Quarry Vision: Coal, Climate Change and the End of the Resources Boom

01 April 2009

Dr Guy Pearse

In this lecture Dr Guy Pearse will spoke about the mindset that sees Australia's greatest asset as its mineral and energy resources - coal especially, asking how has this distorted our national politics and our response to climate change and what happens now that our coal-fired resources boom has gone bust? He also discussed the future of the coal industry and argued with the current economic orthodoxy. He looks at the shadowy world of greenhouse lobbyists; how they think and operate. Quarry vision, he argued, is a carbon-laced trap and a blind faith and a mentality we can no longer afford. This lecture comes from the March 2009 Quarterly Essay by Guy Pearse of the same name.

Broad Topics: Asia and the Pacific, Medicine and Life Science

Sub-topics: Environment, Policy & Political Science

Areas: ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, ANU College of Science

Guy Pearse was educated at James Cook University (BA Hons), Harvard (MPP), and the ANU (PhD). He is a former member of the Liberal Party and was a speechwriter for former environment minister Robert Hill. He has also been an industry lobbyist, consultant and spin doctor. In 2007, after his research and concerns were dismissed by his political colleagues, he exposed the dirty politics behind Australia's response to climate change on Four Corners and in his book High & Dry. 

Presented by ANU Climate Change Institute and the Fenner School of Environment and Society.

Part of the Toyota-ANU Public Lecture Series 2009