Institute of Advanced Studies

Tony Kevin, author of Crunch Time, in conversation with Dr Carmen Lawrence, Winthrop Professor, School of Psychology, UWA

‘We are saddling our kids with a $300 billion national debt, and so far we have offered them only a promise of $1.5 billion worth of renewable-energy infrastructure in exchange. It is a poor bargain.’     

The public is hungry for real knowledge of the true dimensions of Australia’s climate crisis and what can reasonably be done about it without wrecking our economy, worried that the politicians are not understanding the true urgency of the crisis and thus mishandling it, and confused and worried by the glib lies of the denialists and the continued broad currency their views are getting.

There is widespread public questioning of the policy integrity and policy competence of both major parties on the climate change issue.

Crunch Time is a conscientious attempt to open up, for the first time, all of the interlinked dimensions of the subject - climate science, energy engineering, economics, politics, cognitive psychology, and even intergenerational ethics - and break down the silos between them. Author Tony Kevin links economic analysis and climate change science, using the inspiration of Keynes as the bridge.

Kevin argues that Obama is a genuine policy innovator, whereas Rudd is a disappointing leader who talks the talk but, so far, has not walked the walk. He asks - what is it about Australian society and mainstream values that limits our mainstream politicians’ perception of achievable solutions to the climate change crisis?

Crunch Time also offers concretely detailed Keynesian economics-based national policy pathways to the decarbonisation of the Australian economy by 2030.

About Tony Kevin
Tony Kevin holds degrees in civil engineering, and in economics and political science. He retired from the Australian Foreign Service in 1998, after a 30-year career during which he served in the Foreign Affairs and Prime Minister’s departments, and was Australia’s ambassador to Poland and Cambodia. He is currently an honorary visiting fellow at the Australian National University’s Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies in Canberra.

He has written extensively on Australian foreign, national security, and refugee policies in Australia’s national print media, and is the author of the award-winning books A Certain Maritime Incident: the sinking of SIEV X, and Walking the Camino: a modern pilgrimage to Santiago.

Crunch Time is published by Scribe Publications.

10 November 2009