Climate change is a planetary emergency. We have to do something now – but what?

Australian visionary Saul Griffith has a plan. In The Big Switch, Griffith lays out a detailed blueprint – optimistic but feasible – for fighting climate change while creating millions of new jobs and a healthier environment.

Griffith explains exactly what it would take to transform our infrastructure, update our grid and adapt our households. The same natural advantages – incredible resources on an enormous continent – that helped Australia prosper in the 20th century are the ingredients for becoming the most prosperous, entirely renewable, economy in the world.

Dr Saul Griffith has founded and co-founded numerous technology companies including one acquired by Google and another acquired by Autodesk. He’s been a project lead on federally-funded research projects for agencies including NASA, DARPA, ARPA-e, National Science Foundation and United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM).

This event is part of the 2022 Critical Thinking and Ethics program at Newington College. 

How do parents who are blind take their children to the park? How do Deaf parents know when their baby cries at night? More than 15% of Australian households have a parent with a disability. Our panel share stories about the highs and lows of parenting with a disability.

We are delighted to have Sam Vincent talking about his hilarious memoir of sorts: My Father and Other Animals.

This is a moving story about a millennial leaving his inner-city life to take over the family farm. By turns affecting, hilarious and utterly surprising, this memoir melds humour and fierce honesty in an unsentimental love letter. It’s about belonging, humility and regeneration – of land, family and culture. What passes from father to son on this unruly patch of earth is more than a livelihood; it is a legacy.

This event is free to attend but bookings are essential.

Don Watson In Conversation With Gabrielle Chan.

No other writer has journeyed further into the soul of Australia and returned to tell the tale. Join Don Watson — historian, speechwriter, social critic, humourist, biographer, and lover of nature and sports — in a sweeping conversation.

Moderator: Lucy Neave • Kaya Wilson, Natasha Sholl, Sam Vincent and Lech Blaine.

What are the personal and professional pressures to ‘make it’? From ambition to burnout, from societal and parental pressure to leaving the inner-city life to take over the family farm, our panel gets real about what they strive for and at what cost.

In this stunning memoir, full of black humour and razor-sharp observations, visual artist Judy Cotton captures the intricacies of family relationships and the push–pull of home.

Her mother, Eve, was a brilliant but exacting woman, a gifted pianist whose perfectionism cut her career short. After marrying, she established a successful stud farm for sheep in the Blue Mountains while supporting her husband’s political career. Judy’s charismatic father, Bob, was a federal minister and ambassador to the United States, with traditional ideas about who Judy should become.

Sent to boarding school from the age of four, Judy yearned for her parents but found them increasingly controlling. Her desire for freedom eventually took her overseas, to Korea and Japan in the late 1960s, and later to New York, where she finally discovered belonging in the art scene. But the undertow of home was impossible to escape.

In dazzling prose and with an artist’s eye for landscape, Swimming Home is a powerful meditation on loss and longing, freedom and connection.

Moderator: Beejay Silcox • Lech Blaine, Carly-Jay Metcalfe, Ben Bravery and Natasha Sholl.

Is trauma overexposed and overrated? Four writers who’ve lived to tell their tales discuss the art of surviving, where the real work begins — and if it ever ends.

Participating Chair: Linda Jaivin • Emma Batchelor, Diana Reid and Jo Dyer.

Sometimes significant incidents in life can only be fully appreciated after they’ve passed. Four passionate women unpack pivotal moments and the vagaries of power and prestige.

Moderator: Sunil Badami • Yumna Kassab, Lisa Millar, Rick Morton and Veronica Gorrie.

Our award-winning authors share their remarkable stories of growing up in suburbia and in the country, confronting the worst and best that humanity can bring and dreaming of a bigger life.

Proudly hosted by the John Curtin Research Centre

We are thrilled to have Bill Kelty launching Mulino’s Safety Net: The Future of Welfare in Australia.

