e-commerce and such like.
The countries represented were: Bahamas, Bermuda, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Monserrat, Trinidad. Cuba had been expected but, I heard, had a problem due to the new Caribbean visa introduced to help travel for the Cricket World Cup and alas did not make it.
Those present reported their status. Most were running their own name servers which meant that they were able to manage their country domains and deal with requests for domain names. Two countries were yet to reach this position and were planning to reclaim control (redelegation) from an overseas company to which it had previously been given. Most countries had some issues to discuss either technical or administrative. In many cases difficulties were arising because of lack of interest by the respective government. Fortunately this is not true in the case of Guyana, at present, where an oversight committee is actively working on policy and other issues.
The rest of the four days was spent going through technical aspects of setting up, running and testing name servers, policy issues and so on. See here for the workshop web site.
The workshop is one of a series run jointly by ICANN, ISOC and NSRC. The instructors were very helpful and are giving on-going support and assistance where needed. ICANN in particular is helping with redelegation issues.
The instructors seemed well-pleased with the organisation of the workshop by the University of Guyana IT Centre staff and complemented participants on level of functioning of their servers (while acknowledging there is much to do).
It was great to see the Caribbean administrators and technical staff here in Guyana. Several admitted misgivings on hearing the workshop was to be in Guyana but said they were glad they came since they found it different from what they expected and very much enjoyed their stay. Hopefully the experience will lead to much greater cooperation across the region in this sector and there are signs of that happening already.

Dr Trotz on climate change in Guyana

On Friday there was an excellent presentation on climate change from a Caribbean and Guyanese perspective. The event was initiated by the GMTCS with support from several other organisations. The speaker was Dr Ulric (Neville) Trotz, Science Advisor for the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre in Belize. He is, of course, well known and much respected locally
He was introduced by Joe Singh who needs no introduction to Guyanese.
I only realised that the event should be blogged afterwards - clearly I am new to this and should have made notes...
Dr Trotz did a good job of reviewing the facts and the development of the international action (and lack of action) on the issue. He also talked about the struggle of developing countries to get recognition for their point of view. There is much that needs doing and the international political climate is not very favourable. He mentioned improvements in computer models used for forecasting - of particular interest to me since I worked on such models years ago.
I will not attempt to summarise all that he said but the links below should help.
Following the presentation there was a lively question and answer session. Both Minister Robert Persaud and Navin Chanderpaul made remarks in repsonse to questions to the effect that the Government is trying to take climate change in to account within limits imposed by resources available and international political considerations (I do not recall their comments in detail). Work has been done locally over a number of years - see link below.
Mention was made of further presentations and there was talk of an email list to help share information about such activities. I am sure DevNet can help with that.

Links
Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre - see Downloads for reports etc
CARICOM page for the CCCCC
2004 Presentation by Dr Trotz on Climate Change (PDF)
Guyana Initial National Communication (UNFCCC) (PDF)

Guyana flood of 2005

It is now 2 years since the 'Great Flood'. Said to be Guyana's worst natural disaster. Thankfully we have been spared a repeat - so far. Lessons have been learned and many improvements made in neglected infrastructure. The medium prospects remain uncertain however given climate change.
Here is an SDNP website from 2005 with links to other flood web sites (not all of which still exist) documenting the event.
Here is a Stabroek News article from today about families still recovering from the flood.

Guyana sea level

Reading a recent BBC article on sea level rise I was reminded of an article in one of our main national newspapers (Stabroek News) . The first article is about recent research suggesting that the rate of sea level rise is more than some had predicted and is about 10mm per year:

The team from Germany and the US found that for the timescale relevant to human-induced climate change, the observed rate of sea level rise through the 20th Century held a strong correlation with the rate of warming.
When applied to the possible scenarios outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the researchers found that in 2100 sea levels would be 0.5-1.4m above 1990 levels.

This agrees with local records which are referred to in the Stabroek News article:

According to the project document, an analysis of tide gauge records from 1951 to 1979 shows the trend in sea level rise for Guyana to be in excess of 10 mm/year, which implies a net change in sea level of 0.9 ft for the 28-year period examined. Assuming that the rate found remains constant then the net change in the sea level from 1951 - 2005 is some 1.8 feet. According to the studies quoted in the PID, sea level rise in the region of Guyana is 2 to 5 times faster than the global estimate.

The project referred to seek to address water control issues arising from climate change.
Given that most of our population lives near or below sea level these figures indicate how serious the situation is for us here! Short-term planning no longer suffices...