In the hot seat: Joelle's journey from the dole to a global role

In 2006, climate scientist Dr Joelle Gergis was pulling weeds under Melbourne’s West Gate Bridge on the work-for-the-dole scheme. Centrelink advised removing her PhD from her resume, saying: “It’s not going to help you find a job.”

Dr Joelle Gergis speaks at the Melbourne University
 launch of her book Sunburnt Country in April.CREDIT:

She refused, and instead enrolled in a professional writing course.

This year Gergis is one of Australia’s lead authors on the Sixth Assessment Report of the United Nation’s IPCC – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In 2014, her inter-disciplinary team SEARCH – South Eastern Australian Recent Climate History – won the Eureka science prize,  informally known as the Oscars of Australian science.

But the story is not all pretty. Since 2012, Gergis has had to face attacks from trolls and climate change sceptics. But 2018 has seen her climate scholarship vindicated and the story of her work published to acclaim.

Read the story from The Age by Julie Perrin - “In the hot seat: Joelle's journey from the dole to a global role.”

Solving our climate history puzzle

Climate scientist and paleoclimatologist Dr Joelle Gergis has spent over a decade painstakingly piecing together Australia’s climate history, using historical records dating back to the First Fleet, natural records held in our trees, corals and ice and computer modelling.

As she outlines in her book Sunburnt Country, published by Melbourne University Publishing, Australia’s climate has always been “spectacularly erratic”, but human activity has accelerated these rates of change.

As the developed nation most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, she says we must act now to slow its worst impacts.

Listen as Joëlle Gergis outlines some aspects of her new book - “Solving our climate history puzzle.”