Environmental Insights

Professor Ian Lowe AO is uniquely qualified to tell this story, following a long career in universities, research councils and advisory groups. Lowe is the author of several books, including Living in the Hothouse (Scribe, 2005), A Big Fix (Black Inc., 2005), A Voice of Reason (UQP, 2010), Bigger or Better? (UQP, 2012) and The Lucky Country? (UQP, 2016). He is also the author of a 2006 Quarterly Essay on the prospects for nuclear power in Australia, and a ‘flip book’ with Professor Barry Brook, giving the two sides of the argument.

Satyajit Das is a former banker, recognised as one of world’s leading financial thinkers. He is the author of numerous technical books and Traders, Guns & Money, Extreme Money, Banquet of Consequences and Fortune’s Fool which examine intersections between money and society. He is co-author with his partner Jade Novakovic of In Search of the Pangolin. They have together seen many of the planet’s emblematic mammals, nearly half of all bird birds and more. 

Simon Cleary is the author of three novels, including The Comfort of Figs (2008), which was published after the manuscript was shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards. His second novel, Closer to Stone (2012), was inspired by his experiences in North Africa at the commencement of the Algerian civil war in the 1990s. It went on to win the Queensland Literary Awards People’s Choice Award. Simon’s third novel, The War Artist, was published in 2019. Everything is Water (2024) is his first work of non-fiction. He is a life-long walking and environmental enthusiast, and lives in Brisbane.

Amanda Niehaus is a scientist, writer, and co-founder of the magazine Science Write Now, which publishes creative writing inspired by science. Her acclaimed first novel, The Breeding Season (A&U, 2019) is based on the unusual reproductive lives of northern quolls.