Guy Pearse

Guy Pearse "is an Australian author, environmental advocate and consultant based in southern New South Wales. He grew up in Townsville and was educated at James Cook University (BA Hons), Harvard (MPP), and the ANU (PhD).

"Pearse was a member of the Liberal Party for 19 years and worked for various Liberal politicians. He was speechwriter for former environment minister, Robert Hill. He has been a lobbyist and adviser for numerous industries and environmental organisations, and a consultant to the Australian Greenhouse Office. While studying at the Kennedy School of Government and Harvard Business School in the mid 1990s, Pearse also worked on the advance staff of Nobel Laureate and then US Vice President, Al Gore.

"Pearse's doctoral research (1999-2005) uncovered damning evidence of the influence of the carbon lobby on the Howard government--including admissions by lobbyists that they were writing cabinet submissions and ministerial briefings that ought to be written by public servants. Pearse raised his growing concerns about this influence and the direction of Australia's greenhouse response with senior figures in the Howard government to no avail. An unlikely whistleblower, he decided the public interest in an urgent response to climate change was more important than his partisan affiliation, his plans for a political career and his comfortable living as a lobbyist.

"He made the fateful decision to go public and his PhD thesis was the basis for the "Greenhouse Mafia" episode of ABC's Four Corners in February 2006. In 2007, after his research and concerns were dismissed by his former political colleagues he exposed the dirty politics behind Australia's response to climate change in much greater detail in High & Dry: John Howard, climate change and the selling of Australia's future. In the 2007 election campaign that saw the Liberal Party defeated, Pearse openly campaigned against the Howard government on the basis of its greenhouse policies. He continues to advocate a much stronger response by Australia to climate change, and in late 2008 he joined the Australian Greens."

Books

 * Guy Pearse, Quarry Vision: Coal, Climate Change and the End of the Resources Boom (Black Inc., 2009).