In response to the heatwave that set a new Australia-wide record on 7 January, when the national average maximum reached 40.33°C, , the Bureau of Meteorology issued a statement that, on reflection, sounds the death knell for all of the social sciences taught in our universities. “Everything that happens in the climate system now”, the [...]
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Will anti-coal activist Jonathan Moylan receive justice if he is charged over his hoax? ASIC, which will formally interview Moylan next week, is under enormous pressure to “make an example” of the 24-year old. It is expected he will be charged with breaching Section 1041E of the Corporations Act, which outlaws false and misleading statements [...]
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[Published by New Left Project, 15 January 2013] As Australia suffered a record breaking heatwave, David Jones of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology remarked that “Clearly, the climate system is responding to the background warming trend. Everything that happens in the climate system now is taking place on a planet which is a degree hotter [...]
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Yesterday an anti-coal activist, Jonathan Moylan, issued a media release purportedly from the ANZ Bank withdrawing a loan from a coal company. The hoax wiped $314 million from the value of Whitehaven Coal, although the share prices recovered after the ruse was revealed. ASIC has announced that it is investigating whether Moylan has contravened provisions [...]
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Senator Cory Bernardi has been reviled for associating homosexuality with something repugnant, bestiality. Yet Australia has just awarded its highest civilian honour to a philosopher who provides a moral defence of sex with animals. Professor Peter Singer, the renowned Australian philosopher at Princeton University, believes that the taboo on bestiality is an anomaly, a prohibition [...]
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Scientific thinking has changed radically over the last two decades, so that what we used to think of as “the environment”-the natural world spread around us-no longer exists. So the default position is no longer how to minimize our impact on the environment, but how best to intervene. The goal can no longer be to [...]
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When the denial machine goes after climate scientists it is, as one of them said, like the marines going into battle against boy scouts. The brutality of the attacks has once again been confirmed by the release of some of the emails sent to Phil Jones, the University of East Anglia climate scientist at the [...]
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Who would have thought the Melbourne Theatre Company would get into bed with Andrew Bolt? The Conversation, 9 May 2012
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Because it falls for the deniers’ tactic of doubt-mongering, ABC TV’s program “I Can Change Your Mind…About Climate Change” is a victory for climate denial even before it goes to air.Crikey, 26 April 2012
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Affluence rather than population growth is mainly responsible for the climate crisis.The Conversation, 23 April 2012
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You know the situation is getting desperate when three bio-ethicists propose genetically modifying humans to reduce our environmental impact. In a bizarre paper titled ‘Human engineering and climate change’, Matthew Liao, Anders Sandberg and Rebecca Roache argue we should seriously consider technologies to engineer human bodies to reduce carbon emissions. One leading idea is genetic [...]
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Why did the Australian, a newspaper that has heavily criticised use of the defamation laws, launch legal action to force the ABC to take down an article by Robert Manne? The Conversation, 8 March 2012
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The secret funding of the Heartland Institute once again focuses attention on the financing of the Institute of Public Affairs and particularly its sustained attacks on climate science and all policies aimed at cutting Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. Despite its refusal to divulge, we can make a good guess at where a large part of its recent [...]
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This article (published on “The Conversation”) is a commentary on Adam Curtis’s three-part documentary All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace, which was braodcast on SBS TV in October-November 2011.
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“With women now to take on combat roles in the military it is time to sound The Last Post over the rotting corpse of feminism.” An opinion article published in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, 30 September 2011.
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A talk (by videolink) to the National Climate Action Summit University of Melbourne, 9 April 2011 The difficulty and importance of the global warming campaign is many times greater than every other environmental struggle. Controlling carbon pollution requires a wholesale industrial restructuring and defeat of the most powerful industry coalition ever assembled. Yet in the [...]
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Climate scientists have found themselves caught up in a hot political debate that they do not really understand or want to be part of, yet they have been the target of savvy, secretive and ruthless organisations ready to pounce on anything they said or wrote. This is the real story of “Climategate”. Instead, the scientists in question have [...]
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Climate denial versus climate science A speech at the launch of Requiem for a Species Global Change Institute, University of Queensland, 24 March 2010 Clive Hamilton The attack on climate science in recent times has been orchestrated, relentless, and effective. Although it has reached fever pitch over the last six months, the campaign has been [...]
