ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the careers of three academics who in one manner or other have embraced ecological modernization as a strategy for addressing sustainability and climate change. Tim Flannery has balanced the roles of being a popular writer, academic, museum director, Climate Commissioner in the Rudd and Gillard governments, and a key player in the Climate Council. Ross Garnaut has functioned as an academic entrepreneur over the course of his long career, serving as Ambassador to China, an advisor to the Hawke government on economic policy, and an advisor to ALP Rudd and Gillard governments on climate policy. While actually more progressive on climate action and sustainability issues than the ALP and certainly the Coalition, he has never advocated ‘leaving coal in the ground’ as have the Greens and many climate activists. Finally, Mark Diesendorf, unlike Flannery and Garnaut, as an academic situated at the University of New South Wales, has embraced the climate movement both in his writing and social activism, while at the same time being a staunch proponent of renewable energy and avowed social democrat.
