OI Public Lecture Series- Climate Change and Atoll Islands: Do We Dare to Hope?

Climate Change and Atoll Islands: do we dare to hope?

The idea that climate change may cause low-lying atoll islands to become uninhabitable is now taken for granted in much of climate change science, policy, and media coverage. Thus, islands such as those in Kiribati, the Maldives, the Marshall Islands, and Tuvalu have come to symbolise the crisis of climate change. Narratives about the future of these islands are pervasive, deep, uniformly pessimistic, and relentless, leaving little room for hope that people can continue to live meaningful dignified lives on these islands.

This seminar explains the moral, scientific, and practical reasons why scientists and decision makers should dare to be hopeful about the future of atoll islands. It brings together a diverse array of evidence that together suggests that there is much that can be done to sustain meaningful dignified lives on these islands well into the future.

Speaker: 
Professor Jon Barnett
Co-Director, Oceania Institute
The University of Melbourne

Panel: to be announced soon!