KEY POINTS:
For a nation that has shown a marked reluctance to engage with the campaigns to mitigate climate change, at least at the highest political levels, the endorsement of Tim Flannery as Australian of the Year last year is a remarkable personal tribute. But no one has done more to bring the issues to the top of the national agenda than this scientist-turned-polemicist.
Flannery has also chilled the blood of Australians by pointing out their country's environmental fragility is so extreme that serious doubts can be raised about the continued survival of Australian city life in its present form. Yet he has become a respected, almost loved figure in the mould of his inspiration, Sir David Attenborough, to whom this book is dedicated.
Flannery wins people over because he is not just a joyless prophet of doom with that zealous self-righteousness which makes some climate change campaigners so unattractive. He is certainly not without ego and there is an element of "haven't I done well" about his recording of his promotional tour for his earlier book, The Weather Makers. But his commitment is for his cause and, refreshingly, he sees signs for hope.
The climate change material is, however, only the final part of this book which is a collection of essays, reviews and speeches spanning Flannery's career from 1985 and many readers are likely to find the earlier material more entertaining, if only because it is less familiar.
Chapters with the headings "The fall and rise of Bulmer's fruit bat" and "Irian Jaya's new tree kangaroo" may appear of interest only to the specialist but their combination of adventure story and mystery tale, underpinned by sound evidence-based science, bring to mind the legacy of Stephen Jay Gould. Here is an expert who can communicate the sense of wonder that is at the core of science. Similarly, he demonstrates the respect for other cultures and their values that characterises a truly open mind.
This wide-ranging intellectual curiosity also informs the series of book reviews included in the section titled "on other people's words". Ranging from Richard Dawkins' concept of the "meme", a cultural equivalent of a gene, to the life of John James Audubon, the great artist of American birdlife, Flannery treats his subjects with insight and the enthusiasm that makes you want to seek out the books he is reviewing.
The timespan covered by the book has the effect of it being the chronicle of a developing mind. We can see Flannery being led by the implications of his work into wider and ever more political fields until we reach the man who is called on to make speeches on Australia Day.
Although Flannery's concerns have been focused on his native land and its unique nature, many of his meditations on the relationships between the land and the people and the nature of appropriate politics have echoes on this side of the ditch. He notes "our schemes of social support for parents and children, and our immigration programme, add up to a de facto population policy - one that has not been carefully thought through as a whole. No one has oversight of it, it is not clearly demonstrated to be in the national interest and there is little acceptance of elements of it in the community."
It's not just Australia that needs scientists like Flannery.
An Explorer'S Notebook
By Tim Flannery (Text $28)
* John Gardner is an Auckland reviewer.
