Tim Thorne
Seminar on the Implications of Global Warming
Tomorrow and Sunday, Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 February, Now We the People will be holding a public seminar titled A Future For Life on the implications of global warming for public policy in Australia.
The seminar will be held in the Australian Education Union auditorium, 32 Patrick Street, Hobart.
Speakers will include Professor Ian Lowe AO FTSE, emeritus professor of science, technology and society at Griffith University and president of the Australian Conservation Foundation.
PROFESSOR Lowe was Director of the Commission for the Future in 1988 and chair of the advisory council that produced the first national report on the state of the environment in 1996. In 2000 he received the Queensland Premier’s Millennium Award for Excellence in Science and the Prime Minister’s Environmental Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement. He wrote a weekly column for
New Scientist for 13 years and received the 2002 Eureka Prize for promotion of science and technology.
Also speaking will be Dr Barrie Pittock, who was the founding leader of the CSIRO’s Climate Impact Group, who has been publishing books and articles on climate change since 1980, including in 2005 Climate Change: Turning up the Heat (CSIRO/Earthscan).
And Dr Stuart Rosewarne, senior lecturer in economics at Sydney University, whose recent publications include contributions to Encyclopedia of Political Economy, Routledge 1999, on international political economy, environmental and ecological economics and radical ecological critiques. In November 2005 Dr Rosewarne delivered a paper,Beyond Kyoto – the Asia-Pacific Partnership on cean Development and Climate: progress or regress? at the Asia-Pacific Non-Government Environmental Organisation Conference in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Tasmanian speakers include eminent hydrologist and geologist, Dr David Leaman, Dr John Greenhill, who is an honorary research associate in the School of Physics, University of Tasmania, Greens Senator Christine Milne, Duncan Kerr, MHR for Denison and former Justice Minister in the Keating Government, Jean Walker, State Secretary of the Australian Education Union, and Justice Pierre Slicer of the Tasmanian Supreme Court.
Other Tasmanian panellists are physical oceanographer, Dr Stuart Godfrey, winner of the Sverdrup Medal for 1998 for his contributions to the Tropical Oceans-Global Atmosphere program of 1985-1994 and long-time CSIRO researcher, as well as environmental and social advocate Chris Harries, and Andrew Wilkie, who in March 2003 resigned from the Office of National Assessment over the Iraq war, wrote a book, Axis of Deceit, about his experiences, and stood as the Greens candidate against Prime Minister Howard in the 2004 Federal Election.
The seminar will consist of four panel sessions, each followed by a time for questions and general discussion.
Details of costs, session times and catering arrangements are available from the Now We the People Tasmanian Project web site www.nowwethepeople.org/tasmania from which a registration form can also be downloaded.
Whether or not you are attending the seminar you can read and comment on position papers by the panellists, which are also posted on the above site. Places at the seminar are limited, so early registration is advised.
Tim Thorne
Media and Publicity Coordinator
Now We the People Tas project
