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[6] including several tree kangaroos.[7]
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.
Flannery was raised in a Catholic family along with his two sisters in the Melbourne suburb of Sandringham, close to Port Phillip Bay.[8] 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.[8][9] 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.[10]
Academic career
After failing to achieve the required school marks to study science,[8] Flannery completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in English at La Trobe University in 1977.[11] 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.[10] He then left Melbourne for Sydney, enjoying its subtropical climate and species diversity.[12] 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.[8][13]
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.[14][10] He took 15 trips in total to New Guinea (both Papua New Guinea and Irian Jaya) starting in 1981 and into the 1990s, working closely with local tribes to undertake fieldwork, which he later recounted in Throwin Way Leg (1998).[14][15] A tapeworm he sent to a parasitologist following one trip was revealed to be a new species, and was later named Burtiela flanneryi after him.[15]
Flannery is a professorial fellow at the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne.[19] Until mid-2013 he was a professor at Macquarie University and held the Panasonic Chair in Environmental Sustainability.[20]
Personal life and family
Flannery rarely discusses his personal life publicly.[10][14] He met his first wife Paula Kendall while at La Trobe in the 1970s.[14] Flannery and Kendall's house south of Sydney was destroyed in a bushfire in 1994.[14] He has two children with Kendall; the couple separated in 1996.[14][10] He owns a house with a solar hot water system at Coba Point on the Hawkesbury River, 40 km (25 mi) north of Sydney, accessible only by boat;[21] after this living location was revealed by broadcaster Ray Hadley he received threats and was given police protection.[10] His second wife is anthropologist Alexandra Szalay.[14] He has a third child with his partner Kate Holden, an author. He moved to Victoria to be with her in 2014.[10]
In addition to writing non-fiction, he has also written unpublished works of fiction.[22] He has described himself as a non-political person,[10] and a humanist, rather than atheist.[8]
Scientific contributions
Palaeontology
In 1980, Flannery discovered an Allosauriddinosaur fossil on the southern coast of Victoria, the first from the family known from Australia.[23] In 1985, he had a role in the ground-breaking discovery of Cretaceous fossil monotreme Steropodon, the first Mesozoic mammal fossil discovered in Australia.[24] This find extended the Australian mammal fossil record back 80 million years.[24] During the 1980s, Flannery described most of the known Pleistocene megafaunal species in New Guinea as well as the fossil record of the phalangerids, a family of possums.[25] 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.[25]
Mammalogy
Dendrolagus mbaiso, a tree kangaroo species first described by Flannery.
Through the 1990s, Flannery surveyed the mammals of Melanesia—identifying more than 30 species—and took a leading role in conservation efforts in the region.[25] He also identified at least 17 previously undescribed species[15] during his 15 trips,[14] includes the Dingiso,[26]Sir David's long-beaked echidna[27] and the Telefomin cuscus.[28] He also found living specimens of the Bulmer's fruit bat, which were previously thought extinct.[15] 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.[15]
In 2022, Flannery was a co-author on new research on the origins of monotremes.[31]
Climate change communication
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[32] and shifted to campaigning and publicly communicating about climate change from the 2000s.[14]
Flannery's prominence in raising awareness around the subject, and efforts to oppose climate change denial, have occasionally attracted hostility from the media.[14][33] Some of Flannery's academic peers were also initially critical of Flannery for speaking outside of his primary area of expertise.[14] When discussing this in 2009, Flannery said that climate change science was a less established field earlier in his career and experts from multiple fields had shifted to respond to the issue, and said he feels publicly funded scientists are obliged to communicate their work and be vocal on important issues.[14] In 2015, the Jack P. Blaney Award for Dialogue recognised Flannery for using dialogue and authentic engagement to build global consensus for action around climate change.[34] As of 2021, he had attended six United Nations Climate Change conferences in official government roles and as an observer.[32]
In 2002, Flannery was appointed as chair of South Australia's Environmental Sustainability Board and was an advisor on climate change to South Australian Premier Mike Rann.[35] He was a member of the Queensland Climate Change Council established by the Queensland Minister for Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation Andrew McNamara.[36]
Flannery has frequently discussed the effects of climate change, particularly on Australia, and advocated for its mitigation.[38] During the devastating Black Summer bushfires of 2019–20, Flannery frequently appeared in the media[39][40][41] to discuss the links between climate change and the unprecedented bushfires, stating, "I am absolutely certain that [the bushfires are] climate change caused."[42]
Climate Commission
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.[43] 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.[44]
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."[45] It was also announced that the commission would be dismantled and its remit handled by the Department of Environment.[46][47]
Climate Council
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.[48] The Climate Council continues to exist based on donations from the general public.
