A critical lecture in a 'cone-of-silence'

-       Robert McLean

Professor David Karoly.

David Karoly is an enigma and he was also recently described on national radio as one of Australia’s greatest living treasures.

As an atmospheric scientist, he can fill a room with people eager to hear his wisdom and then, in a twinkling seems to shed his professorship persona joining with others to rearrange chairs and desks to return the lecture room layout to that of a classroom.

There was standing room only in what was a classroom at the University Melbourne’s School of Design building for the October “Climate Conversation Series” staged by the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute (MSSI).

The topic for the Tuesday, October 25, lecture was “Towards a climate policy toolkit: Special review of Australia’s climate goals and policies”.

The Professor Karoly is a member of the government’s Climate Change Authority (CCA) and following the recent release of the  group’s third report, he and a fellow authority member from Charles Sturt University, Professor Clive Hamilton,  published a minority report that criticized a number of the recommendations in the Report.

Professor Karoly discussed recommendations from that third CCA report and then talked about recommendations from the minority report written  by himself and Professor Hamilton.

The idea of “changing hats” from that of being a formal member of the CCA to the author of a minority report was to be acted out, Professor Karoly actually had a hat with him, but was so immersed in his presentation that he overlooked the actual “changing” until near the end of the lecture.

The October lecture was held in something of a “cone-of-silence” as it was during Professor Karoly’s introduction that those in the room were asked to refrain from texting or sending other messages.

Prof Karoly, who had been threatened with legal action over his minority report, also asked the what he was about to say not be recorded, personally asking me to turn off the small recording device I take to most such events.

The PowerPoint slides used at the October Climate Conversations by Prof Karoly have been released by the MSSI. Also, both the third CCA Report and the Minority Report can be found on the MSSI website.