Humanities need a voice in the climate change debate

The new head of the humanities’ academy wants to influence Australians to act on climate change and other challenges.

Professor Lesley Head, new president of the Australian Academy of the Humanities says the community needs to think through climate change issues.

The humanities need to find their public voice so they can have a more effective role in influencing Australians regarding climate change and other important societal challenges, says Lesley Head, the new president of the Australian Academy of the ­Humanities.

“It’s important to speak to governments, but it’s also important to help the whole Australian community think through these ­issues,” she said.

Professor Head is a University of Melbourne geographer and expert in the relationships between humans and the environment.

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“There’s a whole set of steps that the humanities can help people think through by giving voice to a range of experiences and by understanding processes such as social transformation,” she said.

“Thinking about ourselves as being embedded in the processes of the earth is still a really big challenge for societies that have been dominated by Western modes of thought.

“So often the way we still think of ourselves is very separate from the rest of the natural world.”

Professor Head said clear ­examples were “reducing our consumption, reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and changing the way we manage our water resources”.