blog2

At the recent Melbourne Writers Festival I attended two sessions with climate change and the future of the planet at their centre. One of the sessions was called The Science of Survival, a discussion of the book The Sixth Extinction , written by journalist Elizabeth Kolbert. The book’s main contention is that the Earth is currently experiencing a sixth period of mass extinction. The other session was The Politics of Climate Change, academic Phillip Chubb’s account of the failure of the climate change debate in Australia.   The Science of Survival. Elizabeth Kolbert   is an American journalist and author on the environment for The New Yorker magazine and National Geographic. She discussed her new book, The Sixth Extinction , with Australian agricultural scientist, Dr John Williams. The moderator for the session was Australian malaria scientist Dr Krystal Evans.   The Sixth Extinction says t here have been five comparable periods of mass extinctio...

For the second Melbourne Writers Festival in a row I attended a session involving three debut authors. The session was free and held in a much larger room than last year’s session. The audience was young, probably many were aspiring writers.   The authors were Holly Childs, Eli Glasman and Melinda Huston. The session was moderated by Sam Twyford-Moore, the director of the Emerging Writer’s Festival. Holly Childs Holly Childs was up first. She is an art magazine editor, artist and curator. Her debut book was a novella, No Limits , published by Hologram Books. It’s set in Melbourne in 2012 where the main character’s plane to Auckland has been delayed due to volcanic ash. There is an apocalyptic vibe in the air as Ash bounces from raves to internet cafes to... Childs nervously read at a rapid pace from her novella. It had a lot of jargon, I had no idea how much was currently in use and how much was made up. The scene involved a group of youth...