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Episode 0
Introducing UTS 4 Climate
1.0
6 MIN
UTS 4 Climate
Synopsis
Guest Bios
Transcription
Erika Wagner:
There’s a lot going on in the world right now.
Dr Enric Sala ‘Defending Nature’s Last Frontiers’ at World Economic Forum
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1piaqte8Kc
Now we are destroying the Amazon forest at the equivalent of two football fields per minute.
Fran Kelly ‘Half of Great Barrier Reef dead since 1995’ on RN Breakfast
URL: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/half-of-gbr-dead/12769162
The Great Barrier Reef has lost more than half of its corals since 1995.
Dr Triona McGrath at ‘How pollution is changing the earth’s chemistry’ at TEDx
URL: https://www.ted.com/talks/triona_mcgrath_how_pollution_is_changing_the_ocean_s_chemistry/transcript
As more carbon dioxide has entered the ocean, the seawater pH has gone down, which basically means there has been an increase in ocean acidity.
Dr Michael Oppenheimer ‘Climate change author explains why oceans are at risk’ on NBC News Now
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRqh45qk5A0
You’re destroying this food chain that humans depend on. So we don’t have a choice. We need to adapt.
Hamish McDonald ‘Flames rip through towns, fears death toll will rise as bushfires rage on’ ABC News
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhmaXS70YnQ
To the south there were bushfires. To the west there were bushfires. To the north there were bushfires.
Professor Gail Whiteman ‘Here’s Why the Melting Arctic Should Matter to Us All | DAVOS 2020’ at World Economic Forum’
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58wkkapojnw
The Arctic is like our circulation system and feeds it to global climate change everywhere. We have lost 50% of Arctic ice in about 50 years.
Simon McGregor Woods ‘Global Warming: Melting glaciers cause dangerous sea level rise’ on TRT World
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNoq825HHg4
The UN’s worst case scenario predicts a 1.3 meter rise by the year 2100. That could swap land currently home to 150 million people.
Karina Carvalho ‘Flames rip through towns, fears death toll will rise as bushfires rage on’ ABC News
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhmaXS70YnQ
It’s been labeled an apocalypse and like looking into the gates of hell.
Sir David Attenborough ‘Sir David Attenborough calls for ‘urgent’ climate change action’ on ITV News
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbZEYz1oGQ0
If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.
Professor Bob Carr:
What do you think the existential challenge about climate at a time when we’re all focused on the immediate challenge of this pandemic?
Erika Wagner:
So what can we actually do? This is a question that gets thrown around in classrooms, newsrooms, in your own head about the collective future that faces us. Oceans acidifying, the destruction of our coral reefs, the Arctic ice sheets melting droughts, floods, fires. Many of us are still looking for the right answer to what can we actually do? And that can be a very overwhelming question.
Erika Wagner:
Hi, I’m Erika Wagner and you’re listening to the UTS 4 Climate climate podcast. I study Marine Science in Sydney, Australia, and I also work at the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology Sydney. For more than 20 years, my colleagues have been tirelessly, researching thinking and creating change towards sustainable futures. We know that climate change is one of the greatest challenges we’ll encounter in our lifetime. At the Institute for Sustainable Futures, we take a solutions-based approach to reducing the impact of climate change and preparing us for its effects. But to many climate change is still a politicised or abstract issue.
Erika Wagner:
In this five-part podcast, we’ve created a space to explore climate change from all angles and to find practical answers to what we can actually do. You’re going to hear from the Honourable Bob Carr, New South Wales, longest serving premier and a former foreign minister of Australia.
Professor Bob Carr:
If someone had said in the late 1960s, they will come a day. When the air in big capital cities will be this bad, no one would have believed it. It would have been more fantastical than anything in science fiction but we live with that today.
Erika Wagner:
Bob is now an Industry Professor of Business and Climate at UTS. In this series, you’ll hear Bob in conversation with leading thinkers, from politics, economics, science, and journalism. Join us as we continue the conversation about climate, our futures and what change we need to see in the world.
Professor Tim Flannery:
With climate change, we’re now in a position where on the balance of probabilities. We’re committed to between 1.5 and two degrees of warming. We need to act, we need to cut those emissions.
Dr Rebecca Huntley:
For a long time, the climate conversation has started with science and we needed to but there were limits to how much the science can get us further along. And it’s these stories of transformation of recognition that the climate is changing. And this is what I’m doing. This is how I’m making this happen.
Zali Steggall:
We need to seek to understand before being understood. You have to understand people’s position. Why are they concerned about taking stronger action on decarbonising? What are their reluctance? Not everyone identifies with Extinction Rebellion. We need to bring everybody on board.
Martijn Wilder:
One thing that many people don’t understand is that Australia has led the world on the efficiency of solar panels. We are world leaders in that space, so that’s fantastic. It’s exciting. It’s Australian ingenuity. We can lead the de carbonisation race.
Professor Tim Flannery:
If we could cover 9% of the world’s ocean in seaweed farms, we could draw down the equivalent of all of the greenhouse gases we put up in any one year.
Erika Wagner:
This is UTS 4 climate, a podcast from the University of Technology Sydney. I hope you can join me, Erika Wagner, to find out what we can do to take positive action on climate change and secure a sustainable future. Subscribe and download wherever you get your podcasts.
Male Voice Over :
To continue the discussion about climate change and to see some of the inspiring projects UTS researchers are working on. Go to the UTS 4 Climate website, UTS4climate.uts.edu.au. The UTS 4 Climate podcast is made by Impact Studios at the University of Technology Sydney in collaboration with the Institute for Sustainable Futures.
Podcast playlist
Maybe the mention of our climate future makes you feel anxious, angry, scared or just detached. If so you’re not alone.
Learning to talk about climate change and having meaningful conversations with those who agree and disagree with you on the subject is a powerful step we can take to get the action on climate we need.
Hear from UTS Professor of Climate and Business Bob Carr in conversation with social researcher and author Dr Rebecca Huntley as they discuss her latest book How to Talk About Climate Change in a Way That Makes a Difference, and explore why we find it so hard to talk about climate.
In 2007 it looked like there was a political consensus to price carbon in Australia, in a move that would provide a transition to a post-carbon economy. So how did Australia’s climate policy fall foul of a global political agenda?
In this episode of UTS 4 Climate, Professor Bob Carr picks through forensic investigative journalist Marian Wilkinson’s book, The Carbon Club to discuss how big money and political power continued Australia’s decades of climate inaction.
There is an unlikely hero that could help deliver us from climate catastrophe, and that hero is found washed up on our beaches and lives deep in our oceans.
In this final UTS 4 Climate conversation, Professor Bob Carr sits down with Australia’s best-known climate author and scientist, Professor Tim Flannery to discuss the innovative ways we could draw down the carbon that exists in our atmosphere, and the urgent need to begin this work.
