Tim talks and hundreds listen, intently and quietly

Tim Flannery at the University of
Sunshine Coast with one of
his admirers, Brittany Elliott.

More than 250 people listened intently, and quietly, last night when Tim Flannery spoke at the University of the Sunshine Coast.

Flannery, the former chief of the Federal Government’s Climate Commission, who has now joined other sacked commissioners to set the community funded, Climate Council, was the “rock-star” in the university’s series of events for the “Research Week”.

The former Australian of the Year (2007), also a mammologist, palaeontologist, environmentalist and global warming activist alerted listeners to the dilemma settling upon us because of climate change and discussed the challenges and opportunities within mitigation for regional communities.

He talked about opportunities for universities such as the Sunshine Coast which we unencumbered by the tradition and formalities that frequently limited the work of older and bigger institutions.

Tim was scheduled to speak for an hour, finished his formal address in about 40 minutes and then answered questions for another 50 minutes, exceeding his allotted time by half an hour, but it an extension that was enthusiastically welcomed by the audience.

He explained the scale of the situation talking about the size of global human  emissions, what was naturally sequestered and what we would have to do in terms of sequestration is we were to slow or reverse climate change.

He talked about how seaweed was a fascinating natural sequestration plant and how the many benefits of the aquatic plant had been found by a woman working at a regional university.

Tim said that the growth and harvesting of seaweed in just nine per cent of the world’s oceans would be sufficient to slow climate change. The harvesting of the seaweed was critical as it would simply ocean acidification and contributes further to global carbon dioxide emissions if allowed to die and rot.

A raft a questions came from the floor, but it was the one about “what do I do personally” that promoted some comments from Tim about Australia’s democratic system.

Being the day after Australia’s carbon pricing mechanism had been repealed, he said: “We live in a failed democracy, where the will of the people isn’t truly represented in our democratic process, it’s partly there, we have people of good will in our parliaments, but we don’t have a mechanism which allows people to have their correct say”.  

He delighted the audience, when arguing for energy adaptation – “The most successful adaptation we can have” -  he pointed that rooftop solar is now the fourth largest energy generator system in Queensland.