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The Rebirth of Nature and the Climate Crisis A Sydney Ideas Lecture University of Sydney, 7th July 2009 Clive Hamilton Introduction1 The failure of humanity to respond to the threat of global warming with anything like the urgency demanded by climate science is deeply puzzling. Undoubtedly, our preoccupation with economic growth, and the way it [...]
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Speech at the Climate Action Summit Australian National University, 31 January 2009 Clive Hamilton It seems a long time ago that our new Prime Minister, the man who would sweep away 11 years of Howard Government denialism, went to Bali and declared to the world: Australia now stands ready to assume its responsibility … Climate [...]
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Annual University Lecture at the Australian Defence Force Academy 10 September 2008 Clive Hamilton1 In 1956 a woman in Minneapolis began to receive communications from an extra-terrestrial being named Sananda. Marion Keech heard that a great flood would cleanse the world of earthlings at mid-night on 21 December. Only those who believed in Sananda [...]
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Lecture in the Sydney Ideas series, University of Sydney, 12 August 2008 Clive Hamilton In the preface to The Freedom Paradox I say that I wrote the book to answer the question of why it is that, despite the wealth and freedom now enjoyed by most citizens of rich countries, we do not appear [...]
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A speech to senior executives of the Australian Public Service, organized by the Public Service Commission The Boat House, Canberra, 29 April 2008 Clive Hamilton1 In an oft-quoted speech Robert F. Kennedy said that GNP “measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to [...]
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After-dinner speech to the conference of Sustainable Population Australia University House, Australian National University, 14 March 2008 Clive Hamilton Which Australian politician said this? “If Australia continues to grow at 4 per cent per annum for the next 20 years my kids are going to be nominally twice as wealthy as they are now, but [...]
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Speech against the proposition at a debate organized by the Socratic Forum Australian National University, 11 March 2008 Clive Hamilton I have been asked to speak against the proposition. In the sweep of human history we can identify a great trend. As humans progress their consciousness becomes less parochial, their moral horizons expand to take [...]
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An address to a meeting of the Environmental Givers Network Melbourne, 17 October 2007 Clive Hamilton1 Today, I plan to talk about the state of climate science, the Federal Government’s evolving international position and the emerging security issues associated with climate change. Political actors typically engage in exaggeration to advance their case. Environmental campaigns are [...]
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A talk to a seminar organised by Compass Portcullis House, House of Commons, London, 4th October 2007 Clive Hamilton1 The Individualised World Not long ago, while walking through Sydney’s CBD, I overheard a snippet of conversation between two young women sitting in the sun. “I’m not sure what to do with my life,” said one. [...]
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The Scary Politics of Climate Change A talk to the Brisbane Writer’s Festival 15 September 2007 Clive Hamilton Fear of stating the truth Political actors typically engage in exaggeration to advance their case. The Labor Party exaggerated the likely damage due to the introduction of the GST, despite the fact that Paul Keating wanted to [...]
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A talk to the Melbourne Writer’s Festival Storey Hall, 31 August 2007 Clive Hamilton Franz Kafka once wrote that “it is an extremely painful thing to be ruled by laws one does not know”.1 The story in which Kafka made this observation told of an imaginary kingdom ruled by secretive nobles who kept knowledge of [...]
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A debate at Macquarie University, 15 August 2007 Our opponents have tried to persuade you that, because we believe capitalism is bad for the soul, we are just tofu-eating, poetry-reading, bicycle-riding, leftist basket weavers. We plead guilty to all charges, except basket-weaving. Capitalism’s fine in its place; the problem is that it has a restless [...]
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Trade and Environmental Governance Speech to an Open Forum on International Environmental Governance Organised by the European Union Delegation in Australia Opera House, Sydney, 24 November 2006 Clive Hamilton1 There is widespread concern that today’s international institutions are inadequate to deal with the serious environmental dangers faced by the world. The foremost worry is the [...]
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The Milthorpe Lecture, Macquarie University Sydney, 8th June 2006 Clive Hamilton1 Late one day last month, the Federal Government posted on its website a report on the science of climate change which it had commissioned from Professor Will Steffen of the ANU.2 The purpose of the report was to provide a review of developments in [...]