Flannery describes the evolution of the first wave of future-eaters:
Sixty thousand or more years ago human technology was developing at what we would consider to be an imperceptible pace. Yet it was fast enough to give the first Australasians complete mastery over the 'new lands'. Freed from the ecological constraints of their homeland and armed with weapons honed in the relentless arms race of Eurasia, the colonisers of the 'new lands' were poised to become the world’s first future eaters.[50]
The Future Eaters enjoyed strong sales and critical acclaim. Redmond O'Hanlon, a Times Literary Supplement correspondent said that "Flannery tells his beautiful story in plain language, science popularising at its antipodean best". Fellow activist David Suzuki praised Flannery's "powerful insight into our current destructive path". Some experts disagreed with Flannery's thesis, however, concerned that his broad-based approach, ranging across multiple disciplines, ignored counter-evidence and was overly simplistic.[52]
The Future Eaters was adapted into a documentary series for ABC Television.[53]
The Weather Makers
While reading scientific journals more widely during his tenure at South Australian Museum, Flannery became increasingly alarmed by anthropogenic climate change.[14] He spent five years writing a book on the topic.[14] This culminated in The Weather Makers: The History & Future Impact of Climate Change published in 2005, in which he outlined the science behind climate change for a general audience.[14] "With great scientific advances being made every month, this book is necessarily incomplete," Flannery writes, but "That should not, however, be used as an excuse for inaction. We know enough to act wisely."
that a failure to act on climate change may eventually force the creation of a global carbon dictatorship, which he calls the "Earth Commission for Thermostatic Control", to regulate carbon use across all industries and nations—a level of governmental intrusion that Flannery describes as "very undesirable";[55] and
the establishment of "Geothermia"[56]—a new city at the NSW-South Australia-Queensland border—to take advantage of the location's abundance of natural gas reserves, geothermal and solar energy. Flannery argues that such a city could be completely energy self-sufficient, and would be a model for future city development worldwide. Of the city project, Flannery told The Bulletin that "I know it's radical but we have no choice".
The book won international acclaim. Bill Bryson concluded that "It would be hard to imagine a better or more important book." The Weather Makers was honoured in 2006 as 'Book of the Year' at the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards.[57]James Hansen reviewed the book positively.[58] Released not long before An Inconvenient Truth, the book came at a time when climate change was becoming more prominent topic in public opinion and increased Flannery's profile.[14] A review in NPR outlined how Flannery had sought to settle debate and controversy about climate change that was prominent at the time.[54]
Other works
Flannery has published more than 27 books.[59] He recounted his scientific fieldwork and experiences with local tribal people in New Guinea in Throwim Way Leg (1999).[15] He later released an account of his work in Australia in Chasing Kangaroos (2007).[60]
Following The Future Eaters on Australasia, he has published popular science books recounting the natural histories of North America in The Eternal Frontier (2001)[64] and Europe in Europe: A Natural History (2018).[65]
In August 2017 Flannery hosted an episode of ABC Catalyst investigating how carefully managed seaweed growth could contribute to combating climate change via the sequestration of atmospheric carbon to the ocean floor. This explored the details of the book he published in July 2017, Sunlight and Seaweed: An Argument for How to Feed, Power and Clean Up the World.[66] In January 2018, Flannery appeared on the ABC's Science program exploring whether humans are becoming a new 'Mass Extinction Event',[67] in addition to outlining the '5 Things You Need to Know About Climate Change'.[68] Flannery also appeared in the 2021 documentary film Burning, about the Black Summer bushfires.[69]
Views and advocacy
I’ve always attracted a lot of negative publicity. One of the things I do, I think, is challenge the status quo – whether it be climate change, or interpreting Australia’s past. And the status quo is there for a good reason: a lot of people benefit from it, and in challenging it, you inevitably make enemies.[14]
Tim Flannery
