Through the years Tim Flannery did indeed develop a reputation on climate change
FROM six degrees of warming to the birth of Gaia, the former climate chief was the go-to man.
Emma Griffiths, ABC News online yesterday:
THE Abbott government has abolished the Climate Commission ... The now former chief commissioner, professor Tim Flannery (a former Australian of the Year), says ... "We've stayed out of the politics and stuck to the facts ... As a result we've developed a reputation as a reliable apolitical source of facts on all aspects of climate change."
ABC's Lateline, June 10, 2005:
TIM Flannery: The science around climate change is firming up fairly quickly ... these are sophisticated computer tools ... Sydney will be facing extreme difficulties with water.
Sydney Catchment Authority, NSW government, Thursday:
Dam levels 93.6 per cent.
Jetstar Magazine interview, March 2008:
QUESTION: Climate change is a hip issue at the moment. Why did it take An Inconvenient Truth to make it a fashionable cause?
Flannery: I don't know ... Three years on, it's clear that climate change is an even bigger crisis than we imagined in 2005 ... The water problem is so severe for Adelaide that it may run out of water by early 2009 ...
Question: What is one fundamental change people can make today?
Flannery: Vote for governments that are determined to clean up our environment.
SA Water website yesterday:
ADELAIDE Water storage: 84 per cent.
ABC Landline, February 11, 2007:
FLANNERY: Although we're getting, say, a 20 per cent decrease in rainfall in some areas of Australia, that's translating to a 60 per cent decrease in the run-off into the dams and rivers. That's because the soil is warmer because of global warming ... so even the rain that falls isn't actually going to fill our dams and our river systems.
SEQWater website yesterday:
BRISBANE water storage: 97.3 per cent.
New Scientist, June 16, 2007:
IN Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane, water supplies are so low they need desalinated water urgently, possibly in as little as 18 months.
ABC News online, June 26 last year:
THE NSW government has confirmed Sydney's desalination plant ... cost $2 billion to build ... Greens MP John Kaye says the desalination plant is a massive white elephant.
Matthew Killoran, Gold Coast Bulletin, June 6:
THE $1.2 billion Tugun desalination plant continues to be a drain on taxpayers with a shocking report revealing it can cost up to $1 million a week to operate ... The plant was built by the previous Labor government in a panic in 2008.
Daniel Wills, Adelaide's The Advertiser, May 7:
A DECISION to double the size of Adelaide's desalination plant was made despite advice the project did not meet cost-benefit tests and went against federal government guidelines, an audit has found.
The ABC's Radio National, The Science Show, January 1, 2011:
FLANNERY: I think that within this century the concept of the strong Gaia will actually become physically manifest. I do think that the Gaia of the ancient Greeks, where they believed the earth was effectively one whole and perfect living creature, that doesn't exist yet, but it will exist in future ... ants of course have democratic processes; they actually vote ... We've seen the IPCC projections are now ground truthed against real-world change, and we see that we're tracking the worst-case scenario, which is six degrees of warming.
Robyn Williams: Six!
Flannery: We'll never be able to control the earth ... We can't control its systems. But we can nudge them and we can foresee danger. Once that occurs, then the Gaia of the ancient Greeks really will exist. This planet, this Gaia, will have acquired a brain and a nervous system. That will make it act as a living animal, as a living organism, at some sort of level.
