#FrontlineLive: experts answer your questions on the impacts of the climate emergency
Written by Naaman Zhou
To mark the end of The frontline series – a panel of experts will answer your questions on the climate emergency and how it is already affecting Australia.
Ask Prof Lesley Hughes, Greg Mullins, Prof Michael Mann and Assoc Prof Donna Green your questions, and see the answers on our liveblog. Email [email protected] or tweet #frontlinelive
11.08pm GMT
And our first question is in.
ErikFrederiksen asks via comment:
A few years ago a NY Times reporter wrote that some climate scientists had told him they held more pessimistic views than they felt comfortable expressing in public. My question to a scientist would be: Do you find this to be typical and do you feel this to be true about yourself?
The best way I can think of to answer this question is a quote from Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Marxist politician from last century who wrote about the tension between the “pessimism of the intellect and the optimism of the will”.
What this means is that most of us (I think) simultaneously hold a lot of very negative thoughts in our heads about the consequences of climate change, as we confront the facts. But at the same time, to be truly pessimistic is to give up – and if we give up, we really are lost. I have come around to thinking that hope is far more than an emotion, it is also a fundamental strategy. We must go forward in hope if we are to have any chance of saving life on Earth. Ultimately this means that at times we might not express as pessimistic a view in public as we feel inside. We need to inspire and motivate, at the same time as being as honest as possible. This is a tightrope to walk!
11.05pm GMT
Hello and good morning. Over the past three weeks, Guardian Australia has been publishing The frontline – a beautifully filmed and produced six-part multimedia series about how Australians are already living with the effects of the climate crisis.
It’s about real-life people whose homes have been lost. How the extreme heat in Australia is already killing us. How the taps are running dry for some towns in NSW, and how the climate crisis is changing what we eat and drink.
Continue reading...
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