Experience Anu

Ten years after his internationally bestselling The Weather Makers, acclaimed scientist and author Tim Flannery argues that Earth's climate system is approaching a crisis. Catastrophe is not inevitable, but time is fast running out. In the lead-up to the United Nations Climate Change Summit to be held in Paris in December, Atmosphere of Hope provides both a snapshot of the trouble we are in and an up-to-the-minute analysis of some of the new possibilities for mitigating climate change that are emerging now.

In The Luck of Politics, The Hon Dr Andrew Leigh MP weaves together numbers and stories to show the many ways luck can change the course of political events.This is a book full of fascinating facts and intriguing findings. Why is politics more like poker than chess? Does the length of your surname affect your political prospects? What about your gender? The Hon Dr Andrew Leigh MP is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer and Federal Member for Fraser in the ACT. Prior to being elected in 2010, Andrew was a professor of economics at The Australian National University.

When Dr Neil deGrasse Tyson was on campus last month he sat down for a conversation with Nobel laureate Professor Brian Schmidt to discuss the importance of science, the democratisation of space and the possibility of alien life.

Chris Bowen speaks about his latest book 'The Money Men' an in-depth look at the twelve most notable and interesting men to have held the office of Treasurer of Australia. This talk brings a unique insider perspective to the lessons learned from the successes and failures of those who went before him. The Hon Chris Bowen was appointed Treasurer by Kevin Rudd in 2013 and is the current Shadow Treasurer.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report is the world's most comprehensive evaluation of climate change, its potential impacts and the choices we have for responding to it. The report provides leaders with a scientific basis for developing strategies to address climate change. Most importantly, it will be the leading scientific document to inform negotiations at the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP 21) in December 2015, at which negotiators will try to reach a global climate agreement. Whilst the report finds that human influence on the climate system is clear, we do have the means to limit climate change and build a more prosperous, sustainable future. Speakers: Professor Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, IPCC Vice-Chair: Overview of the Fifth Assessment Report Dr Youba Sokona, IPCC Co Chair Working Group III: Mitigation of Climate Change Dr Andy Reisinger, IPCC Lead Author: Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability: focus on Australia Dr Debra Rob

Professor Sir Richard Evans talks about German history and his advice for budding historians. Sir Richard Evans is Regius Professor Emeritus of History and President of Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, and Provost of Gresham College, London. His publications include Altered Pasts: Counterfactuals in History; The Coming of the Third Reich; The Third Reich in Power; The Third Reich at War; Telling Lies about Hitler and In Defence of History.

On average, people who live, or have lived, in a Mr Fluffy house probably have higher exposure to asbestos than other Australians. How much this higher exposure increases their risk of asbestos-related disease is uncertain. There is very limited evidence on the level of asbestos exposure in Mr Fluffy houses. Most of the evidence on the health effects of asbestos comes from studies of people heavily exposed to asbestos in their workplace; and extrapolating from effects at high levels of exposure to effects at low levels requires uncertain assumptions. In this lecture, Professor Bruce Armstrong reviews background evidence on health effects of asbestos and their importance in Australia, discuss what is known of the frequency of these effects at low levels of exposure, make an estimate of the risk of mesothelioma to people who live or have lived in a Mr Fluffy house, and briefly describe research currently being done to permit more certain estimates.

Australia is a world leader in tobacco control and currently has one of the lowest rates of smoking in the world. Reliable quantitative evidence on the relationship of tobacco smoking to mortality in Australia has not been previously available, and has the potential to contribute to what is known internationally about the contemporary risks of smoking. Professor Emily Banks presents data on the smoking epidemic, and its health consequences, internationally. It will provide details of a large-scale prospective cohort study involving 204,953 individuals aged 45 years and over from the general population of New South Wales: the 45 and Up Study. This study found that current smokers were three times more likely to die during the 4 year follow-up period than people who had never smoked. Smokers are estimated to die an average of 10 years earlier than non-smokers and up to two-thirds of deaths in current smokers can be attributed to smoking. These findings show that the harms of smoking in Australia, and the bene

