My Roles & Contact Details Qualifications Selected Writings Research Interests Photos Topical Pages (Updates day/month/yr)     Agent-Based Modelling  (20/8/09)     Climate Change  (25/9/09) NEW Climate Change Scenarios (25/9/09) NEW Q&As on Climate Change (16/11/09)     Complex Systems Science  (10/3/08)     Conflict & Terrorism  (31/3/08)     Corporate PR  (1/3/08)     Econometrics  (6/3/08)     Economic History  (1/3/08)     Economic Development  (17/3/08)      Economic Theory  (17/3/08)     Economics Profession  (23/3/08)     Energy & Peak Oil  (6/2/09)     Finance  (17/3/08)     Mathematics  (10/3/08)     Networks  (17/3/08)     Public Health  (10/3/08)     Life in General  (16/3/08)     Christianity  (14/3/08)

Still think warnings about climate change are overblown?                          Below is a chart whose implications I think everyone should try to grasp. It shows the relationships between carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and temperature for the last 430,000 years from Antarctic ice cores and from data from the last century. Temperature doesn't respond in lock-step with the changes in gas concentration. In fact, coming out of the ice ages, the temperatures generally started to rise first, driven mainly by changes in the Earth's orbit and the angle of the tilt of the Earth's axis. But the rise in greenhouse gases strongly reinforced the warming, making temperatures rise higher, and for longer, than they would have otherwise. Temperatures have now risen by around 0.8ºC since pre-industrial times and about another 0.6ºC is coming down the pipe because of gases we've already emitted. The consequences of average temperatures rising above 2ºC are horrendous, as shown here and here and as you can explore for yourself here. As the chart below suggests, we have a serious problem on our hands. Note that temperature is measured in terms of deviations from the average from 1880-1899, which is set to zero. Carbon dioxide is measured in parts per million (ppm) and methane is measured in parts per billion (ppb). Kyr = “thousands of years”. Source: Hansen, J.E., (2005) "A Slippery Slope: How Much Global Warming Constitutes "Dangerous Anthropogenic Interference"?" Climatic Change, Vol. 68, No. 3, February, pp. 269-279; p. 271.

Roles & Contact Details

During 2009 I am splitting my time between two roles:

Research Fellow          Department of Econometrics & Business Statistics         & Development Research Unit         Monash University         Wellington Rd.         Clayton, VIC, 3800         AUSTRALIA         Tel: +61 (0)3 9905 5843         Email: Brett.Parris [at] buseco.monash.edu.au

Chief Economist & Team Leader         Economics, Climate & Natural Resources Team         World Vision Australia         1 Vision Drive         Burwood East, VIC, 3151         AUSTRALIA         Tel: +61 (0)3 9287 2383         Email: Brett.Parris [at] worldvision.com.au

Qualifications       Back to Top

B.Sc. (Geology & Chemistry), B.Th. (Hons), M.A. (Development Studies), Grad.Dip.Ec.St., Postgrad.Dip.Ec., Ph.D.(Economics, Monash)

Research Interests      Back to Top

Given my background working across a number of different disciplines, I have a pretty eclectic range of interests and gravitate naturally towards interdisciplinary work.

• Economic development policy
• Agent-based modelling
• Complex systems science
• Climate change
• Energy futures
  
• Networks & network analysis
• Poverty and overseas aid
• The interactions between economic development, climate change, energy, conflict and public health.

This research map gives a feel for my areas of interest. Unfortunately the overlapping colours don't come out properly in a pdf, so this is an MS Word doc.

Photos      Back to Top

Well, this is me ...                                                       ... but if we must have a picture, I actually like this one more.
(the one on the left)                                         It's from the Book of Kells, produced by Celtic monks around 800 AD.