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Against the Pursuit of Happiness A talk to the Sydney Writers’ Festival, 27th May 2006 Clive Hamilton1 Escalating desire Prader-Willi syndrome is a genetic disorder of children characterised by, among other things, an insatiable appetite, leading its sufferers to seek out food by almost any means. Because the mechanism in the brain that signals satiation [...]
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THE AUSTRALIA INSTITUTE The Pressures of City Living After-dinner speech to the Fenner Conference Old Parliament House, 25th May 2006 Clive Hamilton1 Tonight I would like to talk about some of the psychological costs of urban living. For it seems to me that the epidemic of mental disorders and widespread anomie that characterise modern affluent [...]
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THE AUSTRALIA INSTITUTE The Intensification of Consumerism and Reactions Against It A Public Lecture Demography and Sociology Program, ANU National Museum of Australia, 2 May 2006 Clive Hamilton In a previous era, there was a clear distinction between ordinary goods consumed by the masses and luxury goods consumed by the wealthy minority, the richest 5 [...]
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A talk to a Productivity Commission Retreat Lindenderry, Victoria, 11 May 2006 Clive Hamilton Executive Director The Australia Institute Looking through the list of Commission publications over the last two to three years indicates that the Commission’s remit has broadened a great deal from the days of deregulation, privatization and trade liberalization. This broadening has [...]
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Address to the Commencement Dinner of Bruce Hall, ANU, 21 March 2003 Dr Clive Hamilton Executive Director, The Australia Institute I would like to start on a sombre note. You may have read in the last two days about a young American woman, Rachel Corrie, who left her university studies to go to the Middle [...]
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THE AUSTRALIA INSTITUTE Marketing and Modern Consumerism A speech to the Third National Consumer Congress Melbourne 16 March 2006 Clive Hamilton In a previous era, there was a clear distinction between ordinary goods consumed by the masses and luxury goods consumed by the wealthy minority, the richest 5 per cent or so of the population. [...]
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A talk to the Fabian Society, Melbourne, 8th March 2006 on the occasion of the publication of What’s Left? The death of social democracy Quarterly Essay 21 (Black Inc. 2006) Clive Hamilton1 The Individualised World Not long ago, while walking through Sydney’s CBD at lunchtime, I overheard a snippet of conversation between two young women [...]
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THE AUSTRALIA INSTITUTE The Dirty Politics of Climate Change Speech to the Climate Change and Business Conference Hilton Hotel, Adelaide, 20 February 2006 Clive Hamilton1 Behind the daily news reports there is a secret world of politics in Canberra, the world in which the real business is transacted. It’s a world of powerful lobbyists who [...]
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A Speech to Cogito, Parliament House, Stockholm 24th November 2005 Clive Hamilton1 I am very pleased to be addressing you today, especially in this august place. Let me thank Claudio Aguirre-Bianchi especially for inviting me to travel to Sweden to talk to you about the ideas I have set out in my book Growth Fetish,2 [...]
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A talk to the Canberra Writers’ Festival, 8 October 2005 Clive Hamilton The poverty debate In May this year the St Vincent de Paul Society published a paper arguing that income inequality has been increasing in Australia. It was a well-researched paper drawing on ABS statistics showing that by most measures income inequality has worsened [...]
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A Speech to ‘Politics in the Pub’ Gaelic Club, Sydney, 22nd July 2005 Clive Hamilton1 Let me begin with some background to the thinking that led to the development of the Wellbeing Manifesto. Over the last two or three decades, the neoliberal revolution – which in Australia we call economic rationalism – has swept all [...]
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THE AUSTRALIA INSTITUTE Speech at the launch of the Wellbeing Manifesto Edge Theatre, Federation Square, Melbourne, 14th June 2005 Clive Hamilton, Executive Director, The Australia Institute Let me begin with some background to the thinking that led to the development of the Wellbeing Manifesto that we are launching today. Over the last two or three [...]
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Speech to a Dinner for Public Education Day Canberra, 19th May 2005 Clive Hamilton It’s a tough time for public schools in Australia. The consensus that once joined all parties in strong support for the public system has broken down with conservatives on the war-path against public schools and what they stand for. Like most [...]
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Speech to the Manning Clark House conference Science and Ethics: Can homo sapiens survive? Academy of Science, Canberra, 17 May 2005 Clive Hamilton1 Let me begin with an anecdote. A young man studying engineering at university said to a young women studying sociology: ‘The social sciences are useless; only maths and engineering and the hard [...]
