Professor Tim Naish, Director of the Antarctic Research Centre, and Dr Marc Wilson, an associate professor in Victoria’s School of Psychology, will discuss key aspects of Earth science and psychology around the world’s changing climate and the stormy debate it fuels.
By the year 2100, it is estimated that the world’s population will be as high as nine billion and readily recoverable oil and gas reserves will have run out. As a consequence of using fossil fuels, the Earth’s surface is on track to be more than 2°C warmer—the United Nations threshold for ‘dangerous human interference with the climate system’.
Professor Naish will address what this will mean for melting of the polar ice sheets, rising global sea levels and the trend towards more frequent catastrophic storm events.
Dr Wilson will talk on climate change belief. While the majority of climate scientists believe the climate is changing and that human activities are a key contributor, surveys suggest that a proportion of the general public still doubt that this is the case or denies it altogether.
By drawing on key aspects of human psychology, Dr Wilson will explore how people think about the world, and how these views provide foundations and set up biases which influence scientific perspectives, including those on climate change.