Actress Meets Scientist Here on Earth To Dispel Ignorance

Actress Cate Blanchett has launched the latest book by scientist and climate change activist Tim Flannery – “Here on Earth” – in Sydney. Tim told ABC’s David Mark of the need to dispel ignorance on issues, like climate change. He gave the example of the success of the European emission trading scheme which we never hear about in Australia. “Not a single industry could demonstrate any impact on the bottom line on their profitability from the EU ETS. It reduced emissions by 2 to 3% per year”.

Sydney Morning Herald (23 September 2010):

Actress Cate Blanchett has launched a book by scientist and climate change activist Tim Flannery in Sydney.

Here On Earth charts the history of life on our planet and argues that the human race will be moved to act to save itself from a climatic catastrophe.

Blanchett launched the book, which promises to change the way people live, at an event in Walsh Bay in Sydney today.

Flannery said his book was an argument for hope in the face of the challenges the earth faces.

The 2007 Australian of the Year has written more than a dozen books, including award winning bestsellers, The Future Eaters and The Weather Makers.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au

David Mark reported this story on The World Today for ABC on 24 September 2010):

SHANE MCLEOD: One of the more prominent Australian voices warning of the dangers posed by climate change says there’s a reason to hope.

The former Australian of the Year professor Tim Flannery says there are signs that the world is taking steps to deal with environmental challenges and provided they do that the looming problems caused by a warming world can be dealt with.

Professor Flannery has written his first book since The Weather Makers warned of the dangers posed by global climate change.

He spoke to David Mark.

TIM FLANNERY: Essentially it’s taking a longer view of the problem – taking a view that is appropriate to the sort of timescale of this issue. 

And I am not denying that climate change isn’t a really, it’s a hugely enormous issue for humanity and we have to come to terms with that. 

But provided we can do that I think that we actually do have a pretty bright future on the planet. It’s not going to be one of just ongoing crises.

DAVID MARK: You just used the word “provided”. It seems to me that that’s a big opt out if you like because we have known about this problem of climate change possibly for 40 or 50 years and yet consumerism has gone on, the use of resources has gone on exponentially if you like. 

So what actually gives you that hope that somehow against all the evidence of the past that this can stop, we can slow down and change?

TIM FLANNERY: Look the big shift that’s happened over the last couple of years concerns the developing countries, places like China and India. 

And you see there the enormous breadth of the programs that are now happening in China – the three-quarters of a trillion dollars being invested in clean tech, the cost curves are now coming down for all the renewable energy technologies, the fact that China is introducing an emissions trading scheme.

I mean all of those things are changing our chances.

So you know if the Europeans put their ambition up to 30 per cent emissions reductions rather than 20 and the US and Australia ramp up their ambitions as well we’ll get there. We’ll come in under the 450 parts per million.

DAVID MARK: And yet we keep hearing that countries have to act sort of now within the next five or 10 years. We have to immediately get those emissions downs. There’s no signs that those emissions are coming down. The trajectory seems to keep going up. 

So do you really believe that those sort of very immediate deadlines can be met?

TIM FLANNERY: Yeah sure. I mean what we know is that we have to, the developed countries have to bend their emissions trajectory curve to start reducing. You know so the emissions have to peak within probably the next five years and that’s entirely achievable with an ETS in Australia’s case and an emissions trading scheme in the US.

We have already seen it happen in Europe. It’s got to happen in the other countries. 

And then China and India hopefully sometime in the decade beginning 2020 will bend their emissions trajectory down and we will come in if we achieve that under the 450 parts per million.

DAVID MARK: If you look at the debate that was had in Australia recently about the ETS it came down to a fairly simplistic economic argument that seemed to be one in favour of those who say well let’s not do anything about climate change or let’s not do as much as perhaps someone like yourself would argue is necessary. 

How do you win the hearts and minds?

TIM FLANNERY: By dispelling ignorance on these issues. That’s the most important thing. You can look at the analysis by the US German Marshall Fund of the European emissions trading scheme and see what it does. 

You know what we learned from that analysis is that nothing changes except the emissions, right? There was not a single industry that was surveyed in that analysis who could demonstrate any impact on the bottom line on their profitability from the EU ETS. And yet it had reduced emissions that scheme by 2 to 3 per cent per year over the last few years.

DAVID MARK: And yet doesn’t the recent debate in Australia show that people’s minds can be changed by fairly simplistic arguments?

TIM FLANNERY: People can be misled very easily on this you know. And that’s why we need some facts.

DAVID MARK: We’ve been talking about climate change but perhaps at the very heart of this conversation is really the issue about how we all choose to live, whether we can actually live more sustainably. 

Do you believe that this society, this particular Western society can fundamentally change the way it lives so that it can live more sustainably?

TIM FLANNERY: Yeah I really do. And that is the heart of the book – whether sustainability is possible in a species like ourselves.

SHANE MCLEOD: Professor Tim Flannery, professor of environmental sustainability at Macquarie University. He was speaking to David Mark.

Source: http://www.abc.net.au