Event Description

Join us for the Australian premiere of Global Thermostat at the Transitions Film Festival! This special screening on Tuesday 25 February will be followed by a panel discussion involving climate change experts.

What if we could engineer the Earth's climate to stop global warming?

With global temperatures set to rise to dangerous levels in the near future, Global Thermostat explores cutting-edge, grand-scale proposals to combat global warming through radical interference with the Earth’s climate.

What was once confined to the realm of science-fiction is now the subject of serious scientific research: from artificial forests to stratospheric mirrors that reflect sunlight.

Leading scientists hope these technologies can be used to not only slow climate change down, but to reverse it.

Global Thermostat explores the best man-made interventions, their potential impacts, and their inherent risks for all inhabitants of the Earth, now and in the future.

Attached below are the details of the expert panel speakers who will be involved in the discussions.

Graham Hunter - Graham is the National coordinator of the Climate Change program of the United Nations Association of Australia. He led the UNAA delegations to the United Nations climate conferences in Copenhagen in 2009 and in Paris in 2015 as well as to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in 2012. He has worked as an environmental consultant and university lecturer and in senior positions relating to the management of the environment and natural resources in the Victorian
Government and in the UK, France and the United States.

Deborah Hart - Deborah is an arts-focussed activist and writer from Melbourne. After 16 years working in development roles with leading Australian arts and culture organisations—as increasingly neoliberal government policies were forcing important public organisations to form ever-closer alliances with ecocidal and antisocial industries that it is heir role to critique—Deborah left her profession in order to devote more time to climate activism and her then young children.

Deborah founded LIVE (Locals Into Victoria’s Environment, 2006) and later co-founded CLIMARTE (2010) and ClimActs (2013) to harness the creative arts and combine spectacle, humour and direct action to draw attention to the climate emergency, and the corruption causing it. Deborah is the author of Guarding Eden: Champions of Climate Action (Allen & Unwin, 2015) which tells inspiring personal stories showing how and why highly destructive, polluting industries that built immense wealth and influence last century are now using that power recklessly to protect their profits, and the inspiring actions ordinary citizens are taking to safeguard nature and humanity’s future.

Peter Christoff - Peter teaches climate change politics and policy at the University of Melbourne. His books include 'Four Degrees of Global Warming - Australia in a Hot World' and 'Globalization and the Environment' (with Robyn Eckersley). Before entering academia, Peter worked in government as Victoria’s
Assistant Commissioner for the Environment and helped establish Victoria’s state of environment reporting program. He also served on the Victorian Premier’s Climate Change Advisory Group, and the Advisory Council on Climate Adaptation. Peter has a long history of activism on environment protection and disarmament. He is currently Chair of CLIMARTE, a small NGO focusing on the links between the visual arts and climate change awareness. He has been on the Boards of the Australian Conservation Foundation (including as its Vice-President between 2004-2012), Environment Victoria, and Greenpeace Australia-Pacific.

Nadia Han - Nadia is the Secretary of the UNAA Victorian Young Professionals Network. Nadia is currently balancing her work as a Policy advisor in the Department of Premier and Cabinet,Victoria with post graduate studies in policy at the University of Melbourne. Nadia has experience working as a property lawyer and also in project management at a not for profit organisation focused on achieving educational equity in Australia.

Nadia is passionate about empowering vulnerable members of our society and was a recipient of the 2019 Victorian Government Women’s Board Leadership scholarship. As a Chinese Australian, Nadia is a strong advocate of the benefits that diversity brings and often suggests bonding activities with friends and colleagues that involve yum cha and bubble tea.

When: Tuesday 25 February, 6pm-8pm

Where: Cinema Nova, Carlton

Cost: UNAA members $17; General Admission $20

We look forward to seeing you there! Att

Please note, tickets are limited due to seating requirements.