Boomerang

Well, the boomerang of traveling the last couple of weeks, the airplanes, doing too many things in combination with not enough sleep hit me this week: I got sick. My throat got sore and swollen, my ears cloggy, my nose stuffy, my head aching, and my bronchi producing a painful cough. My energy levels dropped to basically zero and my appetite sort of stagnated. It was a clear sign saying: “Roos, you got to rest and recover”. So that’s what I did this week, I slept as much as I could, tried to do as least as possible, and drank plenty of tea and hot ginger lemon honey. And took as many painkillers as the prescription text on the package allowed :-)  Whilst being sick this week, I also noticed a certain impatience, a certain urge to get back to work and to start doing things again. But I also know it’s wiser to accept it and sit it through. I do hope to be able to do some things again after the weekend. 

Workshop in Berlin 5-6 Dec 2013

On 5 and 6 December, I attended a meeting in Berlin – hosted by the Ecologic Institute and prepared by Mikael Hilden from SYKE in Finland and (my own supervisor) Duncan Russel from University of Exeter – on policymaking for climate change adaptation. I met even more participants from the BASE project; all different people than from the meeting 27 and 28 November in Delft. And again, the participants included a nice mixture of backgrounds, nationalities, ages and gender. We discussed possible topics and outlines for papers with analyses of policymaking at national level for climate change adaption. And we exchanged ideas and experiences with policymaking for climate change adaptation from different countries, such as Denmark, the UK, the Netherlands, and Italy. Here some pictures taken during the meeting:

Although it was a very brief visit to Berlin (only two nights), I did enjoy it very much. One of the things I love doing in Berlin is to wander around and just see what you'll encounter. But time was too short for that this visit. Yet every time I visit the city, I get a sense of feeling at-home. And the thought comes to mind ‘I could live here’. Hopefully, next time the visit will be longer (and Anna, if you happen to read this, the visit was unfortunately too short for a cup of coffee, next time I’ll fit in at least a cup of coffee).    

Adaptation Pathways and Economic Evaluation

On 27 and 28 November 2013, I attended two workshops organized by the BASE project, at Deltares in Delft, the Netherlands. The workshop 27/11 focused on adaptation pathways and was hosted by Marjolein Haasnoot (from Deltares), the workshop 28/11 focused on economic evaluation and was hosted by Volker Meyer and Oliver Gebhardt (both from UFZ, Leipzig). Both workshops included a morning session with introducing approaches, and an afternoon session with presenting and discussing case studies in relation to these approaches. It was very interesting to be introduced to the other case studies in the BASE project. Other cases include for example dealing with flood risk management in Copenhagen, Prague and Venice, and in an area Midwest in Finland. Here some pictures taken during the workshop on adaptation pathways; where we had been practising with applying the adaptation pathways approach (as developed by Marjolein Haasnoot) to our own case studies:

These workshops were my first encounter with other participants in the BASE project. And it was very interesting to see who some of the other colleagues are in the BASE project! To get some faces and voices behind the names which pass by on the emails. There was a nice mixture of nationalities, backgrounds, ages and gender, and a friendly atmosphere and interest in each others’ work. At the same time, I was also surprised by the high number of laptops that were opened and used during the various meetings – meaning most of them were not used for taking notes J Is multitasking with open laptops the new standard at professional meetings?