Category Archives: Research

Climate change, identity, politics, Research, sustainability

Climate change and the curse of creative self-destruction

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Daniel Nyberg and Christopher Wright

Published in Mercury Magazine 2014, Summer/Autumn (Special Issue on Sustainability), Issue 7-8, pp. 042-049. Artwork by Bojan Jevtić.

As any student of economic history knows, the notion of destruction has been a grim constant in attempts to characterize the relationship between capitalist dynamism and ever-spiralling consumption. Marx and Engels warned of enforced destruction. Joseph Schumpeter championed a dauntless culture of creative destruction. And now we find ourselves in an era of what we might call creative self-destruction.

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Climate change, politics, Research

Regional warlordism versus the digital panopticon

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Visitors to this blog will know of my interest in climate futures, a subject I’ve published on in academic outlets. Recently I re-read British sociologist John Urry’s excellent article “Climate Change, Travel and Complex Futures”. I remember first reading this in 2008 and the future scenarios it outlined opened my eyes to the huge issue of climate change adaptation. Indeed, this article and Al Gore’s 2006 movie Inconvenient Truth were major influences in re-directing my research towards the issue of business responses to climate change (which this blog summarizes).

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Climate change, politics, Research, sustainability

Trying to cash in on climate change won’t fool nature

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We find ourselves in an era of what we might call creative self-destruction. We’re destroying ourselves – it’s as simple as that.

Economic growth and exploiting nature’s resources have long gone hand-in-hand, but as repeated warnings from scientists and reports such as the latest from the IPCC tell us, they now constitute the most ill-fated of bedfellows. Climate change, the greatest threat of our time, is perhaps the definitive manifestation of the well-worn links between economic progress and devastation.

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Climate change, politics, Research

The Politics of Climate Change Research Funding

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Readers may remember that back in November, Queensland Liberal Senator Ian Macdonald caused some consternation when he characterised the ‘appalling’ situation of too much research funding being devoted to climate change! Explicit in the Senator’s statement was an argument that competitive grants had been subject to political influence under the former Federal Labor Government. As Senator Macdonald stated:

I also know that a number of scientists—and I have had personal interaction with some of them—who wanted to do research that did not follow the then government’s view of climate change would never ever get a grant from the Australian Research Council. That seemed to me, if that were the case—and I accept what was told to me—that the Research Council was actually following a dictum from the then government about climate change and climate change research.

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Climate change, Events, Research

Book Launch: Climate-Challenged Society & Globalization and the Environment

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ScreenHunter_51 Nov. 22 19.19

Australia has long been known for its environmental politics – movements, policy, and academic analysis. On Wednesday 11th December, four of the most well-known Australia-based academics of environmental politics from the University of Sydney, University of Melbourne, and Australian National University will convene to discuss and celebrate two recent books aimed at analysing and stimulating debate on the current and future state of environmental and climate politics.

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Climate change, politics, Research

Researching Climate Change in an Era of Political Denial

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That the social debate around climate change is a ‘culture war’ should come as no surprise to anyone observing current political debate in Australia, the US, UK and Canada. In contrast to much of the rest of the world where climate science is rarely debated, in the Anglo-Saxon world the culture war around climate change rages on with increasing vehemence.

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Climate change, politics, Research

Making Our Planetary Suicide a ‘Rational’ Project

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Superstorm Sandy damage in Seaside Heights New Jersey (Image: Anthony Quintano)
Superstorm Sandy damage in Seaside Heights New Jersey (Image: Anthony Quintano)

Over the last year or so, Daniel Nyberg and I have been writing a paper exploring the role of political myths in underpinning corporate responses to climate change. The paper has now been published online in the journal Environmental Politics, and you can download a PDF of the article here. I’ve also presented the paper in a Sydney Environment Institute seminar (audio file below).

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Climate change, politics, Research

IPCC 2013 and Creative Self Destruction Redux

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Image: Christopher Wright
Image: Christopher Wright

Well the IPCC‘s latest scientific report has come out confirming what many of us have suspected – that anthropogenic climate change is on track with previous worst-case scenarios and the future prognosis is bleak. Given the IPCC is by its nature a conservative organisation, it seems likely that as before, the current report may well underestimate some climate impacts. Be that as it may, this is startling and confronting  to read given the import of its conclusions.