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Speech to a public forum on organised by ACF BMW Edge Theatre, Federation Square, Melbourne 18 February 2005 Clive Hamilton1 One of the more profound changes in Australia over the last decade has been the extraordinary rise in personal debt. In the last ten years personal debt has increased from a little over $6,000 per [...]
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THE AUSTRALIA INSTITUTE Speech at the launch of In search of sustainability edited by Jenny Goldie, Bob Douglas and Bryan Furnass NSW Parliament House, Sydney 18 January 2005 Clive Hamilton1 It’s a pleasure to be here to help launch this new book on sustainability. I think its publication provides an opportunity to reflect on where [...]
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Isolating the Great Southern Land National Institute for Environment Public Lecture Manning Clark Centre, ANU 1st September 2004 Clive Hamilton Executive Director The Australia Institute1 The debate about the implications of climate change is spreading to new areas. Most recently attention has focussed on the security implications of global climate change. Earlier this year The [...]
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Address to the Annual Conference of the Teachers of English, Sydney, 4th July 2004 Clive Hamilton Executive Director The Australia Institute The dominant cultural force today is that of materialism and the marketing society that goes with it. Children grow up in a dense fog of commercial messages which form the most powerful influence on [...]
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Non-government organisations in Australia Address to the Communities in Control Conference Melbourne, 7th June 2004 Clive Hamilton Executive Director The Australia Institute1 “When I feed the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.” …..Dom Helder Camara, Archbishop of Recife, Brazil NGOs and [...]
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Is this as good as it gets? 15th Maurice Blackburn Oration Coburg Town Hall 25th February 2004 Clive Hamilton Executive Director, The Australia Institute Until recently, there has never been a time in human history when each of us could hope to live a truly fulfilling life. From the earliest days, the hopes of ordinary [...]
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The Reid Oration, University of Western Australia 29th July 2003 Clive Hamilton Executive Director, The Australia Institute At a news conference soon after he became Prime Minister in 1996 John Howard said that the measure of success or failure of his government will be whether or not he can achieve a 4% growth rate. No [...]
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The Queen and Me After-dinner speech to the AGM of the Australian Republican Movement Canberra, 31st May 2003 Clive Hamilton Executive Director The Australia Institute I grew up in Yarralumla. Then it was the name of a fairly ordinary Canberra suburb and not a synonym for the Governor General. But we knew what was at [...]
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A speech to the Sydney Writers Festival May 25th 2003 Clive Hamilton1 In Growth Fetish I argue that it has become apparent that the liberation movements of the sixties and seventies – the sexual revolution, the counter-culture, the women’s movement and the civil rights movement – have had some unforeseen and regrettable consequences. Contrary to the [...]
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An address to a seminar organised by the Economic Society of New South Wales Reserve Bank, Sydney 17th April 2002 Executive Director, The Australia Institute www.tai.org.au Introduction I don’t want to dwell on the economic arguments for population growth and higher levels of immigration because I don’t believe the economics of the issue are very important. [...]
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After-Dinner Speech to the Biennial Conference of the International Society for Ecological Economics 7th July 2000, Parliament House, Canberra Clive Hamilton Let me begin by welcoming our international visitors to Australia. I hope you are not having too much difficulty with the language. Australian English − sometimes called Strine − takes a bit of getting [...]
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A speech to the Australian Trucking Association conference Brisbane 13th April 2000 Dr Clive Hamilton Executive Director, The Australia Institute Last October the UK’s Meteorological Office released a new report on the expected effects of climate change. Over several decades the rise in carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere will mean: •widespread hunger, especially in [...]
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A talk to Politics in the Pub Harold Park Hotel, Sydney, Friday September 4th 1998 Clive Hamilton The astounding success of Hansonism is, as much as anything else, a product of the failure of spin. It is the result of the inauthenticity of Australian politics in the 1980s and 90s, and the ultimate inability of [...]
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Clive Hamilton Executive Director, The Australia Institute www.tai.org.au In 1997 I participated in a study of the contribution of koalas to the Australian tourism industry. The study was commissioned by the Australian Koala Foundation, which believed that governments and the public, while reasonably well informed about the threats to koalas, were unaware of the economic [...]
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