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Beyond Apathy: Acting on Climate Change

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How did climate change action – once ‘the greatest moral, economic and social challenge of our time’ — become political poison? When (and why) did we fall from the giddy heights of the Kyoto Protocol signing, and the rise of emissions reduction schemes around the globe, back to suspicion and resignation?

The environment — and more specifically, climate change — has rapidly plummeted in terms of public priority and political urgency in Australia. And with a new government set to abolish the carbon tax and disband the Australian Climate Commission, what lies ahead?

Fifth Estate host Sally Warhaft is joined by Nobel laureate Professor Peter Doherty, Greenpeace Australia CEO David Ritter and award-winning writer Chloe Hooper to discuss environmental issues, activism and writing — and how best to communicate its importance in a changing climate.

Featuring

David Ritter

David Ritter is the Chief Executive Officer of Greenpeace Australia Pacific. David returned to Australia to take up this role in August 2012 after five years working in a senior campaigns position with Greenpeace in London. There, he worked on the global issues of destructive fishing, deforestation ... Read more

Chloe Hooper

Chloe Hooper’s The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island (2008) won the Victorian, New South Wales, West Australian and Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards, as well as the John Button Prize for Political Writing, and a Ned Kelly Award for crime writing. Her latest book is The Arsonist: A Mi... Read more

Sally Warhaft

Sally Warhaft is a Melbourne broadcaster, anthropologist and writer. She is the host of The Fifth Estate, the Wheeler Centre’s live series focusing on journalism, politics, media, and international relations, and The Leap Year, a Wheeler Centre podcast about Australians’ lives in the fog of ... Read more

Peter Doherty

A graduate of the University of Queensland School of Veterinary Science, Peter Doherty shared the 1996 Nobel Medicine Prize for his immunology research and was the 1997 Australian of the Year. Since then, he has gone in to bat for evidence-based reality, relating to areas as diverse as childhood va... Read more

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The Wheeler Centre

176 Little Lonsdale Street Melbourne Victoria 3000

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