The specter of massive inequality is haunting modern capitalism, with a small elite – the 1%, 0.01%, 0.001% of billionaires and financiers and the like – gaining the bulk of the benefits of modern economic growth and using their wealth to dominate economies and politics. In virtually every country, labor's share of income has fallen and inequality has increased massively. What, if anything, can we do to restore a more egalitarian distribution of income, with a strong middle class, and restore the historic link between growth of productivity and real wages? This talk argues that the answer lies in wider ownership of capital and worker participation in decisions at their workplace and firm. It gives the evidence that this solution works and lays out ways to get from here to there. Richard B. Freeman holds the Herbert Ascherman Chair in Economics at Harvard University and is currently Faculty co-Director of the Labor and Worklife Program at the Harvard Law School. He directs the National Bureau of Economic Rese

From one of the leading thinkers of our time comes a landmark book on the case for constitutional reform - No Small Change: The Road to Recognition for Indigenous Australia by Frank Brennan. This timely book is a stark reminder of the tainted relationship between successive governments, lawmen and Indigenous Australians, but also a provocative lesson on what we can learn from the past. Brennan unpacks the laws and philosophies from terra nullius, protectionism and forced assimilation to the 1967 referendum, land rights, self-determination and beyond. Rigorous, accessible, and insightful, No Small Change is a profound document that has the power to change our nation's future. Frank Brennan is a Jesuit priest, professor of law at the Australian Catholic University, and adjunct professor at the ANU College of Law and the ANU National Centre for Indigenous Studies. Professor Brennan has been actively committed to Indigenous reconciliation, justice and recognition for over 30 years.

Along with the increase in focus on the need for policymakers and the community to implement and support initiatives on countering violent extremism, there has been a tendency to put migration high on the agenda too. The phenomenon of foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria – small in number but significant in political impact – is at risk of dominating the migration and security discussion. Recent events in Australia and Europe are causing some to reflect on the apparent failures of integration that have radicalised some immigrants and their descendants. There may be some who are drawing a line uncritically between irregular migration, asylum and the risk of importing terrorism. Each of the links between migration and violent extremism is relevant and needs to be understood and confronted; but to cast migration as only a negative influence would be erroneous. In this talk, Dr Koser will outline key aspects of the broader migration and security discussion and how it is changing as well as discuss some ideas abo

Are we headed for a geological event horizon? Dr Andrew Glikson explains how the rise of atmospheric greenhouse gases of 2-3 parts per million CO2 per year has reached an order of magnitude similar to rates associated with mass extinctions of species. Dr Andrew Glikson, an Earth and paleo-climate scientist, graduated from the University of Western Australia. He has conducted geological surveys of the oldest geological formations in Australia, South Africa, India and Canada, studied large asteroid impacts, including effects on the atmosphere, the oceans and the mass extinction of species.

Michael Cooney was Julia Gillard's speechwriter for most of her time in office. He came to the job a true believer in every sense, with years of Labor experience behind him, including Policy Director to Federal Labor leaders Kim Beazley and Mark Latham. But this was the prime minister's office. The stakes were high and the game had changed. From mining to the economy to Afghanistan, Cooney wrote the speeches that helped to define the Gillard project: the prime minister's program and vision for the country. He was there at the coalface of decisions on the carbon 'tax' and the budget surplus; in the lead-up to the 'misogyny' speech and the 'we are us' Labor conference speech. He cried and laughed and swore as Australia's first female prime minister got through a record number of pieces of legislation in the time she had. This is his story, and hers.

One in five of the world's population is Chinese, 300 million Chinese are under 30, and of these, most are only children as a result of the One Child Policy. What do these only children think and do? A generation burdened with high expectation and unprepared for responsibility. With journalistic acumen and a novelist's flair, Xinran tells the remarkable stories of men and women born and raised under China's single-child policy. Xinran shows how these generations embody the hopes and fears of a great nation at a time of unprecedented change. Buy Me the Sky provides an illuminating glimpse of the face of modern China.