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Climate change, Events, Research

Launch of the Sydney Environment Institute

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ScreenHunter_50 Sep. 21 22.09

Last Tuesday evening I attended the launch of the new Sydney Environment Institute (SEI) at the University of Sydney. SEI is a cross-Faculty research institute which aims to address two of the key questions of our time:

  • how do we understand and redesign the fundamental relationship between human communities and the natural world that supports them; and
  • how can people and societies adapt positively to environmental change?

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Climate change, Research

Imagining Our Climate Changed Future

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Climate change has rapidly emerged as a major threat to our future. Indeed the increasingly dire projections of increasing global temperatures and escalating extreme weather events highlight the existential challenge that climate change presents for humanity.

In popular and political discourse, climate change is depicted as an environmental or ‘natural’ problem that requires ‘rational’ responses based on scientific evidence. However, there is also a need to view climate change as a social and politically embedded phenomenon, linked to patterns of production and consumption and the ideological assumptions that underpin the economic system and our collective sensemaking processes.

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Climate change, Events, Research

New research network focuses on sustainability and business

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In the decade ahead, Australia and the world will face environmental, social and financial challenges of an unprecedented scale. These include tensions between economic growth and environmental degradation, a need to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions in response to climate change, and pressure to improve social inclusion and equity in a world of significant poverty and inequity. Businesses are clearly key players when it comes to responding to these challenges, but can businesses look beyond their short-term bottom line and better balance their economic needs with social and environmental priorities?

In focusing on these issues, recently the University of Sydney Business School launched its Balanced Enterprise Research Network (BERN) which explores how business in particular, can better balance economic, environmental and social concerns and improve the well-being of a wide range of stakeholders, including employees, communities and society more generally.

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Climate change, Events, Research

Symposium on Business Responses to Climate Change

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In March this year, the Sydney Network on Climate Change and Society in association with the University of Sydney Business School organized a one-day symposium exploring how businesses as social actors have responded to the emerging climate crisis. The symposium featured a keynote address by Professor Andy Hoffman, the Holcim (US) Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan, followed by contributions from other influential academic writers on climate change, and insights from a range of business practitioners at the leading edge of corporate environmental sustainability.

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Climate change, Research

Interview: Researching Business Responses to Climate Change

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Oil Sands (Image: Pete Williamson http://www.flickr.com/photos/4blueeyes/4981183847/sizes/l/in/photostream/)
Oil Sands (Image: Pete Williamson http://www.flickr.com/photos/4blueeyes/4981183847/sizes/l/in/photostream/)

Recently I did an interview with radio station 3CR’s Beyond Zero program about my research into business responses to climate change. You can hear the interview and my thoughts on the problems of engaging business on this critical issue at the link below:

This interview coincided with the visit by Professor Andy Hoffman to the University of Sydney, where he spoke about developments in US industry on climate change action. You can hear the full interview with Andy here.

Climate change, politics, Research

Incorporating Citizens: Corporate Political Engagement with Climate Change

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Orson Welles Citizen Kane (Image: Wikimedia Commons)
Orson Welles Citizen Kane (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

Business corporations are key players in the on-going political debate surrounding climate change. In producing the goods and services of the global consumer economy, corporations are major producers of greenhouse gas emissions. However, corporations can also play a leading role in the mitigation of those emissions through increased efficiencies and the development of new technologies. As a result, the business response to climate change can often appear conflictual. ‘Corporate greening’ and innovation contrast with examples of business obfuscation and the organised funding of climate change denial (e.g. as this recent documentary outlines).

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Climate change, Research

Prof Andy Hoffman on Climate Change and Green Business

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Last month we were lucky to have Professor Andy Hoffman from the University of Michigan visit the University of Sydney Business School and present a number of talks on climate change and business responses. Andy is one of the world’s leading experts on business and climate change and has published extensively on this topic.

Above is a short interview on ABC’s Business Today program hosted by Whitney Fitzsimmons, where Andy discusses some of the business implications of climate change and related regulatory and market changes.