Тимоти Фланнери: Ученый, палеонтолог и борец за климат.

Australian scientist and global warming activist
the baseball player and coach

Timothy Fridtjof Flannery (born 28 January 1956) is an Australian mammalogist, palaeontologist, environmentalist, conservationist, explorer, author, science communicator, activist and public scientist. He was awarded Australian of the Year in 2007 for his work and advocacy on environmental issues. He is the Geneva Graduate Institute’s Fondation Segré Distinguished Visiting Professor. Flannery grew up in Sandringham, and studied English at La Trobe University in 1977. He then switched disciplines to pursue paleontology. As a researcher, Flannery had roles at several universities and museums in Australia, specialising in fossil marsupials and mammal evolution. He made notable contributions to the palaeontology of Australia and New Guinea during the 1980s, including reviewing the evolution and fossil records of Phalangeridae and Macropodidae. While mammal curator at the Australian Museum, he undertook a survey of the mammals of Melanesia, where he identified 17 previously undescribed species including several tree kangaroos. In 1994, Flannery published his first popular science book, The Future Eaters, on the natural history of Australasia. It became a bestseller and was adapted for television. He has since written more than 27 books on natural history and environmental topics, including Throwim Way Leg and Chasing Kangaroos, and has appeared on television and in the media. After becoming increasingly concerned about climate change, Flannery later became prominent for his role in communication, research and advocacy around the issue, particularly in his native Australia. He spent five years writing The Weather Makers (2005) on the topic. In 2011, he was appointed the Chief Commissioner of the Climate Commission, a federal government body providing information on climate change to the Australian public, until its abolition by the Abbott government in 2013. Flannery and other sacked commissioners later formed the independent Climate Council, which continues to communicate independent climate science to the Australian public. An environmentalist and conservationist, Flannery is a supporter of climate change mitigation, renewable energy transition, phasing out coal power and rewilding.

Flannery was raised in a Catholic family along with his two sisters in the Melbourne suburb of Sandringham, close to Port Phillip Bay. He described himself as a "solitary" child, spending time looking for fossils and learning to fish and scuba dive. He said he first became aware of marine pollution and its effects on living organisms during this period. He attended Catholic school, and later said that he did not enjoy it and became an atheist. He was expelled in year 12 for suggesting a prominent abortion activist be invited to speak to counter the anti abortionist views at the school, but was later allowed to return after an intervention from his father. After being impressed by Flannery's knowledge of natural history, palaeontologist Tom Rich and his wife encouraged him to pursue the subject, and Flannery went on to complete a Master of Science degree in Earth Science at Monash University in 1981. He then left Melbourne for Sydney, enjoying its subtropical climate and species diversity. In 1984, Flannery earned a PhD at the University of New South Wales in Palaeontology for his work on the evolution and fossils of macropods under palaeontologist Mike Archer. At age 26, he was hired by the mammalogy department of the Australian Museum, and took his first trips to Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and elsewhere, later becoming mammal curator at the museum. In 2007, Flannery became professor in the Climate Risk Concentration of Research Excellence at Macquarie University. He left Macquarie University in mid 2013. Flannery is also a member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, and a Governor of WWF Australia. He was also for a time director of the Australian Wildlife Conservancy. He has contributed to over 143 scientific papers. Until mid 2013 he was a professor at Macquarie University and held the Panasonic Chair in Environmental Sustainability.

Flannery rarely discusses his personal life publicly. after this living location was revealed by broadcaster Ray Hadley he received threats and was given police protection. He has described himself as a non political person, In 1985, he had a role in the ground breaking discovery of Cretaceous fossil monotreme Steropodon, the first Mesozoic mammal fossil discovered in Australia. This find extended the Australian mammal fossil record back 80 million years. As part of his doctoral studies, he reviewed the evolution of Macropodidae and described 29 new fossil species, including 11 new genera and three new subfamilies. Sir David's long beaked echidna and the Telefomin cuscus. He also found living specimens of the Bulmer's fruit bat, which were previously thought extinct. In the 1990s, Flannery published The Mammals of New Guinea (Cornell Press) and Prehistoric Mammals of Australia and New Guinea (Johns Hopkins Press), the most comprehensive reference works on the subjects. Flannery's work prompted Sir David Attenborough to describe him as being "in the league of the all time great explorers like Dr David Livingstone". In 2022, Flannery was a co author on new research on the origins of monotremes.

