Tim Flannery's New Book "Here On Earth"

[The Magic Pudding]

KERRY O'BRIEN, PRESENTER: Scientist, writer and explorer Tim Flannery has a new and ambitious book launched today called 'Here on Earth' that sets out to chart two histories: the twin stories of our planet and our species. The celebrated author of 'The Future Eaters' and 'The Weather Makers' draws on two somewhat conflicting views of the evolution of the planet, Darwin's theory of natural selection and more recently James Lovelock's Gaia theory of a self-regulated environment where living organisms and their surrounds have evolved together, including humankind. He argues that a deeper awareness of our evolutionary history - that is Tim Flannery - of our evolutionary history is the key to the survival of our civilisation. I spoke with Tim Flannery in Sydney today.

TIM FLANNERY: Well, you know, people like Dawkins and Darwin are my sort of scientific heroes in a way. They've done the great reductionist science of looking at things in ever smaller bits and trying to understand the world and particularly trying to understand the mechanism of evolution, and they've done a brilliant job with it. But, you know, you've only gotta read Dawkins on maternal love to realise how limiting that view is. I remember reading that passage about somehow the child tricks the parent by smiling at it to think, "Yes, this is mechanically right, but terribly, terribly wrong," and you need another view. And that other view comes from the likes of Wallace and Lovelock, who take a holistic approach to understanding how systems work. And you need both views. You know, you need the reductionist scientists and you need the holistic approach to be woven together if you hope to understand the human condition and where we are at the moment and what the challenges are.

A transcript http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2010/s3020434.htm
Low bandwidth video http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/201009/r644950_4495008.asx
Broadband video  http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/201009/r644950_4495007.asx

Tim Flannery spends a lot of his time trying to convince people to take better care of the planet.
He somehow manages to remain optomistic.

[Tank]

Book added to my Xmas list