Living Hot - Surviving and thriving on a heating planet

Date: Wednesday, 5 June

Venue: The Theatrette, Parliament House, Canberra

Book signing and light lunch: 12:15 pm - 12.50 pm

Event: 1 pm - 2 pm

This event is free to attend and will be live-streamed. When registering for the event, you can choose the live-stream ticket to access this option.

Book Launch and Project Announcement

In their new book, Living Hot, Clive Hamilton (Charles Sturt Professor of Public Ethics) and energy expert George Wilkenfeld write that there has always been a lack of realism about our climate change predicament. Australia seems to have jumped from the delusions of denial to increasingly implausible ‘solutions,’ bypassing sober assessment of the seriousness of the situation we confront. It should be obvious by now that dangerous warming of the Earth is inevitable and effectively irreversible. Even so, high-profile experts (such as Ross Garnaut, Alan Finkel and Saul Griffith) promote crash decarbonisation schemes that are implausible and make impossible promises, suggesting Australia can have a golden green future.

The truth is that nothing we do in Australia can make a perceptible difference to the climate we will live through in 2050 and 2100. It’s time to shift the emphasis from emissions reduction to building resilience with an all-embracing and continuing program of investments in protecting ourselves from the ravages of a changing climate. While the clean energy transition is essential, we should be doing all we can to preserve our remaining and increasingly precious natural environment, even if that means slower emission reductions.

Living Hot tells the blunt truth about our situation. Wishful thinking is holding us back from doing what we must – get cracking on preparing Australia to withstand the extreme weather events that are multiplied and supercharged by global warming. If we prepare well, we can give ourselves a fighting chance of preserving some of the best of what we have while building stronger and fairer communities able to navigate a path through the escalating pressures of a warming world – and even find new ways to flourish.

Living Hot (published by Hardie Grant) will be launched in Parliament House on 5th June at 12.30 in the Theatrette. It will be followed by a panel discussion facilitated by Stan Grant Jnr. and including Bridget Archer MP, Michelle Grattan AO, Senator Nick McKim and Senator David Pocock.

Professor Renée Leon, Vice-Chancellor of Charles Sturt University, will then launch the University’s ‘Living Hot Project’, which aims to help understand how to build community resilience on a warming planet while ensuring that no one is left behind.

The project will begin with a national survey of beliefs and behaviours concerning climate adaptation in order to set a benchmark for our understanding of community preparedness. It will evaluate model adaptation activities by communities and local councils around Australia to show what is possible and the scale of what needs to be done. It will assess the obstacles faced by those at the ‘coal-face’ aiming to build a more resilient and fair Australia as the Earth warms. Building on Charles Sturt's commitment to the Yindyamarra Way of being in country and respectful stewardship, the project will also explore the knowledge that could be applied to caring for country as it is transformed on a heating planet.

We do hope you can join us for a conversation vital to Australia’s future path to preparing Australia for life in a different kind of world.