Right, I'll get started. Thanks for coming everyone. So my name is Paul Clottington. I'm the Associate Director for the Research Cloud and Storage at the Australian Research Data Commons of ARDC. So I'm responsible for the Nectar Research Cloud. So I'm going to talk to you today about the Nectar Research Cloud. If you have any questions, please put them in the chat or wait till the end and we'll ask for questions at the end. So let's go. So just initially welcome, acknowledge and celebrate the first Australians on whose traditional lands we meet and pay our respects to the elders past and present. Right, I'm just going to very briefly give you some context for the Nectar Research Cloud. The Nectar project started about 10 years ago with the aim as its name implies of providing tools and resources, research tools and resources for research collaboration to support research collaboration. So it had two components, one of which was a national research cloud, which at the time was quite innovative. I think there was, you know, cloud was a quite new thing. There were actually no commercial cloud infrastructure within Australia at the time when the research cloud was started. And the idea was just to provide, you know, an efficient and simple way for providing compute and storage resources in a self service way to researchers to allow collaboration beyond institutional firewalls, for example, to make that easy. The second part of the Nectar project was what was called the virtual laboratories program to allow the development or support the development of domain oriented online environments, many of which were hosted on the research cloud. The Nectar project became an increased facility, the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy, the 2016 National Research Infrastructure Roadmap for increased call for the merger of three existing projects, the Nectar, the research data storage, RDSI and the ANDS project. So that happened and ARDC, the Australian Research Commons was born in 2018. So ARDC now supports the Nectar research cloud through its storage and compute theme. And it also continues to support the idea of virtual laboratories through its platforms program. So ARDC is part of a broader nationally supported e-research group called the Wonderful Acronym DDIRP that includes the IPOR, ZIRnet and AAF to provide nationally coordinated e-research infrastructure. Okay, so what is the Nectar research cloud? So the main concept around the Nectar research cloud is that it's a federated model of providing cloud infrastructure. There's a partnership between a number of institutions and research organizations who cooperate to provide a federated cloud, national cloud infrastructure using open source tools and technologies. So in this case, OpenStack, which is essentially the de facto standard for open source provision of research cloud. So we have a number of partners that cooperate to provide a national open stack research cloud. So essentially the Nectar cloud has some stand out unique features. It is a national federated research cloud that requires having national standards around cloud computing and cloud of the way it's operated. So all the different organizations that contribute to the cloud can do that in a standardized way. Researchers can see a standard interface, standard APIs, standard policies and processes across all the different partner institutions that make up the cloud. We wanted to make it easy access so people can just log in using their institutional user account through the Australian Access Federation, AAF. It's a self service model. It's open source. We can tweak things how we like. It's specifically customized for research use. We provide expert user support at both the national level through the ARDC and at the local, what we call the nodes of the cloud, the node level, the partners that provide the federated cloud infrastructure. And in particular, it's very cost effective way of providing cloud infrastructure in a federated way and leverages co-investment from our partners which in response. So although it's a federated model made up of infrastructure at different sites, it looks to the user as a single national cloud. There's a web dashboard and standard API. Some of the sites or the nodes in the cloud have national infrastructure that's funded by ARDC or national use, nationally prioritized allocations. Some also provide their own locally funded infrastructure for their own, that's prioritized for their local users and many of them provide both. So a user can ask for infrastructure at a particular site or a particular node of the cloud or they can just say, I don't care, I just please run my VM wherever and the system will do that. So the operation of the cloud is similarly federated. There's a central team within ARDC, what we call our core services team that runs the central core services for the cloud. So some examples there, the dashboard, the standard APIs, authentication, image repository, there's an app store that makes it easier to deploy certain applications on the cloud. So there's a number of sort of standard centralized things required to operate the cloud that ARDC runs. And then there's the sort of federated services that are supported by our node partners and the ARDC. And in particular, all the infrastructure, all the actual hardware, the compute, the volume storage, the object storage is all hosted at our partner sites. So in the bracket here, you can see the terms, the OpenStack projects or the OpenStack components that make up the dashboard, the authentication mechanism, the compute, the volume, etc. There's also a number of more advanced OpenStack features, so things like advanced networking and load balancing that allow projects to set up a sort of high availability services that might cut across multiple virtual machines or even multiple nodes and multiple sites. If you want to run a high availability service in the cloud, services like Kubernetes through the OpenStack Magnum. We're just trialling now preemptible or spot instances in the cloud. So there are a number of these high level services that the cloud also provides. And of course we also provide user support help desk tutorials training in collaboration with our partners. So how do you use the Nectar cloud? So basically the cloud can be used by anyone that has a AAF account. So you can just log into the Nectar Research Cloud dashboard and you automatically have your account set up and you're ready to go. You tick the terms of use once when you first log in or whenever it changes, which it has done recently. And you get an automatically get a small amount of resources, what we call a project trial and you can just start using it straight to try it out. If you want a longer term or larger amount of infrastructure, you have to apply for it. So you submit a, you fill in a form, essentially an online form in the dashboard. You ask for a project allocation, which can be three, six or 12 months. And then those project allocations get reviewed.  So we aim to assess and make decisions on those within a couple of weeks. And users can request an update, you know, ask for more, ask for less, ask for an extension of time at any time they like. There's no direct cost to researcher. Obviously it's not free. Someone is paying for it. It is ARDC that typically covers the capital expenditure, at least the nationally prioritized allocations and our nodes that cover the operational expenditure. So there is typically no direct cost to researcher for using the research cloud. So one important distinction here is there's two types of categories for cloud infrastructure and cloud project allocations, what we call national and local. So the national infrastructure is the infrastructure that's funded by ARDC through its increased funding. And it's accessible for nationally prioritized projects. As I said, nodes also add their own infrastructure that they pay for and obviously they get to decide how that is allocated. So projects are eligible for a national allocation to use the ARDC funded infrastructure if they meet essentially three criteria. They have a national competitive research grant, like an ARC or MHNMRC grant. They are supported by or they are part of an increased facility. So that obviously includes ARDC, we're an increased facility. So if you have a project that is funded by ARDC, you are eligible for automatically for a national allocation. For the lifetime of that project funding from ARDC. Now, we don't guarantee this, but we certainly our aim is to continue to support those projects once the ARDC funding finishes. So if, for example, you're a platforms project that's getting funded for two or three years to ARDC to develop or improve a platform, we'll certainly give you a national allocation to support that if you want one in the NACTA research cloud. But once the project finishes and ARDC funding finishes, you're still providing an important national service, hopefully an important national platform. So we aim to continue to support you on the NACTA research cloud with a national allocation beyond that time as well. And certainly we are currently doing that with a number of projects that were funded by NACTA to the, for example, to develop virtual laboratories and still operating those virtual laboratories as national platforms. There is a third sort of catchall category with a number of criteria where there may be other reasons why we might not support national allocations. So you can get national allocations in certain circumstances if you don't meet the first two criteria. Now, if you're not eligible for a national allocation, if your project isn't, so it doesn't have the national research grant, for example, you could still, if you're associated with one of the nodes of the NACTA research cloud, they may provide you with a local allocation, but you need that arrangement with a node to do that. Okay, so the cloud has been around for quite some time and we have a lot of users. So we have approximately or more than 1,700 research projects using the cloud at the moment. At any given time, there are more than 7,500 virtual machines running in the NACTA research cloud. It supports hundreds of services that are hosted on the cloud and we estimate with more than 50,000 users of those services, both in Australia and worldwide. And there's some examples there of some of the larger users of the cloud. There's a number of increased facilities. There's a number of virtual labs or platforms. Now, not all of these just use the NACTA cloud. Some of them may use commercial cloud or other infrastructure. In addition to using the NACTA cloud, some of them solely use the NACTA research cloud for hosting and operating their service. So just a bit more of a drill down into some of those things. At any given time, we have over 50,000 virtual CPUs running on the NACTA cloud being used, four petabytes of storage, and about 2,000 users who are running those virtual machines on the cloud at any given time. And last year in total, about 3,500 people actually fired up virtual machines in the research cloud. Now, it's hard for us to figure out how many people are actually using those things. So we could, you know, common circumstance, for example, is a person in a research group will fire up virtual machines and several people in that group might use them. We can't easily track those. And of course, you know, virtual labs, platforms, increased capabilities are running services that may