Flannery's work in raising the profile of environmental issues was key to his being named Australian of the Year in 2007.[70] Awarding the prize, former Prime Minister John Howard said that the scientist "has encouraged Australians into new ways of thinking about our environmental history and future ecological challenges."[38] That said, Howard—who was a climate denier at the time—was unconvinced as to some of Flannery's views.[14]
In May 2004, Flannery said in light of the city's water crisis that "I think there is a fair chance Perth will be the 21st century's first ghost metropolis",[73] a warning reiterated in 2007.[74] In 2005, he issued several warnings about water issues in Australia, saying "water is going to be in short supply across the eastern states".[75] In June 2005 warning that "the ongoing drought could leave Sydney's dams dry in just two years".[71][76]
In October 2006 Flannery quoted a US Navy study stating that, there may be, "no Arctic icecap in Summer in the next five to 15 years. He also quoted NASA's Professor James Hansen, "arguably the world authority on climate change" who said, "we have just a decade to avert a 25-metre rise of the sea".[77] In February 2007, as he explained how increased soil evaporation impacts on runoff, he said "even the [existing amount of] rain that falls isn't actually going to fill our dams and our river systems"[78] and in June 2007, he said that, "Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane, water supplies are so low they need desalinated water urgently, possibly in as little as 18 months".[79]
In May 2008, Flannery suggested that sulphur could be dispersed into the atmosphere to help block the sun leading to global dimming, in order to counteract the effects of global warming.[80]
In 2019, Flannery said, "Sadly, I've been aware of [the urgency to act] for a long time. We have to reduce emissions as hard and fast as possible... The speed and scale of impacts have been something that is really shocking." He continued to warn people that, "People are shocked, but they should be angry...The consequences will grow year by year, and stuff we were warning people about 20 years ago is now coming to fruition and is impossible to deny, unless you are wilfully blind."[81] He also said that climate activism during the previous two decades had been a "colossal failure", but praised Greta Thunberg, school strikes for climate and Extinction Rebellion for their impact on the climate movement during the 2010s.[72]
Energy
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."[82]
In 2006 Flannery was in support of nuclear power as a possible solution for reducing Australia's carbon emissions;[84][85] however, in 2007 changed his position against it.[86] 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.[87]
Geothermia
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".[88][89] 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".[56][90] Subsequently, in 2007, an exploration company was established. The company expected to raise at least $11.5m on the Australian Stock Exchange.[91] Flannery took up shares in the company.[92] In 2010, the Federal Government provided the company with another $90m for the development work.[93] In August 2016, the geothermal energy project closed as it was not financially viable.[94][95]
Hunting and whaling
When, in the concluding chapters of The Future Eaters (1994), Flannery discusses how to "utilise our few renewable resources in the least destructive way", he remarks that
A far better situation for conservation in Australia would result from a policy which allows exploitation of all of our biotic heritage, provided that it all be done in a sustainable manner. ... [I]f it is possible to harvest for example, 10 mountain pygmy-possums (Burramys parvus) or 10 southern right whales (Balaena glacialis) per year, why should we not do it? ... Is it more moral to kill and consume a whale, without cost to the environment, than to live as a vegetarian in Australia, destroying seven kilograms of irreplaceable soil, ... for each kilogram of bread we consume?[96]
In terms of sustainability, you can't be sure that the Japanese whaling is entirely unsustainable... It's hard to imagine that the whaling would lead to a new decline in population [...][97]
