Uploaded on Aug 4, 2010
Professor Clive Hamilton discusses the various ideas floated in the area of climate engineering in a video recorded at The Australian National University on 4 August 2010.
In Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 film, Dr Strangelove was a mad scientist whose character was modelled on Dr Edward Teller, the “father of the hydrogen bomb”. In the 1990s, Teller and his colleague at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Lowell Wood (a weapons researcher nicknamed “Dr Evil”), were among the first to advocate climate engineering. This scheme aimed to transform the chemical composition of the Earth’s atmosphere in order to offset global warming. Taking control of the weather sounds like science fiction, but there is now a powerful alliance of scientists and venture capitalists backing it. The public is being kept in the dark, but with severe climate disruption now inevitable, the climate engineers may well succeed in their mission.
Professor Clive Hamilton is professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University, attached to the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at The Australian National University. For many years he was the executive director of the Australia Institute, a think tank he founded. He has written a number of bestselling books including Growth Fetish, Affluenza (with Richard Denniss) and The Freedom Paradox. His latest book, Requiem for a Species: Why we resist the truth about climate change, was published in March by Allen & Unwin (www.clivehamilton.net.au)
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice
Transition Studies 