have hundreds or thousands of users as well. We've had 18,000, more than 18,000 registered users in the cloud since it started in 2012. We get about 200 new users signing up every month. We've supported over 4,000 projects since the cloud started. And as I said, there's more than 1,700 that are currently active, supported over 700 research grants just last year, and a number of virtual labs, copy of research centers, centers of excellence and so on since the cloud's been running. So just briefly, in terms of the strategy of the cloud, because it has changed a little bit since ARDC took over running the cloud, first of all, ARDCs committed to continue to support the Nectar Research Cloud. We've spent four and a half million dollars to refresh the infrastructure at the sites, and we've committed to spending $3 million a year for at least the next couple of years for additional infrastructure and development of services in the cloud. In the past, Nectar really was just a basic infrastructure as a service cloud, but the strategy with ARDC is to expand that, to provide high-level services, sort of platform as a service offerings as well, and also to prioritize ARDC activities. So particularly ARDC-thunder projects like platforms projects, for example, and also to prioritize the sort of more innovative leading-edge infrastructure, things like GPU servers, very large memory servers, other types of services and functionality as well. So part of that is developing national services. So for example, supporting containers and Kubernetes. We've started a coordinating a national collaborative project to do that, which I'll talk about in a minute, and standard approaches to supporting analytics platforms like Jupiter, for example. We're also partnering to develop approaches for supporting commercial cloud. Again, I'll talk a little bit about that in a minute. And also trying to make the expertise that we have within our core services team available externally for consulting or assistance in particularly ARDC-supported projects. And we try as much as we can to align with what's happening internationally. So for example, in the European Open Science Cloud, they have an EGI Cloud Federation. Again, a federated open stack model similar to what we're doing in Australia, but a much larger scale, obviously. So I'll just briefly step through some of those things I just talked about. So first of all, I mentioned we were spending money on refreshing the cloud, one of the problems with the research cloud over the last few years is we haven't had significant funding to refresh the old infrastructure that we do now. So the central services infrastructure has already been refreshed much of it and more to come later this year. The nodes are all having refreshed cloud infrastructure. So Uni Melbourne node that's already happened. The Tasmania node, the infrastructure is in places. There's testing happening now. That should be available within the next couple of weeks. Similarly, the Monash node, some of the infrastructure is already, new infrastructure is already up and running. The rest will be in the next week or two should be available. And the New South Wales and Queensland nodes will have new infrastructure coming online in the middle of the year. So once that's all done, the capacity in the research cloud for national allocation will almost double and we'll be able to support at least 42,000 virtual CPUs and a significant increase in storage as well. But there's more. So that's just refreshing the existing capacity. We are also, as I said, spending $3 million a year for this year in the next couple of years on providing more infrastructure and new services. As I said, the aim there is to prioritise support for ARDC funded projects like the platforms project. So this year we're prioritising the 2019 platforms projects. So for example, the ones that were already using the cloud and been around for a while, the Biocommons, Galaxy Australia, EcoCommons, the characterisation virtual lab and a number of new ones, the drones, platform, imaging, machine learning and so on. So a number of these, won't be surprising, is the imaging, characterisation, machine learning platforms need lots of GPUs and some of these need high-end infrastructure, large memory machines and so on. So that's been primarily the focus of the new infrastructure that we're funding for this year. Lots of GPUs, a number of very large memory servers and some just generic additional capacity for computing storage to meet the requirements of all these new platforms. This new infrastructure should all be deployed by, again, roughly the middle of the year, June, July, this year. And we have more to come in the next couple of financial years. If you're part of a 2020 platforms project, you'll be aware we started gathering your storage and compute requirements already through a survey. We'll have follow-up meetings shortly to see how we can potentially assist you with providing the infrastructure that you need for your project. I'll just briefly go through some of these. So the GPUs, as I said, initially we're aiming to, we do already have some GPUs in the NICDA Research Cloud, but it's not offered as a national service. It's like some nodes have GPUs that they might provide to some of their local users. The current round of infrastructure is essentially just to provide GPUs that are dedicated to particular platforms so you can access them through those platforms, through the machine learning platform, for example, or the characterization platform. Next year, our next financial year, we're looking to expand that to provide a more generic infrastructure as a service using GPUs that can be used by any project. We'll be able to apply for the use of GPUs and be able to reserve some capacity. And we've also implemented the ability to virtualize GPUs. So some of the higher-end GPU cards could be sort of sliced into smaller, more digestible chunks, I suppose. The other project we're working on at the moment is essentially just to try and make the cloud easier for people to use. So to provide virtual desktop infrastructure so people can log into the cloud just like it's a virtual desktop that just has a bit more capacity. And of course, there's been a huge uptake in things like Jupyter and RStudio for data analysis. And we, you know, people can and do run Jupyter and RStudio in the cloud, but we just want to make it a lot easier for people to do that with simple web interface, for example. Some of the platforms projects already do that. We want to provide this as a generic, sorry, as a general service that can be used by anyone, including platforms projects, if they want to incorporate, say, a Jupyter Hub service or a virtual desktop infrastructure into their platform. So we've been working with some of the, well, we have, are working with some of the projects, particularly the Eco Commons project, on essentially tweaking what they've already done to be able for ARDC to support that. So we're looking to have a pilot for that sort of middle of the issue of the year with a production service for both virtual desktop and Jupyter by the end of the year. I mentioned briefly containers and Kubernetes. So these containers on the cloud and Kubernetes for container orchestration has been growing rapidly. So we are looking to provide a sort of national coordination of support for containers and Kubernetes across the various e-research platforms in Australia, not just the Nectar Research Cloud, but, you know, NCIs, CloudPorsi, local infrastructure, and so on, commercial cloud as well. So to allow people to be able to containerise applications and run it on different platforms or different clouds. So we've set up the ARCOS project, Australian Research Container Organization Service. This is ARDC's coordinating this, but it's a national collaboration of pretty much the main e-research providers in the country. We've set up a working group. Please join if you're interested in using containers or Kubernetes and a couple of specific working groups around the technical issues and around container registries and things like that. So we've been gathering requirements for projects and e-research infrastructure providers and working on implementing solutions to provide a more sort of standardised approach for how we do this nationally and how we support this. So please feel free to join these things if you're interested or you want help. The other thing we would like to be able to do, we've been thinking about this for quite some time, but we still haven't quite come up with an approach for doing this, is obviously the cloud is great for lots of things, the research cloud, sorry, but commercial cloud is also great for lots of things and can provide things that we can't, right? So people do use the commercial cloud as well as or instead of the nectar research cloud, there's a lot of advantages for some use cases for using the commercial cloud. So we want to be able to make it easier for people to do both. So we've been exploring approaches for how we do that. We're still figuring that out. We're hoping to have a sort of a focus on that in the next financial year as part of our plan for how to do that. So we can't currently easily support people who want to use the research cloud because we don't have finalised strategy for how we're going to do that, but the hope is we will have that within the next year. So please talk to us if you're interested or have particular use cases around that. And just finishing up, so we have some time for questions. Just to let you know, if you are engaging with the nectar cloud, just some of the people involved. So Carmel Walsh is my boss. She's the director of e-research infrastructure services in ARDC, which encompasses both the nectar cloud and the data retention project. So I'm responsible for the nectar research cloud. Joe Morris is the user support manager for the cloud. Senghor is starting on Monday. So he's our new cloud services development and operations manager, replacing Wilfred Brimblecombe, who some of you may know, who were retired at the end of last year. Sam and Andy are our technical leads in the cloud and have a lot of experience in opens and stack. Kieran is the ARCOS technical lead around Kubernetes and containers. The rest of the core services team, Adrian, Jake, Jacob, Stephen, Rocky, most of them are located. Most of the core services team are located in Melbourne. Some of us are in Brisbane. I'm in Adelaide, so it's a pretty distributed team just within ARDC. But then we also have the node operators at the different node sites around the country and their support staff, who also help organizations and projects that are using the nectar cloud. We're just recruiting a cloud skills specialist to ramp up the focus on skills and training within the research cloud. And we have a distributed help desk, which is staffed by node staff around the country. So more information on how to use the cloud. You can go to the ARDC website and find out some information about the nectar cloud. We have a support site and email to the help desk. So I guess the best approach if you want questions or anything about the cloud is to flag a ticket with the help desk and you'll be directed to the relevant person to answer your question. And you can just go to the nectar dashboard and log in and start using it if you so wish. So that's it for me. Thanks very much. That's a sort of brief overview of the nectar cloud and how to use it.