This raised concerns among some environmental groups such as Greenpeace,[98][99] fearing it could add fuel to the Japanese wish of continuing its annual cull. In contrast to his stance on the minke whale quota, Flannery has expressed relief over the dumping of the quota of the rarer humpback whale,[97] and further was worried how whales were slaughtered, wishing them to be "killed as humanely as possible".[100] Flannery suggested that krill and other small crustaceans, the primary food source for many large whales and an essential part of the marine food chain, were of greater concern than the Japanese whaling.[100]
In The Future Eaters, Flannery was critical of the European settlers introducingnon-native wild animals into Australia's ecosystem. At the same time, he suggested that if one wanted to reproduce, in some parts of Australia, the ecosystems that existed there around 60,000 years ago (before the arrival of the humans on the continent), it may be necessary to introduce into Australia, in a thoughtful and careful way, some non-native species that would be the closest substitutes to the continent's lost megafauna. In particular, he proposed the Komodo dragon be brought into Australia as a replacement for its extinct relative, Megalania, "the largest goanna of all time". He also suggested the Tasmanian devil could be allowed to re-settle the mainland Australia from its Tasmanian refuge area.[101][non-primary source needed]
In The Eternal Frontier, Flannery made a proposal for what later became nicknamed "Pleistocene rewilding": restoring the ecosystems that existed in North America before the arrival of the Clovis people and the concomitant disappearance of the North American Pleistocene megafauna 13,000 years ago. He proposed if, in addition to the wolves that have been already re-introduced to Yellowstone National Park, ambush predators, such as jaguars and lions should be reintroduced as well, in order to bring the number of elk under control. Furthermore, the closest extant relatives of the species that became extinct around the Clovis period could be introduced to North America's nature reserves as well. In particular, the Indian and African elephants could substitute, respectively, for the mammoth and the mastodon; the Chacoan peccary, for its extinct cousin the flat-headed peccary (Platygonus compressus). Llamas and panthers, which still survive outside of the US, should too be brought back to that country.[102][non-primary source needed]
Human population
Flannery advocated for human population planning in Australia in the 1990s.[51] He has been a patron of Sustainable Population Australia since 2000.[103] 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.[22] In 2009, Flannery called for an inquiry into population growth in Australia, to better elucidate the potential environmental impacts of the country's growing population.[104]
Humanitarian issues
In 2009, Flannery joined the project "Soldiers of Peace", a move against all wars and for a global peace.[105][106]
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.[107]
Awards
Edgeworth David Medal for outstanding research in zoology
Tim Flannery (2001), The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America and its Peoples (ISBN0-8021-3888-8).
John A. Long, Michael Archer, Tim Flannery and Suzanne Hand (2002), Prehistoric Mammals of Australia and New Guinea: One Hundred Million Years of Evolution, Johns Hopkins Press (ISBN978-0-801872-23-5).
Tim Flannery (2011), Among the Islands: Adventures in the Pacific (ISBN978-1-921758-75-1).
Tim Flannery (2015), Atmosphere of Hope: Searching for Solutions to the Climate Crisis, Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press (ISBN978-0802124067).[115] Published in the United Kingdom with the title Atmosphere of Hope: Solutions to the Climate Crisis, Penguin Books (ISBN9780141981048).
Tim Flannery (2017), Sunlight and Seaweed: An Argument for How to Feed, Power and Clean Up the World
Tim Flannery (2018), Europe: A Natural History, Text Publishing, ISBN9781925603941
Tim Flannery (2019), Life: Selected Writings, Text Publishing, ISBN9781922268297
Tim Flannery (2020), The Climate Cure: Solving the Climate Emergency in the Era of COVID-19, Text Publishing, ISBN9781922330352
Monica L. Smith, Cities: The First 6,000 Years, Viking, 2019
James C. Scott, Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States, Yale University Press, 2017
Tim Flannery, "In the Soup" (review of Michael Marshall, The Genesis Quest: The Geniuses and Eccentrics on a Journey to Uncover the Origins of Life on Earth, University of Chicago Press, 360 pp.), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXVII, no. 19 (3 December 2020), pp. 37–38.
^Helgen, K. M. (2005). "Systematics of the Pacific monkey-faced bats (Chiroptera : Pteropodidae), with a new species of Pteraloplex and a new Fijian genus". Systematics and Biodiversity, 3(4): 433–453.
