Clive Hamilton

Clive Hamilton "is an Australian author and public intellectual. In June 2008 he was appointed Professor of Public Ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, a joint centre of the Australian National University, Charles Sturt University and the University of Melbourne.

"For 14 years, until February 2008, he was the executive director of The Australia Institute, a progressive think tank he founded. He holds an arts degree from the Australian National University (majoring in history, psychology and pure mathematics) and an economics degree from the University of Sydney (majoring in economics and government, with first class honours in the former). He completed a doctorate at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex with a thesis titled ‘Capitalist Industrialisation in Korea’.

"Before establishing The Australia Institute he taught in the Graduate Program in the Economics of Development at the ANU then joined the Australian Public Service, first with the Bureau of Industry Economics and then at the newly formed Resource Assessment Commission. He also worked as a resource economist in Indonesia...

"He has published on a wide range of subjects but is best known for his books, a number of which have been best-sellers. They include Growth Fetish (2003), Affluenza (with Richard Denniss, 2005), What’s Left: The death of social democracy (2006), Silencing Dissent (edited with Sarah Maddison, 2007) and Scorcher: The dirty politics of climate change (2007). His latest book, titled The Freedom Paradox: Towards a post-secular ethics, was published by Allen & Unwin on 1 August 2008."

In June 2009 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia for his service to public debate and policy development.


 * Former Board Member, Climate Institute (Australia)

On March 14, 2008, Clive gave an after-dinner speech to the conference of Sustainable Population Australia titled "Comforting stories about endless growth".

His October 2009 paper, titled Is It Too Late to Prevent Catastrophic Climate Change?, asserts that "within the next several years enough warming will be locked into the system to set in train positive feedback processes that will overwhelm any attempts to cut back on carbon emissions. Humans will be powerless to stop the shift to a new climate on Earth, one much less sympathetic to life".