This forum was held on 9 June 2021 at the Chapel at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture
Read “Is it just me,” asked the frog, “or is the water getting warmer?”
“You do not believe anything unless it makes a difference to the way you live your life”. – Bishop Leslie Newbigin. With science ‘settled’, indeed with anecdotal measurements proving more severe than science initially predicted, what is the roll of the community of faith in teaching and action? Yes, there is reason for hope. What is that reason? Science has reasonable grounds for expecting the Church to provide a rationale – or get out of the way. Science gave us a path way out of the pandemic. Science is providing a pathway in face of Global Warming. Faith and science must inform one another. This address contributes to that conversation.
Speaker: Right Reverend Dr George Browning. Respondent: Dr David Hunter. Chair Professor Stephen Pickard.
About the speaker:
Right Reverend Dr George Browning, PhD, DLitt, is the current convenor of the ACC&C Ambassadors, having the overseen the partnership with Charles Sturt University which established the Centre as well as the founding of St Mark’s National School of Theology. He was Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn from 1993 to 2008 and Inaugural Chair of the Anglican Communion Environment Network from 2001 to 2006.
His doctoral thesis, Sabbath and the Common God: Prospects for a New Humanity, examines the biblical concept of Sabbath as an ethical framework for a response to the challenge of climate change.
In 2000 he was awarded the Centenary medal for his contribution to the community and in 2007 a Doctor of Letters (honoris causa) for his contribution to education.
About the respondent
Dr David Hunter, BSc, MSc, PhD, is President of the Orthopterists’ Society, a worldwide organisation of over 300 scientists and practitioners from 60 countries working on locusts, grasshoppers and related insects.
He is also a consultant to the Asian Development Bank as “Climate Adaptive Pest Management Specialist” in the face of climate change, locust attack, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
