This year’s Byron Writers Festival will bring a fresh focus to the conversation on the environment with a wide range of sessions that will explore the real-world solutions we have available to us to address the climate crisis. In line with the festival theme of Radical Hope, you can expect to feel uplifted and leave with a renewed sense of purpose in building a greener, better future for all, say festival organisers.
‘There are strong reasons to believe that we might be about to launch the most transformative movement in history – a movement that redefines our extractive relationship with the planet, lightens our footprint and improves our lives. It might just be the luckiest time, in the luckiest country.’
– Saul Griffith
Friday
What are we looking for from future leaders? Jean Hinchcliffe, Claire O’Rourke, and Mia Thom sit down to discuss what they think our priorities need to be in the session ‘Leaders for the New Age’.
Griffith Review contributors James Bradley, Jo Chandler, and Ashley Hay take us to ‘Antarctica: The Coolest Place on Earth’, the only continent truly free of national government, where human ideas of exploration, investigation, and fantasy continue to play out.
Times of great change and challenge require us to rethink what courage looks like. ‘The Shape of Courage’ brings together three frontline agitators; student activist Jean Hinchcliffe, New York Times journalist Masha Gessen and former fire commissioner Greg Mullins to ask the question ‘What kind of heroes do we need for today and tomorrow?’
Saturday
The solutions for humanity’s greatest challenge are at our fingertips. Filmmaker Damon Gameau, inventor and engineer Saul Griffith and environmentalist Tim Hollo sit down with Sarah Wilson to discuss what our ‘Brave New Green World’ could be.
Matthew Evans, Gabrielle Chan, and Anika Molesworth explore the possibilities of ‘Regenerative Farming’ and the impacts it can have on our landscape and health.
Find out more about Australia’s role in ‘The Electric Revolution’, with author of The Big Switch Saul Griffith in conversation with Kerry O’Brien.
Science can get us only so far in our work to transform thinking about the climate crisis. Bronwyn Adcock, Ed Coper, and Joëlle Gergis discuss the work that needs to be done to convince people to make the changes that are needed in ‘The Limits of Science’.
Sunday
The future is here – we’d better get ready. What does it mean to be resilient as a community in the face of climate change? In light of recent natural disasters, Bronwyn Adcock, Elly Bird, and Greg Mullins look at how we can better prepare ourselves and recover or rebuild after major events in the session ‘Building Resilient Communities’.
In ‘The Most Urgent Task’, James Bradley, Delia Falconer, and Mykaela Saunders discuss how they use the mightiest weapon of them all – their pen – to combat the greatest challenge facing humanity.
Join female leaders Jackie Huggins, Anika Molesworth and Gina Rushton in ‘Climate Change and Gender’ for a look at how women and girls hold the keys to unlocking a green future.
Solastalgia, the grief felt for lost landscape, is something many of us experience, but perhaps don’t quite understand. In ‘Solastalgia: What We Are Losing’, Delia Falconer and Joëlle Gergis share how they are dealing with the viscerality of climate change with Sarah Wilson.
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