Welcome. I'm Liam McArthur. I'm the Deputy Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament, but more relevantly for this event, I'm also the member of the Scottish Parliament for Awkney. I'd like to welcome you all to this online edition of the Festival of Politics 2021 in partnership with Scotland's Future Forum. This afternoon's event is about the Scottish Islands being on the front line of the climate emergency. We're delighted that so many people are able to join us online today, and I look forward to hearing comments and questions from our audience as we get into our discussion. Scotland's islands have been described as the canary down the mine when it comes to the climate emergency. Since 2000, the rising sea levels, heavier rainfall and frequent powerful storms have been eroding the dunes and mature land that protects many low-lying communities whose wellbeing and livelihoods are now being altered. In the next hour, we'll hear from the island communities already dealing and adapting to the climate emergency on their doorstep, as well as predicting the island's respective futures. To answer those questions, I'm delighted to be joined today by our panellists. You can read more about them on the Festival website, but let me first introduce Dr Sandy Kerr, director of the International Centre for Island Technology at Heriot-Watt University's campus in Stromanus in Orkney, and Camille Dressla, who is based in Egg, who is chair of the Scotland Islands Federation and vice chair of the European Small Islands Federation. Unfortunately, Ryan Thomson, the chair of the Environment and Transport Committee at Shetland Islands Council, has been unable to join us due to being unwell, and we sent him our best wishes for a speedy recovery. In order, maybe just to set the scene, there'll be an opportunity for our online audience to put questions and views to the panel throughout the event. If you would like to make a contribution, please enter your question or comment into the question and answer box. Make sure to state your first name and where you are from, and we'll go through as many as we possibly can before 2 o'clock. I'd like to begin, however, by asking both our panellists what have you witnessed on your respective islands that would substantiate the claim that Scotland's islands are indeed the canary down the mine when it comes to the impact of the climate emergency over the last few decades. I'll start with Sandy and then come to Camille. Sandy, what are your thoughts? Thank you, I'm delighted to be here. It's a really interesting question. It's something that we've often said over many years that we are, sometimes we're a canary down the mine and other times we're a lighthouse. In terms of physical things that we've seen around us in Orney, we're definitely saying that we've increased coastal erosion. In Orney, it's a particular concern around a lot of our historic monuments, places like Scarborough Bray, where there's extensive sea defences there already, but that's starting to be eroded away, also around our built environment. We're a rural community, but it's actually a built environment in Orney that's being impacted not so much by coastal erosion, but here sea level rising, flooding, St Margaret's Hope, Kirkwall, big new flood defences in Kirkwall, and also in my hometown of Strunness. Another important issue is around increased storminess and how that's causing problems with transport links. One of the obvious ones, ferries, are obviously impacted by storminess, but here in Orney, we have some fixed links and barriers between the Churchill barriers and a wooden two between the Orney mainland and the South Isles. Anybody who lives in Orney is very aware of the increased impact of storminess and wave over toppling there. This year, unexpectedly, we've suffered one of the worst droughts for a long, long time, so extreme weather patterns. Going back to your original point about the Canary down the mine, as an indicator in change, the trouble with all those things, they're absolutely real and of huge major concern. What we would expect to see given the climate change predictions is that often there are things that we don't have a long time series of evidence. There's always been storms, they appear to be much worse and more frequent. One thing that I would point to is the environment around about this. If you look at seabird populations, for example, we have very good long-term data on seabird populations. For many species, the numbers have crashed in recent years. We know that a lot of this has to do with the change in the plankton regime in the seas around us, so that sandeals are not as abundant or not turning up at the right time of year. You've got, yeah, maybe not a canary, but you've definitely got a seagull down the mine as far as Orkney is concerned, but the impacts are widespread in many. Thanks very much for that, Sandy. That's very helpful. I think that you've teed up Camille very well in reference to the travel disruption and ferry cancellations, because I think that egg has not been without its issues over recent days. Camille, what would be your reflections in terms of your own experience of islands being the canary down the mine? I would definitely concur with Sandy that a drought is a problem that seems to be getting increasingly worse. It was bad last year. It was becoming quite critical this year as well, particularly for small islands. Our membership being spread between the six island areas of Scotland, I definitely can report the same kind of patterns that Sandy has been mentioning throughout the Western Isles, North Seashire Islands, Argyll Islands, Highland Islands, Scotland as well. Coastal erosion, a discrepancy between the arrival of migrant birds and insects, so there's a bit of a problem between the source, which has not quite arrived, or quite a bit of difficulty with the seabird population and the feed source, the food source, and the pattern of erosion, obviously, which is quite a problem for low-lying islands. Certainly with network island innovation, we have been sharing maps of what would happen if the sea level would rise and there's an awful lot of coastal land that would be underwater in our islands, so it's something that we really need to be mindful of and we need to work with our local authority to anticipate and work on mitigation issues quite urgently. Thanks very much for that. Camille, before turning to the next question, I certainly encourage our audience to put their questions in the Q&A function and, as they say, if you could indicate a first name and where you're from, that would be very helpful. Hopefully, we will be able to do a tour of the country in terms of the comments and the questions over the course of the hour, but just turning maybe to that point that you were making there, Camille, about some of the planning work that islands undertake, is there something in terms of the closer nature of island communities that allows a behavioural change to take place, to embrace initiatives to address climate change that might be more difficult in more urban areas? Are there examples of how that has happened, whether through development of renewable energy projects or energy efficiency projects or some of the flood mitigation that Sandy was talking about earlier? I would say that the islands are generally far-sighted and have anticipated all this and the move to renewables in the first place. There's been quite a few years that we've been working on mitigation, the effects of climate change and taking the opportunities that arise with the development of renewable for our island. I think we definitely are ahead of the curve, but where it becomes more difficult is to plan for the future. I mean what's going to happen if we don't have enough water, would we have to get desalination plants like they do in Sweden and in Ireland, for instance, or solar panel power, of course, but this is something that's quite worrying for a lot of islands looking to the future, but the thing that we have to say is that our population on the islands are really been engaging with the renewable revolution and, for instance, the good news about North Yale in Shetland is about having this big wind turbine fire from going ahead. It's something that's been impulsed by local population as early as 2012, so we are mindful of what's happening and we are trying to do something about it. Sandy, if I come to you, I mean, obviously, Orkney has kind of banished itself as a kind of living laboratory, as somewhere that is taking a lead in innovating solutions to address some of these challenges. So, I mean, I wonder whether you could talk about the experience locally in Orkney in using that size and scale, perhaps, to good effect in tackling these sorts of issues, and perhaps also learning lessons that may be useful for similar projects or behavioural change elsewhere. Yeah, it's a very good point this, and it's something that I have thought about quite a lot over the years, that, you know, why is it that a lot of the certainly community-scale renewable energy initiatives and local energy system sort of innovation is happening in rural areas, in particular in the islands, and I think there's a couple of reasons for that, and I think that one of them is that I think that islanders, particularly people living in small islands, they're system thinkers, they understand everything, how everything interacts to make the system on their island work, they know how many kids are in the school, they understand where their power comes from, where the water comes from, how the ferries work, how interrelated and reliant everything is, perhaps in a way that you maybe don't in Edinburgh, you turn your tap on and there's water, I wonder how many people know where it comes from. I think that islanders are used to thinking in a systems way, so they can see how fragile it is, and the smallness of space means that when you're confronted with a problem, you can't just use space to hide the problem. You're confronted with problems, you understand how everything links up, so you kind of get the idea of energy, you kind of get the idea of sustainable development, you kind of get why renewable energy is important, it's an easier story to explain and tell to people on islands because they think that we already, and climate change is a systems problem, it's going to require behavioural change, it's going to require new renewable technologies, but it's not just a case of unplugging, cooling, plugging something else in, how we use energy is going to have to be very different, we're going to have to change how we live our lives, it's a systems problem, so I think that gives us a head start, and I think the other thing in small tight-knit communities is that information diffuses more quickly, and I give you an example of that, about 15 years ago when we had small feed-in towers for small wind, at one point Orkney, forgive me if my numbers are wrong but they're approximately right, at one point Orkney had 20% of the UK installed small-scale wind, that's your household scale staff, that's six kilowatts, 20% of the UK installed capacity, we've got 0.05% of the UK population in Orkney, now the whole of the country is getting the same price signal, what was that about, well I think it's about, when somebody sees that wind's a good idea and small-scale wind works, then that information diffuses and spreads very quickly in the community, so it's adopted very quickly, so that's why I'd say that that helps, has really helped us to put us ahead of the game, so trying to think about the metropolitan world down south, I think that trying to identify what are the communities that we're going to talk to and that are going to sort of embrace change, because I think that maybe not necessarily geographic when you're in a city, whereas the island of egg or west or mainland Orkney, you've got more of an obvious sort of, you know, what is community is much more obvious, so I think that sort of identifying the community that you're going to try, that needs to change its behaviour is very important. No, that's, I think, very helpful, Sandy, and