Climate change is an emergency. We have to do something – but what? Austinmer’s Saul Griffith has an electrifying plan and he’s about to share it, David Roach reports
Currently touring the country to rock star attention, Dr Saul Griffith is an Austinmer local who has returned to Australia with his family
“as a refugee from Trump’s America”. Now he’s set to share his solar battery-powered ideas with his local community.
An Australian engineer and inventor, Griffith was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2007. He’s been a principal investigator on research projects for NASA, the National Science Foundation and US Special Operations Command.
His book, The Big Switch, has just been released by Black Inc. It’s a practical blueprint for dealing with the climate crisis that the world is facing.
Dr Griffith explains what it would take to transform Australia’s infrastructure and adapt our households. He says that the very things that helped Australia prosper in the 20th century – our size and incredible resources – are the very same ingredients that could see us becoming the first entirely renewable economy in the world. And the most prosperous. Think of it as the ultimate lightbulb moment, on a grand scale.
At 7pm on the 30th of March, Dr Griffith will be at Thirroul Community Centre in conversation with another big thinker, his friend and neighbour, Prof Tim Flannery. This special event is hosted by Collins Thirroul Booksellers in association with Voices for Wollongong, Clifton School of Arts and the South Coast Writers Centre.
Update: This event is now booked out – email thirroul@collinsbooks.com.au or phone 4267 1408 to join the waitlist.
For those who can’t be in the room where it happens, Voices for Wollongong will be live-streaming the conversation.
Register your interest at www.voicesfor wollongong.org
Voices for Wollongong is a non-partisan group of local residents providing live events and online forums for real voices to be heard, respected and counted. It aims to raise issues that our representatives have either missed, or are not brave enough to debate.