Here, economist and Labor MP Daniel Mulino explains how the Australian welfare state was created – and what we need to do to protect and extend it. The welfare state is one of the crowning achievements of the twentieth century, giving citizens access to healthcare, pensions, disability and unemployment benefits. In this deeply researched and lucid account, Mulino looks to the challenges facing today’s welfare state and reflects on what steps must be taken to protect and extend it.

This event is free to attend but bookings are essential.

Join history and science writer David Baker as he discusses his new book, The Shortest History of the World, which follows the continuum of historical change in the cosmos – from the Big Bang, through the evolution of life, to human history. Combining knowledge from chemistry, biology and physics with insights from the social sciences and humanities, The Shortest History of the World takes a bird’s eye view of 13.8 billion years.

David Baker is a Macquarie University academic and the world’s first PhD in Big History, a new approach to the history of the world that combines understandings from chemistry, physics and biology, archaeology and anthropology. He is also the writer of the YouTube series Crashcourse Big History, co-hosted by bestselling YA author John Green in partnership with the Big History Project.

Rapid decarbonisation, sustainable farming and low-impact lifestyles. Are these just pipedreams or a near future reality? Saul Griffith, author of The Big Switch, and Claire O’Rourke, author of Together We Can, discuss the green future we must pursue and how it can be achieved. Moderated by Ben Roche, Vice President (Engagement) of Southern Cross University.

Event Partner: Southern Cross University

Economist and Labor MP Daniel Mulino explains how the Australian welfare state was created – and what we need to do to protect and extend it

The welfare state is one of the crowning achievements of the twentieth century, giving citizens access to healthcare, pensions, disability and unemployment benefits. This unprecedented expansion of the state was a product of the postwar period of the late 1940s, when governments ramped up investment in this grand safety net. By the 1970s, half of all government spending went towards social-welfare programs, but today the welfare state stands at a crossroads, beset both by political opposition and funding pressures as the population ages.
 
Australian Labor Party MP Daniel Mulino provides a sweeping account of the history of welfare in Australia and abroad, from Bismarckian Germany to present-day Canberra. In this deeply researched and lucid account, Mulino looks to the challenges facing today’s welfare state and reflects on what steps must be taken to protect and extend it.

Ashley Hay is in-conversation with Joëlle Gergis discussing Humanity’s Moment: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope.

Acknowledging that the world as we know it is coming apart is an act of courage.

If I live to look back at this troubled time, I want to say that I did all that I could, that I was on the right side of history.

The question is, do you want to be part of the legacy that restores our faith in humanity?

When climate scientist Joëlle Gergis set to work on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report, the research she encountered kept her up at night. Through countless hours spent with the world’s top scientists to piece together the latest global assessment of climate change, she realised that the impacts were occurring faster than anyone had predicted.

In Humanity’s Moment, Joëlle takes us through the science in the IPCC report with clear-eyed honesty, explaining what it means for our future, while sharing her personal reflections on bearing witness to the heartbreak of the climate emergency unfolding in real time. But this is not a lament for a lost world. It is an inspiring reminder that human history is an endless tug-of-war for social justice. We are each a part of an eternal evolutionary force that can transform our world.

Acknowledging that the world as we know it is coming apart is an act of courage.

If I live to look back at this troubled time, I want to say that I did all that I could, that I was on the right side of history.

The question is, do you want to be part of the legacy that restores our faith in humanity?

Joëlle Gergis is an award-winning climate scientist and lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) sixth assessment report. She has seen the evidence of where our humanity is headed. She is acutely aware of how little time we have. And yet, she still has hope.

Join her on Thursday 1 September, where she puts her case forward to the Walkley winning investigative journalist Jess Hill, who won the 2020 Stella Prize for her investigation into domestic abuse, See What You Made Me Do.

A personal call to action from an Australian IPCC author.

If I live to look back at this troubled time, I want to say that I did all that I could, that I was on the right side of history.