as somebody who is one of those connecting micro wind turbines to the network, I know that not only did SSC struggle to keep track of who was connecting up, but ultimately it helped create the conditions of capacity constraints on the grid, which has turned, I think, probably catalyzed more consideration to how we use local sources of demand to use up the production that we've got. I'm taken by a question that's come in for Amanda in Edinburgh, about what we've seen for Camille and Sandy, both talking about the way in which maybe islands are well set up to innovate in this area, but to what extent, Amanda's asking, is there a fund for islands to implement climate adaptation measures? Is there a framework or some other support for councils, members of the public, to create climate adaptation plans? Essentially, is Government supporting the kind of innovation that both Sandy and Camille have been talking about? Who wants to go first? Camille, can I come to you first, maybe? Well, we are very lucky at the moment to have an island plan, so renewables and production of renewables and making sure that we have the skills within the island population to service that industry is part of the plan. We have a head start on this, but I think that Amanda's question is very important. I can compare that with my experience of other countries in Europe, where perhaps the whole issue of planning is maybe more centralised. I've seen that, in Scotland, the application of sustainable energy action plan may not have been necessarily moved on to sustainable energy and climate action plans, as it is happening in Germany, Denmark or France. It is important that it occurs right across the board and that the council, the local authorities, do work with the local communities to make sure that there is a joined up approach and also that there is a political will to support that. I'm not just saying about the Scottish Government. I think that we are very lucky in this country, in Scotland, that we have a very supportive Government, but is there the will at the UK Government to change the issue? You were mentioning SSE just now, Liam. How come that when there is the problem with the subsea cables to Tyree or Islay that go down, there is no will from SSE to immediately switch on the capacity on the island? It is not happening. It is all the slicker switch to a diesel generator system, so there is a need to a systemic change, definitely, and that requires political will at all levels. That's helpful, Camille. The issue of the switching to diesel generators is certainly an issue that we've been experiencing in Orkney with cable faults of late. Sandy, to what extent do you think there has been a supportive environment around local, national or UK Government to support those initiatives? I am sitting here and reflecting on the past. Renewbable energy in Orkney is something that goes back to the mid-90s when we started looking at it. In terms of specific support for islands, I've got to say very little. A lot of what happened in Orkney was that the islands galvanised to establish the Orkney Renewbable Energy Forum locally back in the 1990s, just when people didn't really know what a turbine was or how it worked. It was just a place where we could come and learn and then reach out and grab money very often from down south. I think that one thing that's been really helpful, certainly in Orkney, is the fact that we've got our own local authority, so we've got a local authority based in the islands that the councillors are islanders, so they're very aware of island problems and issues. Going back to what I said in the last comment, there is a very strong will to work together both in industry, public sector and academia in the islands. That's what's set up the Orkney Renewbable Energy Forum. The Orkney Renewbable Energy Forum, we conducted energy audits, so we understood our position, so we had facts and information to support our cause when often we went south and grabbed money from south. Frankly, in my opinion, very little specific island support over the years. Maybe changed a bit now, we've got the island's bill. We can argue about how effective that actually is, but that's relatively recent. I'd say very little of what we've done is we've organised and reached out, and often it's been Orkney bullying and cajoling Government down south. Thanks for that, Sandy. There are a few questions that have popped into my inbox here, so let me see if I can rattle through those. Firstly, from Kirsty and Sky, are there any national or local campaigns or programmes that the panellists could recommend so that individuals can get involved at a grassroots level? Camille? Well, we have been involved for quite a long time in the clean energy EU islands policies at the European level, because our federation is a member of the island federation throughout the EU, so we've been working on smart, sustainable islands for a long, long time, and I'm pleased to say that there's been a lot of political move towards resourcing the island, so I would say go to the clean energy EU island secretariat website. It's easy to find, clean energy EU island, and you have the model for a clean energy transition agenda. Every island community ought to be able to work to produce their own transition agenda. Us on Ag, we have done ours, ours just now, and we are in the middle of sharing it with the community to see if we've got it right. It's a blueprint for what you're going to do. Obviously, on Ag, we have our own mini-grids, so it's slightly different, but if you look on the examples of other CETAs, clean energy transition agendas, elsewhere, like in Ireland, or in Sweden, or in the Azores, or in Portugal, it's actually a very useful template to engage the community and to reflect and to understand their consumption. Sandy was talking about energy audits. It's important to be able to carry out this energy audit. We are the Scottish Island Federation together with Community Energy Scotland. We've developed a methodology for local community to do their own audit. We can share that with you. There are the tools that are being developed for citizens to engage in their energy transition, and we'll be very happy to make sure that those tools are available more widely. Andy, do you want to put in a plug for the Orkney Renewable Energy Forum again? Yes, I will do it and I'll advance it, move it on a little bit, but I can't underestimate how important that's been, that local organisation understanding your own island and your own system and having that information and that information's power, because without it you can't persuade anybody of anything, you'll be brushed aside all the time, so you need to understand your own island and what's going on. The Orkney Renewable Energy Forum has been absolutely critical in that. As I say, because we've got our own island local authority, that has been hugely helpful because they get it as well. I want to mention another initiative that, through the islands deal, which is one of the UK's regional deals, so the UK Government and Scottish Government both contribute money to this, and there's an islands deal, which is Orkney, Shetland and Western Isles, but we at the Harry Waite University along with local partners, the European Green Energy Centre and the private sector and the council as well and Community Energy Scotland are establishing the island centre for net zero, and this is to really try and understand or help communities work out their own pathway to net zero. This is something that, once the island deal is signed off, should be established next year, and it's the idea is to learn in these islands and then spread that news to other islands around the UK and the rest of the world indeed. I think that the centre for net zero is absolutely welcome, it's wonderful because there's going to be an exemplar for other communities, but we've also got a UHI plan to establish some type of energy academy in Malik, and with a close cooperation with the Small Isles, which all have their own mini grids and Noidart, so that people can come and learn about how to do it, and also go and spend time on each of the islands to see how they've done it. For instance, I'd like to commend the example of the Isle of Cana, where a population of 12 has managed to set up their own renewable energy system. It's remarkable, but it's just a question of determination and also getting the right help. I have to say that Community Energy Scotland is brilliant because it has a methodology that can be applied to any community, whether urban, rural or island. I think that's a point that's very well made. Sticking with the issue of energy, I've got a question here from Moregg. I don't know where she is from, but she's referring to reports of predictions of the reduction in wind in northern Europe, with a simultaneous increase around the Mediterranean, wondering whether or not that's indeed the case and whether there are implications for our own renewable energy target. Sandy, I don't know whether you have any insight into that. I'm just starting to hear about the science coming through now. I suppose that there's a lot of uncertainty around the extent to which this will happen. What I would say at the moment, if you look at a wind turbine in Orkney or Shetland, it's operating at something like maybe 55 per cent efficiency, so it's equivalent to 55 per cent at the time. In the south of England, 30 per cent, it may be as low as 20 per cent in Germany or southern France, depending on where it is. There's quite a long way to go before that flips around. We're a lot windier at the moment than in other places, so let's see. Can I just stick with the energy theme? There's a question from Graham again, no indication of where Graham is, but he's asked about whether or not the devolution of more powers over energy and energy policy to the Scottish Parliament might improve the support available for projects on the islands and presumably in mainland Scotland as well. He also asked how do the feed-in tariffs hinder development due to the higher costs in Scotland contributing to the grid? I suspect that that's probably more about the new cost rather than feed-in tariffs, but Sandy, do you have any views on the devolution of powers? There's no way of saying for sure. It really depends on how it plays out in Edinburgh and Glasgow. It's certainly a lot closer and it's certainly easier to connect with Edinburgh. There's a politics within Scotland as well, and there is an urban rule divide within Scotland as well. I think that the grid connection charges are very interesting. I think sometimes that the grid debates are a tricky one, but I look around Orkney and what I'd like to see is less of a focus on us trying to export our electricity and more of a focus on using it locally, because we're still driving about predominantly in petrol cars. I'm looking at this window attractor in the field, and that's diesel. If I actually cream my neck, I can see a ferry heading off to the North Isles, and those are huge consumers of energy. Personally, I'd like to turn that debate in its head and say how we should be focusing on using more energy locally rather than trying to move it around the country. I think that that points to the reflux project and similar work that is under way in Orkney that, because of the grid capacity issues, has seen more attention given to how we use the resources that we have in the context. Strangely, that grid capacity constraints stimulated innovation in Orkney as people try to look for solutions. Those are the kind of solutions that we're going to need everywhere in the future. That's a point well made. Not that the capacity constraints don't necessarily need to be resolved as well, but it's forced people to prioritise that issue more than would have been the case. Camille, do you have any thoughts on that? There's the issue in terms of the devolution of the powers, but the customer market that you need for your energy is that those that are paying taxes or customers paying bills will fund whatever support schemes that you've got in place. It's going to be bigger within