Humans have a long history of trying to alter the climate – we’re a species of problem-solvers, and that same instinct is exactly why we have the power to act on climate change. But today’s new generation of “solutions” range from the genuinely promising to outright folly – and some are little more than an excuse for the fossil fuel industry to keep polluting while we wait.
That was the question at the heart of this warm, wide-ranging fireside chat between Climate Council co-founder Prof. Tim Flannery and CEO Amanda McKenzie, drawing on Tim’s new book, Climate Folly. Together they traced humanity’s often-absurd history of weather engineering – from Cold War plans to nuke the Arctic ice cap to schemes to dam the Mediterranean – and sorted today’s “miracle fixes” like sulphur injections and carbon capture from the grounded, achievable solutions already underway, from Indigenous land management to the clean energy shift. Tim also shared reasons for hope, including his recent New Guinea expeditions in search of species thought lost, and what this moment asks of all of us.
Watch the recording below:
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