In this talk Professor John C Turner, from the School of Psychology at The Australian National University, poses the basic question, "what is the nature of "prejudice"?

If Australian politics and public policy debates are a war of ideas, the National Press Club (NPC) is the battleground. For the past half-century, the NPC has been the epicentre of political and social debate in Australia. Leaders and opinion-makers have used its stage to launch leadership bids, rattle the cage of public opinion with courageous and sometimes outrageous ideas, and make a stand. Stand & Deliver author Steve Lewis joins political historian Frank Bongiorno in conversation to discuss some of the NPC's most powerful, controversial and entertaining speeches of the past fifty years. Steve Lewis has been reporting politics in Canberra since 1992 and has survived the near collapse of the Fairfax media group, three prime ministers, Mark Latham and a career switch from The Financial Review to the News Ltd tabloids. Steve now writes freelance and works for Newgate Communications. Associate Professor Frank Bongiorno is an Australian labour, political and cultural historian who teaches at the ANU.

The South China Sea is a major strategic waterway for trade and energy shipments to Asia’s major economies. It has been the focus of maritime disputes which have continued for more than six decades, with competing claims from China, Vietnam, the Philippines and others. In recent years, growing Chinese assertiveness in pressing its claims has unsettled the regional security order, drawing the attention of the United States, Australia and other powers concerned about freedom of navigation and a rules-based order. The springboard for this discussion is the recently published book, edited by Leszek Buszynski and Christopher Roberts, which examines the South China Sea as an ongoing maritime dispute which has become a potential conflict zone. This volume is the final outcome of a National Security College collaborative research project, which involved a number of present and former academic staff from both the College and the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at ANU. The book examines the conflict potential of

When Kate Grenville’s mother, Nance Russell, died she left behind many fragments of memoir. These were the starting point for One Life, the story of a woman whose life spanned a century of tumult and change. Nance’s story reflects the changing patterns of the twentieth century which offered a path to new freedoms and choices. One Life is an act of great imaginative sympathy, a deeply moving homage to her mother by one of Australia’s finest writers. It provides an illuminating window into Australia’s social history, including attitudes to Aborigines, the role of women and the impact of politics and class. “Evocative and fascinating, this brave and heartfelt tribute will appeal to anyone interested in their own family story, Australian history, or the lives of women”. Joanne Shields, Australian Books and Publishing. Kate Grenville is one of Australia’s most celebrated writers. Her bestselling novel The Secret River received the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the

The belief that China will soon become the dominant power in Asia is based on assumptions that its continued and rapid economic rise, and its emergence as a regional peer of America’s in military terms is all but assured. Such a belief underpins arguments that a fundamental strategic reorganisation of Asia is inevitable, and that it will be necessary and perhaps even desirable to concede to China significant ‘strategic space’. Dependent largely on linear extrapolations about the future, such arguments ignore the implications of China’s economic, social and national fragilities, its lack of major friends or allies in the region as well as the considerable military deficiencies and challenges faced by the People’s Liberation Army. With the Defence White Paper due for release in 2015, the government should bear in mind that planning for an era of Chinese dominance in the region—or even its emergence as an American strategic peer in Asia—would be premature if not improbable. Australia should not design its defenc

ANU/Canberra Times meet the author event with Anna Bligh in conversation with The Hon Tanya Plibersek MP Anna Bligh knows something about hard knocks and high walls. She was raised by a single mother in the working class Gold Coast, a young girl with a soon-to-be-estranged dad who struggled with alcoholism. She spent over 17 years in the rough and tumble of the Queensland Parliament (seven of them as either Deputy Premier or Premier). In 2011, she led Queensland through the devastation of Australia's largest natural disasters. Her Party then lost the 2012 State election and Anna stepped down to start a new life, only to find herself diagnosed with cancer. Writing with her trademark honesty, warmth and humour about the challenges that public and private life have thrown her, Anna reflects candidly - as a wife, mother, daughter, friend and political leader - on the lessons of leadership, resilience, community and family. Anna Bligh became Deputy Premier of Queensland in 2005 and Premier in 2007. In March