a UK context than it would be in a Scottish context. The end of the feeding tariff has been a disaster for our island communities, because a lot of our business models for setting up renewable systems were predicated on the feeding tariff, so this kind of auction carry-on that's been going on is not the same. Again, if the Scottish Government had the power to reintroduce feeding tariff, that would be absolutely a game changer. For our rural communities and island communities, small is beautiful. You need to think about a small system within the islands. The decarbonisation of transport is perhaps ahead of the curve in the Orkneys. I think that the Orkney council has got the largest amount of charging points in the UK. It's way behind in the other islands. We need to anticipate also the green hydrogen revolution that everybody is talking about at the moment. We mustn't be left behind. I've just been to Brittany this summer and I've just seen a small hydrogen fueling station which is the side of a car park and it's powered by solar cells. You sort of think that an autonomy of 300 kilometres for island vehicles won't keep us going for quite a long time. Also, you've got to think of electric vehicles as part of the general appliances that can bring to the grid as well. It's thinking small and an island or community-based systemic thinking for the island at island level, which is important here. Also, there's a need to think differently about heating, for instance. Fuel poverty is a massive problem throughout Scotland and district heating, which is a well-entribed technology in Scandinavian countries. It's not nearly as developed as it could be. Again, renewable and hydrogen could combine to change everything. I think that definitely the evolution should help with that. As we have recently seen the disappointing news about the green hydrogen project in Aberdeen and not being given priority shows that we're not quite there yet. I've got a question from an S Davidson. I don't have the first name. I don't have a location either, but he or she asks, are policies for spaceports, fish farms, cruise ship travel etc compatible with a climate emergency and I suppose a more generic reflection, is there too much emphasis on employment for the detriment of climate? I suppose that goes to another question that I was going to ask about whether climate change exacerbates the age-old issue of island depopulation. If the jobs aren't there, the ability to attract and retain population becomes more difficult, but is there a trade-off between climate and development of those kinds? Andy? I just run two massive questions together there, Liam. Sorry, I forgot the name of the question there. In broad terms, I agree with you, but I think that that's a massive question that isn't just a question for islands. It's a question internationally indeed that we are so hung up on three letters, GDP, as a way of measuring economic growth and wellbeing, and it doesn't. You can cut trees down and it increases GDP.  We've been over-reliant on simple measures of growth that we think equate to wellbeing. In terms of the population change on the islands, which is the second part of the thorny question that Liam tagged on the end there, we are likely to see a lot of mixed effects in different parts of our islands. Issues such as storminess, ferries and the challenges of transport are maybe a kind of disincentive as well, but I've been thinking about this and that, in Orkney, we're seeing an increase in population at the moment, and I'm not saying that's directly related to climate change, but one of the big draws is actually the renewable energy technologies and development in Orkney that's drawing in particularly young people it's enabling. Orchidians have gone away and studied science STEM subjects to come back and get a good job, as well as drawing in people who come to study with us in Orkney and then stay and work. It's actually reversing the brain drain and the drain of younger, economically active people, and it's seeing this for really in Orkney. That's because of all this renewable energy and energy systems related activity. There's potential real positive benefits for islands that grasp the nettle here in this energy transition. I was also thinking as well that there's a lot of people moving to Orkney as well. A lot that's been to do with the pandemic and suddenly they realise that you can work from home, therefore you don't need to be close to Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, Manchester, wherever. So a lot of people are moving and bringing them jobs with them. Also, I wonder with that increased mobility, maybe with increased drought, increased heat down south, I don't think anybody found it particularly comfortable in London this year, never mind the south of France or Greece, that maybe our cooler climates are going to be rather attractive. That might cause people to move in as well. So it's a big topic that I don't think we quite know what's going to happen. Yeah, I think that's a fair point in terms of the population increase over the course of the last 18 months or so. I think that people might be re-appraising their work-life balance and the opportunities, you say, to work from home, not needing to be physically present, has opened up opportunities. Likewise, I think that those higher-skill, better-paid jobs in the renewable sector has been a catalyst too. Camille, how would you see that kind of, I don't think, necessarily an inherent conflict, but the tension that can exist between development and creating jobs in islands and the imperative of addressing the climate emergency? I would say that probably Orkney has been the most successful area to sort of benefit from the cruise ship. They very well organise, but I'm not sure if the cruise ship model is a sustainable model for tourism. That's a larger question here. Who is in charge of strategy here? Is it a central body or is it the communities themselves? I think it's very important that the communities themselves are looking at their own sustainable strategy for tourism, where they encourage smaller-scale, more authentic experience and not that sort of like mass tourism that is destroying places and creating a huge amount of issues. I mean, look at sky at the moment and the explosions of airbnbs, which means that we have not enough housing for our doctors, our teachers, our nurses, because they are having to compete with tourism on a large scale. We have to be very careful about what we wish for in terms of development. The recent crisis with Covid has shown the potential of islanders to come up with solutions that are low-scale and rooted in the culture and the tradition of the islands, the kind of know-how branding and the products that are really innovative and rooted in the experience of the island. Certainly, the website that was developed to sell island product, aisle 20, has shown that there was a lot of entrepreneurship going on the island. We are not talking about massive development like fish farms. Fish farms do not get me started on this. Fish farms are important as an employer, but they create a lot of issues themselves. Perhaps with the development of the green hydrogen, there might be lots of oxygen produced that will go to waste if we do not use it. Perhaps a different way of fish farming, perhaps inland fish farming, is a smaller scale that will not pollute our lochs and our coastal sea and cause problems with migration of our iconic salmon. The concept is being smart and sustainable. Smart and sustainable island is our mantra. That is what we need to think of in terms of development, always having this motto in the head. Let me stick with the theme of food. You started on fish farming, so we will stay on the food theme. Chris from Shetland says that food security is going to be a growing issue, especially given that we are per capita footprint. That needs to be more support for community growing and community supported growing schemes. I wonder whether you are aware of what support is available at the moment and whether you would agree that that is something where local governments and national government need to be far more supportive in its approach and the provision of funding to allow these schemes to take off? That is a very important question. The Scottish Rural Parliament touched upon the new land use partnership. There is a little bit of a worry about the way this partnership will be working because I think that there will be the body that will be allowing funding for agriculture. It is important that islands are represented well within these panels. We need to think about a different type of agriculture, an agriculture that is not going to be exhausting the land but helps with the soil health so that the soil can continue to help with the carbon capture. It is difficult for me to understand all this concept. However, I understand that soil health is critical to carbon being retained in the soil. A good model for agriculture, such as regenerative agriculture, which everybody talks about at the moment, is something that should definitely be encouraged. Basically, it is all about the traditional model of agriculture. Small scale perhaps is a good quality cattle that may be more finished on the islands or in the rural area than sent away for better quality, meat better quality and also a chance to grow more locally instead of having to do all these good miles. Absolutely, we do need a strategy that will bring the cost of producing food locally down and make sure that we all are aiming towards self-sufficiency. I live in the very small islands. If the ferry goes tomorrow, we will run out of food there rapidly because there is no way that we can supply enough within the island, even though we have our own orchard, there are a lot of greenhouses and everything, but that needs to be encouraged more. The real cost of agriculture needs to be factored in also. Thank you. Sandy, the climate at the moment determines to a large extent what food is produced and how livestock are raised on the islands. What observations would you make in relation to that issue of food security? It is an interesting issue for climate change food and meat production, particularly sensitive one in Orkney. Liam Well understands that we are at the backbone of the Archerian economy's beef production. It is not about self-sufficiency. We are an exporter of high-quality beef. Most of the audience will be aware that lots of questions are being asked about the sustainability of meat eating in the longer run. We need more information because a lot of the information that is becoming forward about meat consumption is about cattle lots in South America and North America, and it is very aggregated data. I was also at a very interesting presentation last week, funnily enough, when a speaker came to the Orkney, a renewable energy forum, to talk about how food supplements and cattle feed might have the opportunity to bring down methane production from cattle by something like 60 per cent. This research has been done in the States in a very different mode of agricultural production. Nevertheless, there may be ways that we can produce beef in Orkney and cut the carbon significantly. I also hope that, because we are producing a very high-quality, high-end product, and that is what farmers strive to do in Orkney, that if the population more generally cuts down on meat consumption, it will be the lower end, cheaper stuff that people move out of their life. We should treat meat consumption as the treat that it is, but it is something special rather than something every day. If that is the case, something like Orkney should be well placed to be part of that market going forward. There is no doubt about it. It is a tough issue. Until we have hard facts until we understand the situation on the ground in the islands, we can have a lot of hot air in arguments without any resolution or understanding the way forward. My first objective is to try to understand it better. I have a question from Jeane in Islay. I am not sure whether that is more for Camille than Sandy, or whether it is for