In the 1990s, Flannery observed a change in the elevational range of trees while doing fieldwork in New Guinea, and realised it was likely to be a climate change impact. He subsequently began working on climate change more seriously and shifted to campaigning and publicly communicating about climate change from the 2000s. Some of Flannery's academic peers were also initially critical of Flannery for speaking outside of his primary area of expertise. As of 2021, he had attended six United Nations Climate Change conferences in official government roles and as an observer. He was a member of the Queensland Climate Change Council established by the Queensland Minister for Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation Andrew McNamara. He was chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council, an international group of business and other leaders that coordinated a business response to climate change and assisted the Danish government in the lead up to COP15. to discuss the links between climate change and the unprecedented bushfires, stating, "I am absolutely certain that [the bushfires are] climate change caused."

In February 2011, it was announced that Flannery had been appointed to head the Climate Commission established by Prime Minister Julia Gillard to explain climate change and the need for a carbon price to the public. The commission was a panel of leading scientists and business experts whose mandate was to provide an "independent and reliable" source of information for all Australians. Following the election of the Abbott government in the 2013 Australian federal election, on 19 September 2013 Flannery was sacked from his position as head of the Climate Commission in a phone call from new Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt. "It was a short and courteous conversation," Flannery recalls. "I'm pretty sure that cabinet hadn't been convened when they did it. My very strong recollection is that it was [the Abbott Government's] very first act in government The website that we'd spent a lot of time building was taken down with absolutely no justification as far as I could see. It was giving basic information that was being used by many, many people—teachers and others—just to gain a better understanding of what climate science was actually about." It was also announced that the commission would be dismantled and its remit handled by the Department of Environment.

By 6 October 2013, Flannery and the other commissioners had launched a new body called the Climate Council. Flannery told ABC News that the organisation stated that it had the same goals as the former Climate Commission, to provide independent information on the science of climate change. Amanda McKenzie was appointed as CEO. Between 24 September and 6 October the new Climate Council had raised $1 million in funding from a public appeal, sufficient to keep the organisation operating for 12 months. The Climate Council continues to exist based on donations from the general public.

Flannery has appeared in several series for ABC Television, including several travel documentary collaborations with comedian John Doyle. Two Men In A Tinnie focused on the pair travelling down the Murray River, and Two in the Top End in the Kimberley. In January 2018, Flannery appeared on the ABC's Science program exploring whether humans are becoming a new 'Mass Extinction Event', in addition to outlining the '5 Things You Need to Know About Climate Change'. Flannery also appeared in the 2021 documentary film Burning, about the Black Summer bushfires.

In response to the introduction of proposed clean coal technology, Flannery has stated: "Globally there has got to be some areas where clean coal will work out, so I think there will always be a coal export industry [for Australia] Locally in Australia because of particular geological issues and because of the competition from cleaner and cheaper energy alternatives, I'm not 100 per cent sure clean coal is going to work out for our domestic market." Flannery has advocated for a renewable energy transition in Australia. In 2006 Flannery was in support of nuclear power as a possible solution for reducing Australia's carbon emissions; however, in 2007 changed his position against it. In May 2007 he told a business gathering in Sydney that while nuclear energy does have a role elsewhere in the world, Australia's abundance of renewable resources rule out the need for nuclear power in the near term. He does, however, feel that Australia should and will have to supply its uranium to those other countries that do not have access to renewables like Australia does.

In September 2005 Flannery said, "There are hot rocks in South Australia that potentially have enough embedded energy in them to run Australia's economy for the best part of a century". For the Cooper Basin, he proposed the establishment of a fully sustainable city where, "hundreds of thousands of people would live", utilising these geothermal energy reserves. He named the hypothetical city "Geothermia". Subsequently, in 2007, an exploration company was established. The company expected to raise at least $11.5m on the Australian Stock Exchange. Flannery took up shares in the company. In 2010, the Federal Government provided the company with another $90m for the development work. In August 2016, the geothermal energy project closed as it was not financially viable.

Flannery advocated for human population planning in Australia in the 1990s. He said in 2007 that he had stopped discussing population issues, as he said he did not think curbing population growth was a solution to climate change.

In 2009, Flannery joined the project "Soldiers of Peace", a move against all wars and for a global peace. In July 2018 he played a role in the Kwaio Reconciliation programme in the Solomon Islands, which put an end to a 91 year old cycle of killings that stemmed from the murders in 1927 of British Colonial officers Bell and Gillies by Kwaio leader Basiana and his followers.