Australia in the 1980s saw an industrial boom around our natural resources, the reforming of many environmental protection acts, discussions on nuclear energy, and an abundance of climate activism. Many of these concerns seem to be back on the agenda 40 years later.
Tim Flannery is one of Australia’s best-known scientists and biggest-selling authors and one of our most prominent climate change activists. Interviewed by science reporter Angus Dalton, this in-conversation with Tim will explore how Australia’s conversations around the environment have changed (or not), and what new problems and solutions we face.
Tim Flannery
Named Australian of the Year in 2007, Tim has packed a great deal into his incredible years. A mammalogist and palaeontologist, his pioneering work in both fields gave him a towering reputation in the scientific community. In his early research on Australian mammals, he described 29 new kangaroo species, while during the 1980s his study of dinosaur fossils extended Australia’s mammal fossil record back 80 million years.
Tim has been described by world-leading naturalist Sir David Attenborough as “in the league of the all-time great explorers like Dr David Livingstone”. His discoveries across dinosaur and mammal fossils, defining work on climate change, and ability to communicate to everyone, and anyone, is remarkable.
As an environmental activist Tim has been particularly active on the questions of carbon emissions and population levels. A prolific author, he is best-known for The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australian Lands and People (1994) and The Weather Makers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change (2006).
Angus Dalton
Angus Dalton is a science reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald who has ventured deep into sewers, flooded swamps and broiling climate chambers in search of good stories. He was the co-founding editor of Sweaty City, a magazine about urban ecology and climate change, and his work has also appeared in Australian Geographic, Overland and four editions of The Best Australian Science Writing.
National Science Week 2024
Established in 1997, National Science Week is Australia’s annual celebration of science and technology. Running each year in August, it features more than 1000 events around Australia, including those delivered by universities, schools, research institutions, libraries, museums and science centres.
This year’s program celebrates Australia’s love of our wildlife, a growing value for Traditional Knowledge, and our fascination with our technological future.
Find out more about National Science Week.
Wilder Times
Wilder Times sees the return of a series of Shoalhaven landscape paintings by Arthur Boyd to Bundanon for the first time since their creation in 1984 as a commission for the new Arts Centre Melbourne.
The exhibition also brings together over 60 works by seminal Australian artists from the same time Boyd created this momentous body of work. The exhibition provides a window into a period of cultural dynamism in Australia, when ideas of landscape, land ownership and environmental protection were actively interrogated.