me. References have been made to the benefits of having a unitary island authority. Do you think that there could be benefits to there being a new authority for the islands of Highland and Argyll? I suppose that the observations would be that the islands act emerged out of work done by the three island authorities, Shetland, Orkney and the Western Isles. The legislation itself is quite deliberately touched on islands within Argyll and Bute and Highland Council areas. I suppose that a unitary authority, including all of the islands from Argyll and Highland, might have some benefits, but I could see some potential tensions arising in terms of often the zero sum game that can be played between islands that have the same but competing interests for infrastructure and other such things. Camille, this is your neck of the woods. Do you see this as something of a panacea? Reflecting, I suppose, the islands' interests in allowing them to punch up of their weight, where decisions are taken, whether they are about policy or funding. That is true. It is a big issue because, if you consider North Ayrshire, there have only got two islands. Obviously, the island of Argyll and Cumbria have a lot of more difficulty to get the point of view hard at council level than, say, Westray and Woodhouse in Orkney. I am totally sympathetic to the point of view that Jeane has. For Argyll and Bute, there is a substantial amount of islands at the Argyll and Bute Council has got an island representative and an island forum. However, they have always been, from what I understand, a little bit jealous of the way that Orkney, Shetland and Western Isles have managed to get their strategies more aligned because they are island authorities. For Argyll and Bute, our future, for instance, which impulse the whole island bill in Argyll and Bute, were always sort of saying, well, we don't seem to be including as much as we could be, so there is merit in having more strength for the islands that do not have their own authority. However, I think that is a question that needs to be looked at in more details. Certainly, in Highlands, Rassie, the Small Isles do work together and the sky is slightly different because it has a bridge, but I think that the distance involved is so large between the tip of the sky and the island that it would be difficult to work out a central point. It may need a lot more work to be done before we can come to a conclusion on that. I notice that you referred to Westry getting its voice heard. As somebody who is brought up in Sandy, I do not think that Westry has any difficulty getting its voice heard and all power to it. Sandy, I do not know whether you would have any observations, whether it has been a benefit having the island authorities. I think that you yourself referred to it on a couple of occasions, that unitary authority, allowing a collective voice to be expressed. I think that it does, and I have to say on a number of levels, partly because the councillors are islanders as well. It is what I said about islanders, understanding the system's thinking. Also, the council in Orkney is also the harbour authority. It controls that it might not want to. It has to operate the inter-island ferries. It is a big energy consumer itself, so it is quite having the council on board when you are trying to strategise about energy in the islands is hugely helpful. I will say something else, which might be a bit tiny bit controversial, but we also have in Orkney most of the councillors are independent. I think that that makes a difference. Some people say that it can cause confusion in terms of policy coming forward, but I do think that it means that you get a hearing. They will listen and be persuaded by arguments and are not looking over their shoulder at their colleagues in their party or have to take the party line from somewhere else in the country. Some people disagree with me on that, but I personally, I quite like it having independent councillors, but they will listen and they will talk to each other as well. That would be a retaliation for me throwing the cruise ship question at you. Camilla, you wanted to come back in, sorry. It may be a question of resources here as well, and I can understand her question very well, because if you take Argyll and Bute, it is a massive area, and it maybe is the same problem with Highland. We have councillors that are so huge and so overstretched that the resources to service the islands become very tenuous in the end. There is definitely merit in perhaps making some of our councils smaller. It might be a good idea to have Argyll and Bute split but I am not too sure if you could have an island authority that would just group all the islands that are not in western Isles in Orkney or Shetland. It is a difficult problem there, but there is definitely a need to have more resources for islands because I know that Argyll and Bute resources are very strict. When we were working with them on energy issues, they could do a sustainable energy plan for one island, but not all the islands. It was just like a question of resources, and it is true that it is a big problem. I am going to see your controversial statement, Sandy, and raise you one again from S Davidson about questioning whether or not the depopulation of the islands is indeed a bad thing or a negative issue, or is it just because the cost to local authorities to sustain basic services for a smaller number of people is more of a challenge. I suspect that we are getting into territory of a whole different themed event for a future festival of politics there. I am conscious of time here, so I will not necessarily bring you in on that. I think that we have probably exhausted the questions. Let me finish off with one more. Matt in Shetland, the issue with independent councillors, is the lack of an organised opposition holding leadership to account. Sandy, when you introduced the comment, you did indicate that it was not necessarily a universally held view. I suppose that the other issue is that there is not necessarily always a great deal of clarity about what a manifesto or what they would look to achieve over the term. There is always a flip side. I can see that. Elegantly dealt with. At that point, I am going to have to start drawing things to a close. Thank you very much indeed for all the contributions. Sorry that we did not manage to get to all the questions and comments in the box. Before we close, I will offer our panellists, Sandy and Camille, an opportunity to sum up for them what has been the key point, the key reflection on the discussion. I will tie it in to a question from Jane and Edinburgh, who, as well as thanking the panel for a fascinating discussion, asks if there is one sentence, how would you advertise the need to think out of the box in relation to climate change? I will give you the choices whether to reflect on that or whether there is something else that you think is the burning issue from the discussion that we have had over the past hour. I am going to start with you, Camille. The whole thing is getting the awareness of community level. In islands, it is easier because our communities are very tight-knit. As Sandy pointed out, we are a systemic thinker, but there is no reason why we cannot have a tenement block being an island within the city. If you can have, in an urban context, lots of little islands of neighbourhoods that are thinking about the issue of climate change together, they could put pressure to get to a system that will benefit them in terms of fuel poverty, in terms of district heating, in terms of transport. It is all about being close to your local representative and making sure that your voice is heard. Maybe we are better at doing that in islands because we are closer to our politicians, we are closer to our representative and we are quite feisty as well. We know that we can see clearly the relationship between our lives and the changes in climate change, and we want to do something about it. Question of awareness and community engagement, Camille. As the leader of the BASC Nationalist Party once told me many years ago, the benefits of devolution are that the bums are closer to kick. That sums it up not too badly. Sandy, how would you reflect on this discussion or advertise the need to think out of the box in relation to climate change? Just like you said, I totally agree with what Camille said and reflect our discussion in the comments. I think that nobody is going to come and start it out for us. There is a limit to how far complaining about somebody's south or even further south will get you, probably not very far. I am not saying to people further south or right far from it, but it is about islands organising. You have to understand your own place and understand the energy in it and what it needs and figure out a pathway forward. Nobody else is going to do that for you. Without the willingness to organise in your own space then you are not going to get very far. The other thing is to try and stay optimistic because without that you lose the energy to do anything. I reflect on my own small town of strongness and how it has expanded. It has got this amazing mix of international and local people and international people that are coming here to understand what these islands are doing in terms of learning from the green revolution that is happening here. Nobody has died from down south. It was the islanders that did it themselves. I think that that point about islanders having a kind of can-do attitude. The number of people who say to me after visits to Orkney, but I am sure that it is the case in other islands as well, that there is a can-do attitude there and that is what strikes them. If you are in government, it is far easier to look at how you might get alongside and back something that is under way that is well-formed, such as the buy-in of the local population and you can support it along the way than starting from scratch with a problem that you do not really know how to deal with. I think that is a point that is very well made. Let us conclude on this optimistic note. I thank everybody for their contributions, for their questions, for their comments and apologies that we did not manage to get to all of them. In particular, I thank Dr Sandy Kerr and Camille Dressler for giving up their time to take part this afternoon. I also take the opportunity to remind everyone watching that the festival continues later on today with panels on climate activism in This Is Not A Drill at 6 p.m. tonight. Tomorrow, we have panels on technical and financial innovations to save our world in big brains for big solutions, followed by a panel about the global north part in the climate crisis in Is the North to Blaine, as well as sessions on mental health and Covid-19 inequalities. I hope that you can join us, but for now, I thank you very much indeed for your participation for supporting the festival of politics. Have a good afternoon and the rest of the weekend. Thanks very much. Thank you. It was a pleasure.


David Zynmar, y hyn hyn fydden i ni nad oes prôdpsio cronio. Fe oes bod yn rhan o'r problem.完成 organisation here by one Facebook entry. What measures are you taking to remove the absolute corruption according to Mark Hallam that exists in Myanmar? What's your view about whether this can be tackled and lead to a restoration of confidence in time for people here? Well, in my point of view, there is a lot of things to be done to get the confidence for all of our people and the foreign investor. I think there are basically three things to be done. One thing is to amend the constitution. The second thing is to develop the mechanism for the rule of law. The third one is the infrastructure. The last one is that I would like to focus on the young people. According to the Asia Development Bank report, there are 18% of the young people between 13th and 18th who are the 40% of workforce. So in here in Burma, there is no opportunity to get the decent employment, to get a proper training, to get proper jobs for the young people. I think the current government has a lack of mechanism to create jobs for the young people.


