ABSTRACT
Climate change in Australia has elicited a polarized response. As elsewhere, most Australians are transfixed by the looming threats and mind-numbing scale of likely changes. Some simply deny the risk, while a few have begun to make small changes at the household scale (e.g. energy efficient light-bulbs or appliances, green power, public transportation, recycling, solar hot water) (see Slocum, 2004, for a Canadian comparison). But very few signs suggest that Australian society has begun to take the urgent action required if we are to stave off catastrophic climate change (Low, 2008). The likely consequences for the world's driest continent are dire indeed: prolonged drought and episodic rainfall, heightened storm intensity, increased flooding, extreme heatwaves and frequent bushfires, severe coastal erosion, widespread insect-borne diseases (e.g. dengue fever, malaria and Ross River virus), failing food-bowls, climate refugees, unprecedented species extirpation and, ultimately, the need to abandon some settled areas (Allen Consulting Group, 2005; Australian Greenhouse Office, 2006; Buckley, 2007; Local Government Association of Queensland, 2007).
