Peter Fisher

Adjunct Professor, Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University

Peter Fisher is an Adjunct Professor in in the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at RMIT University. He has spearheaded a large number of projects at all levels of government as well as private industry including stormwater, creating cooler cities through the use of vegetation and a systemic integration of the water and electricity sectors. He has further been involved in education and training writing tertiary level courses on water management as well as climate change adaptation and water management; some for AusAid. He has also contributed a chapter on Melbourne to a new book, Resilient coastal city regions: Planning for climate change in the United States and Australia as well as to another new book, Managing Urban Disaster Recovery on infrastructure. He has just published with D Trainham, a PhD candidate, Naturizing outside-in: Reconnecting buildings with the natural world through a design innovation metric https://www.cuge.com.sg/research/images/cugeresearch/CG6/Article%2014..pdf in the January 2013 issue of the Singapore based journal, CITYGREEN https://www.cuge.com.sg/research/CITYGREEN. This has recently been incorporated into the Green Building Council of Australia's Innovation Challenge program. A Green Star naturizing index can now be found at http://www.gbca.org.au/uploads/78/34894/Market_Intelligence_Research_FINAL_JUNE2014.pdf.

As an environment and science writer Dr. Fisher has published thirty eight articles since his first for the Australian Financial Review in 1999. Those of relevance to the carbon/climate change arena are: Water industry guilty of burning too much energy, Water Special (AFR, Tuesday 14 August 2003), Susceptible to calamity: Extremes of climate are a fact of life and we should be better prepared for them, The Australian, (Tuesday 21 March, 2006); Cold comfort in climate change, Sydney Morning Herald, (Saturday 6 January 2007); Canberra Times, Climate: Time is against us (Monday 8 January 2007.); and Why we need the urban forest, Urban magazine, (July quarter, 2007). His most recent pieces to with adaptation have appeared as OpEds in The Age - Ready for heavy weather, Monday 23 April 2008; Planning for a flood, Monday 29 September 2008; Big solutions for our water needs will use even more energy, Monday 9 March, 2009; It's time literally to go green, Monday 23 January, 2009; followed by A lack of ingenuity is evident in dealing with our water crisis, Tuesday 28 July 2009. And, a week before the latter, All change for the future, The Australian, Wednesday 22 July 2009. Further pieces appearing in The Age and National Times since then have been Rack ’em and stack ‘em: a silly solution to population growth, Thursday 18 March 2010. When everything's connected, one fault can be catastrophic. Monday, June 21, 2010 and Building for a cantankerous planet, Monday October 11, 2010, and Energy hungry water providers need to get with the power, Monday 3 January 2011.