A warm welcome to the thirteenth session in the third module on signals and systems. We are now well equipped to state a very important principle in the context of signals and systems. Perhaps a landmark which has led to the movement from analog to digital. In fact, I consider what we are going to state today as one of the central ideas in the context of sampling and reconstruction. And it is a well celebrated theorem that we are going to state well known by many in the field of electrical engineering communication and in fact, many other engineering disciplines as well. We are going to state what is called the Shannon, Wittaker, Nyquist sampling theorem. By the way, all of these are names, Shannon, Wittaker and Nyquist. And if I am not mistaken, Wittaker actually needs to have a double T, but I am leaving that open because I have seen different spellings. But anyway, the point is there are several different researchers who have contributed to the idea of what constitutes an ability to sample and reconstruct. Shannon, Wittaker, Nyquist are among those people who have been associated with this theorem that we are going to state. In a way, we have already derived the theorem indirectly in the last few discussions. The central idea in this theorem is, what allows you to do away with the imposters that you have created as a consequence of sampling? So, before I state and prove the theorem formally, let us recapitulate what we have been saying over the last few sessions in the context of sampling. When you sample, you are prone to losing information. I mean, what way do you lose information? It is not that you lose what was originally there, but you cloud what was originally there with a lot of other rubbish in plain language. Unwanted copies of the original waveforms or patterns or information, which you then need to distinguish from the original genuine authentic information. The problem is in sampling, often not that you have disturbed what was originally there, but you have created many unwanted copies and it could be difficult to distinguish what is original and what is a copy. If you can do that, then you are well set to reconstruct from examples. If you cannot, then there is a problem. If the copies are started getting mixed up with the original information, then there is a problem. To state the theorem, we first need to put down the context in which the theorem applies. There again, we have elucidated the concept in the last few sessions. The context is that the signal has a Fourier transform. The Fourier transform is non-zero up to a maximum finite and this is very, very important. I am going to underline this. Finite is important, non-zero only up to a maximum finite frequency, we call that finite frequency fm or of course, the corresponding angular frequency is 2 pi fm omega mm and given this, we now state under what conditions it is possible to reconstruct if we sample at a sampling rate of fs. So, now let us state the Nyquist theorem or the Shannon Nyquist, we take a theorem. The theorem of sampling, Shannon, I am just writing a short form here, Shannon, we take a Nyquist sampling theorem. We have a very simple theorem here. Let me read it out for you and let me show you how simple the theorem is and how simple it is to interpret it given what we have already done. A band limited signal, now remember a band limited signal meaning a signal whose upper frequency is limited. In fact, limited as we said to fm, band limited to fm can be perfectly reconstructed from its samples taken at a rate fs or 1 by Ts. So, here Ts is the sampling interval. So, that fs is greater than twice fm, so simple, all that you need is to ensure that the sampling rate is more than two times the maximum frequency component in the signal. As I said, we have already proved this in all our discussions in the past and the proof is what we are now going to write down and write down essentially taking a Q from what we have learnt in the past, is that right? So, let us write down the proof. Sampling is linear and therefore, each component, each frequency component I mean contributes its own consequence of sampling and the net consequence is the sum. So, let us assume a spectrum, band limited to fm as it were. Now, what we are saying is let us call the signal xt, let us Fourier transform the capital x of f. Now, here f is the cycles per second frequency, let us remember that and it is band limited to fm. The situation is like this, let me sketch it, it is easier to understand this if we sketch it. So, remember when you say band limited to fm, you must include both the positive and the negative frequencies. So, you have some spectrum here and just sketching some spectrum, let us not attribute any great importance to the shape as such. Now, what I am saying is take any tiny part of the spectrum, let us take this part for example, located around frequency f1 and of course, the corresponding negative frequencies minus f1. Now, based on all the discussion that we had and assuming that fs is greater than 2 fm, remember we are obeying the Nyquist principle, this is called the Nyquist principle. We do not have to keep saying Shannon would take a Nyquist, you know people are content calling it the Nyquist rate or Nyquist principle. If we obeyed the Nyquist principle, then if you focus your attention on just this part of the spectrum at f1 and minus f1, what will be the consequence of sampling? It is going to create its imposters at every multiple of fs. So, you would have an imposter at fs minus f1, of course fs minus f1, fs plus f1 and then the corresponding negative frequencies there. So, let me draw those imposters in red. Now, remember f1 is less than fm and therefore, fs minus f1 is going to be greater than fm. So, it is going to occur somewhere here. In fact, fs minus f1 would come somewhere here, let us say and fs plus f1 would similarly come somewhere here and the same thing about the other two. Now, you can keep taking all such f1s, f1 can run from 0 to fm and when you run fs, when you run f1 from 0 to fm, this imposter as we might call it, these are all imposters here. The imposters go from fs all the way to fs minus fm and of course, the net effect of sampling is the sum of all these imposters that are created. So, each little part of the spectrum creates its own imposters that these imposters are all added and remember, let us go back to the diagram here. This point is fs minus fm, remarking it here. Now, fs is greater than 2 fm and therefore, fs minus fm is greater than fm. That is what you see here. fs minus fm is greater than fm and you can in fact see that whatever is the spectrum here is recreated at every multiple of fs. So, therefore, the consequence of sampling on the spectrum is as follows or the spectrum of the sample signal. The spectrum of the sample signal would look like this. You have something going from minus fm to plus fm initially, copy the same thing around every multiple of fs and fortunately, since fs minus fm is greater than fm, let us see what happens. So, I am now going to draw the imposters. The red ones are the imposters or unwanted copies of the original spectrum and because fs is greater than 2 fm, none of the copies pollute the original spectrum. This is the original, none of them pollute the original. So, very simple. We can prove Nyquist's theorem or the principle by simply saying I can retain the original and chop off the copies. Very simple. Let us show that here in green. Reconstruction means retain this. I am showing what I am going to do in green. Retain this chop off all else. So, I need to have a system which retains frequencies just a little bit beyond fm. I am saying just a little bit beyond because we do not want to spoil what is at fm precisely and we have that margin because fs minus fm is beyond fm. So, you have a margin there. You know, you can see it. You have a margin here, this, this margin.  Now, what is this system? What exactly does it do? How does it work? It will be the subject of our next discussion.


Today, we're doing a really discombobulated piece on Hyde Street, that's number one. Graffiti, that's number two. Show me the inside of your house. We go inside three houses. All of them have someone named Jay, except for my house, which is just my house. And then, we ask people questions. Maybe we run into some surprising people. Maybe we learn some personal stories about people's lives. Who really knows what we're getting up to today? Not us. Hello. Check this out. Whoa. This is my little man cave. This is all you? This is all me. Wow. Yeah. I got signs like here. That's so cool. What do you got in there, man? Check it out. Put them on the mic. Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about your shop here? Your museum? Yeah. It's just, it's a man cave and I got all of these that I made and I actually put this all together. Wow. So, I'm pretty impressed with what I do. I've got a lot of collections and my Tweety Bird and Tasmanium Devil, signs and stuff. Where do you get most of your stuff? Goodwill. Thanks. Yeah. I did a lot and I used to work for them. I still do when the end, I mean, I had to stop because of old age. Well, other than that, I mean, I did all of this, so I was pretty amazed at myself. You know, I created it, so. And of course, you know, you'll have to listen to that. Right? Yeah. Do you have a favorite piece? Yeah, them two to start and then this one and that were my rules. What inspired you to put it together? My wife. What's your wife? Is your wife here? No, she's deceased. She passed last year in stage three lung cancer. I'm so sorry. So, but she inspired me. Yeah, in part of this too. Oh, yes. And I did it for her. She asked me to. We didn't want to smoke in the house anymore, so we ended up doing, I do this for her. And she was the loved one from my heart, so I gave her. And she loved it.  I had two parts of, up in the curtains up here, drapes, I should say. I had them down the road. Yeah, I put this all together. So, that's what love does to you. I know. Yeah, it's really. What was your wife like? Down to earth girl. Just down to earth girl and worked hard and got hardly anything for it. But it all paid off in the end because we both won. So that was really sweet. I came up here in 2010 to start a new life and it worked out good for me. Was she here? Yes. How'd you know? I used to know her back in the day when we were younger. Her and her husband were my best friends. So, we ended up knowing each other that way, practically related. But we weren't related. So, and when she was a young girl, like 18, I had a crush on her. She had a crush on me, but she couldn't do nothing because she was already married. Years later, I ended up coming up here, meeting up with her. It worked out for both of us. We were married for eight years. You found each other? Yep. She helped me, I helped her, and we had a beautiful life. That's all I took. Now I'm all by myself. I do all this stuff. Elberg area, and now I'm up here in Burlington. I will never go back there because there's nothing there. So up here, it's all nice. And you can at least make a dollar up here. We're down there, good. So, I'm pretty proud. Oh, I've loved me awful, so. And I gave her what she wanted in life and made everything work. Are you an invented diff? One of those cow rats. And I put the drawer in here. How do you get it on there? Pull it up.  