When climate scientist Joëlle Gergis set to work on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report, the research she encountered kept her up at night. Through countless hours spent with the world’s top scientists to piece together the latest global assessment of climate change, she realised that the impacts were occurring faster than anyone had predicted.

In Humanity’s Moment, Joëlle takes us through the science in the IPCC report with clear-eyed honesty, explaining what it means for our future, while sharing her personal reflections on bearing witness to the heartbreak of the climate emergency unfolding in real time. But this is not a lament for a lost world. It is an inspiring reminder that human history is an endless tug-of-war for social justice. We are each a part of an eternal evolutionary force that can transform our world.

A personal call to action from an Australian IPCC author

Acknowledging that the world as we know it is coming apart is an act of courage.

If I live to look back at this troubled time, I want to say that I did all that I could, that I was on the right side of history. The question is, do you want to be part of the legacy that restores our faith

in humanity?

When climate scientist Joëlle Gergis set to work on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report, the research she encountered kept her up at night. Through countless hours spent with the world’s top scientists to piece together the latest global assessment of climate change, she realised that the impacts were occurring faster than anyone had predicted.
 
In Humanity’s Moment, Joëlle takes us through the science in the IPCC report with unflinching honesty, explaining what it means for our future, while sharing her personal reflections on bearing witness to the heartbreak of the climate emergency unfolding in real time. But this is not a lament for a lost world. It is an inspiring reminder that human history is an endless tug-of-war for social justice. We are each a part of an eternal evolutionary force that can transform our world.

Joëlle shows us that the solutions we need to live sustainably already exist – we just need the social movement and political will to create a better world. This book is a climate scientist’s guide to rekindling hope, and a call to action to restore our relationship with ourselves, each other and our planet.

In Humanity’s Moment, Joëlle takes us through the science in the IPCC report with unflinching honesty, explaining what it means for our future, while sharing her personal reflections on bearing witness to the heartbreak of the climate emergency unfolding in real time. But this is not a lament for a lost world. It is an inspiring reminder that human history is an endless tug-of-war for social justice. We are each a part of an eternal evolutionary force that can transform our world.

Joëlle shows us that the solutions we need to live sustainably already exist - we just need the social movement and political will to create a better world. This book is a climate scientist’s guide to rekindling hope, and a call to action to restore our relationship with ourselves, each other and our planet.

Presented by CLIMARTE at the world's first known Climate Emergency focussed Gallery and timed to coincide with the Melbourne Writer's Festival, this event is an opportunity to meet Joëlle and to join a conversation led by the City of Yarra Mayor, Cr Sophie Wade.

Copies of Humanity's Moment signed by Joëlle will be available for sale at the event.

Joëlle shows us that the solutions we need to live sustainably already exist - we just need the social movement and political will to create a better world.

Dr Joëlle Gergis is an award-winning climate scientist and writer at the Australian National University. She is an internationally recognised expert in Australian and Southern Hemisphere climate variability and change.

Joëlle will be appearing in conversation with Dr Sian Prior, writer, broadcaster, musician and teacher and author of memoir, Childless: a Story of Freedom and Longing.

When climate scientist Joëlle Gergis set to work on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report, the research she encountered kept her up at night.

Through countless hours spent with the world’s top scientists to piece together the latest global assessment of climate change, she realised that the impacts were occurring faster than anyone had predicted.

In her latest book, Humanity’s Moment, Joëlle takes us through the science in the IPCC report with clear-eyed honesty, explaining what it means for our future, while sharing her personal reflections on bearing witness to the heartbreak of the climate emergency unfolding in real time.

But this is not a lament for a lost world. It is an inspiring reminder that human history is an endless tug-of-war for social justice. We are each a part of an eternal evolutionary force that can transform our world.

Joelle will sit down to chat about her new book and have an in-depth discussion about the latest IPCC report findings and what this means for the future. This is your chance to ask your most pressing climate question from one of the world's leading climate scientist.