Joelle Gergis Journalist Profile

Articles

Burnt mansions: Why the next election is a fork in the road

Jan 23, 2025 | themonthly.com.au | Ruby Jones |Joelle Gergis

Current Issue Newsletters Podcasts Login Subscribe 7am is a daily news podcast brought to you by Schwartz Media and The Saturday Paper. How to listen? Website Climate scientist and contributor to The Saturday Paper, Joëlle Gergis, on why the next election is a fork in the road for our climate.
LA fires are our Black Summer: a call to climate action

Jan 17, 2025 | thesaturdaypaper.com.au | Joelle Gergis

For many Australians, the footage of ferocious wildfires engulfing the suburbs of Los Angeles has been deeply triggering. With the devastation of the Black Summer of 2019–2020 not far behind us, images of glowing-red bushland, neighbourhoods incinerated beyond recognition and the horror of distressed people is enough to make your heart race. The fires in California follow the region’s hottest summer on record and a severe drought that saw just four millimetres of rainfall since October.
Exposing net zero’s climate delusions

Sep 27, 2024 | thesaturdaypaper.com.au | Joelle Gergis

Denial is a funny thing. We have to find slippery ways of trying to live with high levels of cognitive dissonance: the discomfort we feel when faced with the reality that our thoughts and actions are contradictory. We must somehow rationalise the ways in which we fool ourselves. In the words of Seinfeld’s George Costanza: “It’s not a lie if you believe it.”Nowhere is the denial of reality clearer than the political response to dealing with the existential threats posed by climate change.
‘An intergenerational crime against humanity’: what will it take for political leaders to start taking climate change seriously?

Jun 3, 2024 | theconversation.com | Joelle Gergis

In February 2024, I attended the annual conference of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society – the peak group for scientists working in all branches of weather and climate research. Over the past decade, the mood of our gatherings has become increasingly sombre. Some presenters have taken to apologising in advance for their confronting results, with some attempting to soften the blow by including funny animated gifs or photos of soothing sunsets to comfort the audience.
Quarterly Essay 94: Highway to Hell: Climate Change and Australia's Future

Jun 3, 2024 | audible.com.au | Joelle Gergis

Australia is in peril. Do we truly grasp the impact of a warming planet – in particular, what it will mean for our sunburnt country? As temperatures rise, the climates of our capital cities will change. The sea will rise, and we will see increased fire and drought. In this powerful essay, Joëlle Gergis, a leading climate scientist, depicts the likely future in vivid and credible detail. Working from the science, she discusses the world’s and Australia’s efforts to combat climate change.
There's no time to indulge Labor's love affair with gas — and it delays the inevitable

Jun 2, 2024 | crikey.com.au | Joelle Gergis

Despite Labor’s grandstanding about its credentials as a climate leader, in March 2023, the federal minister for resources, Madeleine King, signalled the continuation of “business as usual” in her resources statement to Parliament, saying: Some fail to acknowledge this, but Australia’s coal and gas resources are essential for energy security, stability and reliability both domestically and across the Asia-Pacific and will be needed for decades.
Are the climate wars really over, or has a new era of greenwashing just begun? | Joëlle Gergis

Jun 2, 2024 | theguardian.com | Joelle Gergis

Although the 2022 federal election ushered in a new era of progressive politics in Australia, as Labor’s first term in power has progressed many people are now wondering if the political deadlock on our nation’s climate policy has really been broken. Although some good ground has been made, the federal government’s actions still don’t reflect the urgency of the planetary-scale crisis we are in.
Highway to Hell: Climate Change and Australia’s Future

May 30, 2024 | quarterlyessay.com.au | Joelle Gergis

Late in the summer of 2023–24, I found myself having a drink with a senator on a rainy afternoon in Canberra. It’s not every day a climate scientist like me gets to talk directly to a politician about my work. As someone who spends most days in the neat cocoon of my research world, I have always found the rough and tumble of politics intimidating. Whenever I watch the news, parliamentarians seem to be shouting at each other, polarising important conversations about the issues that affect us all.
Mission zero: how today's climate choices will reshape Australia

Sep 19, 2023 | apo.org.au | Simon Bradshaw |Lesley Hughes |David J Karoly |Joelle Gergis

Description Over the past two years, since the publication of the report Aim high, go fast, and nearly a decade on from the moment countries from around the world decided under the Paris Agreement on how to respond to climate change, the impacts have continued to escalate.
The Many Shapes of the Carbon Pulse

Sep 11, 2023 | resilience.org | Nate Hagens |Joelle Gergis |James Martin

Recorded August 30 2023DescriptionIn this Frankly, Nate describes the Carbon Pulse – a one time massive consumption of fossil hydrocarbons at a pace millions of times faster than they were created. He outlines the many shapes that this pulse could take, as well as some shapes it will never take. Compared to previous carbon pulses that led to mass and minor extinctions, how does the modern pulse compare?