Pretty cool, huh? Push it back down. But yeah, I did a lot in the house, too. I mean, I got a lot more in the house. How long have you lived here? I've lived here since 2010. Everything's been pretty much a couple of years ago. You notice that it's all for yellow because of the cigarette smoke. Yeah. I mean, I get the plastic on it. I claim it will mask my brothers. Is it your brothers? No. Right, so I mean, I just claim it will mask my brothers. Is this like a living piece? Like, do you keep adding to it or is it kind of set the way? Yeah, but I have to stop because I'm getting a little carried away. As you notice, I keep collecting things. I mean, I just keep going. Every nicking cranny wherever I can put something and you'll notice that in the house if you go in. I did that, too, in the house. Now, I'm in the process now of fixing, painting up the bedroom because we wouldn't smoke in the house. We didn't get to finish it. So now I'm in the process of finishing it because now I can stay at home, collect unemployment and then go back to work in the spring. That'll make it nice. I work for Burlington Parks and Rec. Very nice people to work with. I pick up trash and recycle into 22 parks in Burlington. Yeah, I pick up all the trash and recycle and anything else that's in the park that don't belong. How do you feel about graffiti? Do you see it as art? Some of it, some of it, yeah, it's beautiful. I mean, as long as they don't get the other way with it, I love it. I think it's really nice, especially on the store down the road, you know, how he did it, it's really nice, I like it all. That's a different department that takes care of that. I don't clean up things for graffiti, but the other person does. But I've been there with them now for like eight years. So yeah, I'm pretty much family. I love it. Can't wait to go back in the spring, keep me going active. Are you like outside most of the time? Yes, all the time.  What's your favorite part of the job? Slacking off, no. Getting the job done for them and they're happy. My boss don't have to worry. You don't have to worry about me not being there. I'm there and they like that. I don't think I've missed three days in eight years. And I worked six months out of the year. Just about six months. I got one more. I did get picked with a needle out of trash. Yeah, well, yeah. But I tied the bag up and I pulled it out and when I did, it went down my leg, so it scraped me. So I had to go get shops and stuff. Monday I go for the last one. And apparently I ain't got nothing so I'm all good there. Pretty nice, I mean. Women. I'm sorry. I have to say it like it is. No, actually I like the atmosphere and the people. This street has been horrible at times but it's been good too. So if I had any place to live, I'd live right here. Because it's so nice. And we just had a guy move in right here on the side of me. And he's already going to fit. Oh, yeah. Have fun. Be happy. That's all I can say. Do you know a lot of your neighbors? Absolutely. I know more so. I live four houses down the way. Which way? That way. The one with the balcony. Okay. Yeah? Cool. I have to come down sometime. I have a few toddies. Me and cigarettes don't get along. I gave them up after 50 years. I've had three, four heart attacks. But they were mild and I took care of them at home.  My wife died of stage 3 lung cancer.  It's scary. I thought it is. Yeah, so. Well, I tried to inspire her to quit. But no, she wouldn't quit. So I gave her her desires. And it was terrible. I'm glad I got a wake up call. Really. That's the bottom line. So I plan on going back to Burt some more. I gotta stay at home putting on weight again. And oh, I don't like it. But that comes with the age. These are the best things to have. What is that? Macultra and tomato. It's almost like a tomato juice. Yeah. But it's not. Yeah. And it's really, yes. And it's really good. Over on your side. There's a pin. There should be a wheel over there. Yeah. And I did this too. You play chess. You need to play chess or checkers. Nice. You got a little cover for it. And I fixed that. Yeah. And that's only the blue tape. It'll never move. Right. And I just squished it under when I ate you today. Yeah. I'm pretty creative. You are. I've always been creative. I've always been creative.  Because I've always been a hard worker. It's potentials. Yeah. Yeah. J&S. J& Sally. I put that up here like that. So I can even put it down. I've alcohol in here. So I'm gonna have to read you the curriculum. All the privacy you need. Just like another room. The thing is it's not insulated. It's not insulated. Yeah. Yeah. What about it? Oh. Does it look like this? No. I'll give it back to you. I'm an Indian giver by the way. I want it back.  Pretty cool. Hey, you guys get to stop in more often. I'm more busy all the time. There you go. And I'm Jay. Matt. Matt. Okay. You're what? Brooke. Nice to meet you, Brooke. J-A-Y. Sweet. We should probably head. Thanks for chatting with us. No problem. Thanks for stopping. I don't feel so bad now. What are your thoughts on graffiti? I don't really have thoughts on graffiti. If someone spray painted your face, would you have thoughts on graffiti? I would not love my face being spray painted. But that's more because it's my face. Now what if it was like your house? Well I don't own my house. So I live in an apartment. I don't think I'd care. If I owned the house, I might care more. If your enemy started spraying progressive messages all over your apartment and you didn't like graffiti and had to start scrubbing it off, how would your neighbors feel? How would my neighbors feel? I have no idea. Because they would see you. Scrubbing off. I wouldn't really care if they saw me scrubbing off the messages. I feel like if I want my house to be clean then why not? It doesn't necessarily matter with the messages. You heard it here folks. What are your thoughts on graffiti? It's really not the hill for me to be completely honest. Of all the issues that Burlington has, I don't think it matters. We have a lot of lovely street art and it's just a bit of a bummer to get over with just a tag, but beyond that, yeah.  Oh, I say this a lot. What was it? Gorillas aren't real. That's my most recent one. It's just a guy in a suit. Those aren't real animals. Have you witnessed the magnum opus Spongebob? No, I didn't watch Spongebob as a kid. I was a door girl. Me neither. There were gorillas in suits in that television piece? The gorillas were in suits? No, no. People or gorillas would wear fish suits so that they could pretend to be the fish. No, but that's excellent. Do you think that perhaps maybe we are actually gorillas? No, because we're pretending to be the gorillas. It's the gorillas that aren't real. I don't know if we're real or not, but that's a different conversation. Well, thank you so much. Hi. I think I have some of J's too. This is where I practice designing tags and stuff. Yeah. You might see this guy places. He's around. Yeah. J, you got one, right? Yeah. These are both J's. Rust? Yeah. Only orange paint, right? Only orange paint on the middle. Inside our house, we have the crayons that kids use for bathtubs. We have that on the walls of our shower. If you don't want to see that, we like to tag it. No. It is in the bathroom. Our shower is in the bathroom. Yeah, I'd be down. Also, I realize that this is not an omnidirectional mic, and I'm talking into it wrong. Oh, this is recording. Yeah. Welcome to my crib. Who is? This way to the bathroom. They've kind of faded, but we do like using our... This is less so tagging, but just... Yeah. This is my girlfriend's faded tag. She was here in June when we first moved in. So cool. Oh, yeah, we do have... Yeah. There's someone who works at the Flynn that might be good to interview. We're just trying to get to my house right now. Oh, that's fair. There's this old man who works at the Flynn who... he likes to collect stickers that he finds in the real world. What? I get a peace sign. Welcome to my crib. It smells like pesto. Yeah, I didn't decorate any of this. My friend made this, and we put it up. And they made this. And we got this from Red and Puppets. And I don't know where they got that. This is from BTU. That's a tenant. Rent tenants unite. Let's go look in the... My friend who we were going to interview was gone. That's my stuff. Let's look in my kitchen. We just need to serve him a shark and mites. This is out, but it's not... I don't know if we'll be able to make... Y'all want to help me make mac and cheese real quick. This is lighter. My friend gave me red and puppet stuff. Ooh, let's look at Sophie's screen prints. American Spirit.  What is your art? Um... I guess it'd be more specific. Ready for art? I suppose anything I want. I do all sorts of stuff. Uh, right now this is... my um... my take on a yard sale. I suppose I'd call that an art project, sorts. Um... Yeah, any... Any other questions? What are your thoughts on graffiti? Um... I don't really think about it too much. It's getting pretty Halloweeny. Do you believe in ghosts? Um, I'd like to. I would like to believe in ghosts. I think that um... there's some... some ghostly things out there. The classic... definition of a ghost. You know, maybe there's some sort of... things, other worldly things that we can't see. Potentially. What are your thoughts on the Burlington Mayoral run? Um... I mean, who's running for mayor? We don't know. Yeah, I heard that. I heard that. He wants to... he wants to be in like the state senate or something instead.  I think um... What is Johnny Wanzer running for mayor? So I feel like he could be a solid contender if he did manage to figure out a way to run for mayor. I feel like that could be. These are some big hot takes. Do you think gorillas are real? I do. I do believe in gorillas. Yeah. I suppose like is our gorillas bigfoot? Do you think kids watching SpongeBob at a young age had negative effects on them? Um... Maybe if they uh... if they start doing the voices and then can't stop I met someone once who did the SpongeBob laugh probably too much. I think that affected them socially. So I feel like that could be considered a negative effect. But there's also a lot of people who would probably really enjoy that so they just need to find those people. You can turn any negative thing into a positive thing. Can you do a SpongeBob laugh? Um... No. No, I feel like that would be too scary. It's good to reach out to neighbors and go inside their homes. Hyde Street has a lot to offer here in Burlington. And we encourage everyone to take a stroll down Hyde when you've got some free time. Stop in at Jay's Man Cave. The door is always open. Go on over to our friend Mack's house. What do you have to say about your house, Mack? The staircase goes up to my house. I got a lot of problems with my landlord. But not that many. I like my house. I don't like it that much, though. And Mack might just feed you some mac and cheese.