Meet South Coast festival author Tim Flannery
SCWC's Elizabeth Heffernan introduces a guest at July's Readers and Writers Festival in Thirroul
The South Coast Readers & Writers Festival returns to Thirroul over three jam-packed days, 24-26 July. We asked some of the festival’s local authors to share their reading and writing journeys.
Professor Tim Flannery is a paleontologist, an explorer, a conservationist and a leading writer on climate change. His books include the award-winning international bestseller The Weather Makers, Here on Earth, Atmosphere of Hope and Europe: The First 100 Million Years, as well as his collaborations with his daughter, Emma Flannery, Big Meg and A Brief History of Climate Folly.
Tim will appear in the Sunday festival session Climate & Cartography on Sunday, July 26.
What inspired you to write A Brief History of Climate Folly?
I'm constantly amazed at the willingness of humans to tamper with Earth's life support systems, and in our age of trillionaire oligarchs, I fear that more insane and dangerous schemes may be proposed in future. Our best antidote is to assess the crazy schemes of the past. After all, in my lifetime governments were seriously considering using nuclear weapons to destroy the Arctic ice cap, in an effort to improve the climate!
What are you reading right now?
Rupert Everett’s To the End of the World.
What is your writing routine?
An hour or two (at most) when I’m inspired. Usually in the morning.
What is one book that changed your life?
Matt Ridley’s The Red Queen.
Is there a writing project on your bucket list – something you would like to write one day?
Yes, an ecological history of Antarctica.
Climate & Cartography, 26 July, 3:30–4:30pm
Tim Flannery’s A Brief History of Climate Folly looks at the history of the ways humans have been trying – or claiming – to influence the weather for millennia and asks if we can do better. Sarah Hamylton’s Plotting the Oceans shares the history and power of ocean maps and the impact they have on our understanding of our world. In an electrifying panel Tim and Sarah discuss human intervention and influence on the world around us, with Claire O’Rourke. Tickets via Humanitix, full program here.
You can also catch Professor Tim Flannery at Creative Dialogues at Wollongong Town Hall this Saturday, 20 June. He's on a 5pm panel called 'Threading the Future: Ecology, the Arts & Science' with April Phillips, Angharad Wynne-Jones, Bianca Hester and Stephanie Beaupark.
