Clive Hamilton

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Clive Hamilton
Clive Hamilton, 2009 (cropped).jpg
Clive Hamilton, in 2009.
Born (1953-03-12) 12 March 1953 (age 70)
Nationality Australian
Alma mater Australian National University, University of Sussex
Notable work Growth Fetish, Afluenza & Silent Invasion (book)
Awards Order of Australia
Institutions Australian National University, Charles Sturt University
Website CliveHamilton.com

Clive Charles Hamilton AM FRSA (born 12 March 1953) is an Australian public intellectual currently serving as Professor of Public Ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE) [1] and the Vice-Chancellor's Chair in Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University. [2] He is a member of the Board of the Climate Change Authority of the Australian Government, [3] and is the Founder and former Executive Director of The Australia Institute. [1] [4] He regularly appears in the Australian media and contributes to public policy debates. [5] Hamilton was granted the award of Member of the Order of Australia on 8 June 2009 for "service to public debate and policy development, particularly in the fields of climate change, sustainability and societal trends". [6]

Contents

Education and academic career

Hamilton graduated from the Australian National University with a Bachelor of Arts in history, psychology and pure mathematics in 1975 and completed a Bachelor of Economics with First Class Honours from the University of Sydney in 1979. He was an Overseas Commonwealth Postgraduate Scholar and completed his Doctorate at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex in 1984. [4] His thesis was titled "A general equilibrium model of South Korean development".

He was a Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Fellow at the Research School of Pacific Studies of the Australian National University from 1984 to 1988 and the Director of the Graduate Program in the Economics of the Development at the National Centre for Development Studies of the Australian National University from 1986 to 1988. From 1994 to 1997 he was a Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and from 1997 to 2002 he was a Fellow in Public Policy at the Australian National University and he was a Visiting Fellow of the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health in 2004.

From 1988 to 1990 he was a Senior Research Economist at the Bureau of Industry Economics of the Federal Department of Industry, Science and Resources (now the Productivity Commission).

Hamilton founded the Australia Institute in 1993 and was Executive Director until 2008. [1]

He has been an academic visitor at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, a visiting lecturer at the Oxford Martin School and a visiting professor at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Oxford. [7]

He is a Life Member of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge and was a visiting scholar of the Department of Land Economy of the University of Cambridge. [8]

He was a senior visiting fellow of the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies of Yale University.

Works

Hamilton has written about the issue of climate change politics over a period of some 15 years. [9] His book Requiem for a Species (Earthscan 2010) explores climate change denial and its implications. His earlier books, Scorcher (2007) and Running from the Storm (2001), were critical of the Australian Government's efforts, especially in relation to the Kyoto Protocol. [10] Hamilton's general view about climate change is that the "world is on a path to a very unpleasant future and it is too late to stop it". [9] Hamilton argues that to believe anything else is to deny the climate change truth and engage in wishful thinking. [11]

Hamilton has written several books relating to consumerism and overconsumption. Growth Fetish (2003) became an Australian best-seller and suggests that the unthinking pursuit of economic growth has become a fetish, which has not led to any real improvements in levels of happiness. [12] In Growth Fetish, Hamilton advocates the politics of wellbeing over economic growth. [13] In Affluenza (2005), Hamilton describes how these themes play out at a personal level, as he explores the shallowness of modern consumer life. [13] In What's Left? (2006) Hamilton comments on topics written about in Growth Fetish and Affluenza. He argues that there is an emergence of new types of "alienation and exploitation", in the form of ravages of the free market, which have "robbed life of its meaning". [14] The Freedom Paradox (2008) relates to the nature and consequences of advanced consumer capitalism. In the book Hamilton proposes a system of "post-secular ethics" that will serve as a challenge to the "moral malaise" occasioned by the "freedom of the marketplace". [15]

Silencing Dissent: How the Australian Government Is Controlling Public Opinion and Stifling Debate , edited with Sarah Maddison was published in 2007.

In February 2018 Hamilton published the book Silent Invasion: China's influence in Australia on the increasing involvement of the Chinese Communist Party in Australian civil society and politics. [16]

In June 2020, British businessman and advocate of closer China-UK economic relations Stephen Perry and the 48 Group Club launched a defamation lawsuit in a failed attempt to block the release of Hamilton's Hidden Hand: Exposing How The Chinese Communist Party Is Reshaping The World . [17]

Political candidate

Hamilton campaigning in the seat of Higgins in 2009 Clive Hamilton campaigning in higgins.jpg
Hamilton campaigning in the seat of Higgins in 2009

On 23 October 2009, Hamilton was announced as the Australian Greens candidate for the by-election in the federal seat of Higgins. [18] He ran against nine others for the seat, and came second, receiving 32.40 percent of primary votes and 39.77 percent of preferred votes. [19] The Australian Labor Party did not run a candidate in the election.

Bibliography

Books by Clive Hamilton include: [20]

See also

Related Research Articles

Paul John Kelly is an Australian political journalist, author and television and radio commentator from Sydney. He has worked in a variety of roles, principally for The Australian newspaper, and is currently its editor-at-large. Kelly also appears as a commentator on Sky News and has written seven books on political events in Australia since the 1970s including on the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis. Recent works include, The March of Patriots, which chronicles the creation of a modern Australia during the 1991–2007 era of Prime Ministers, Paul Keating and John Howard, and Triumph & Demise which focuses on the leadership tensions at the heart of the Rudd-Gillard Labor Governments of 2007–2011. Kelly presented the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) TV documentary series, 100 Years – The Australian Story (2001) and wrote a book of the same title.

<i>Growth Fetish</i> Book by Clive Hamilton

Growth Fetish is a book about economics and politics by the Australian progressive political theorist Clive Hamilton. Published in 2003 it became a best-seller in Australia.

Affluenza is a pseudoscientific psychological malaise supposedly affecting wealthy people. It is a portmanteau of affluence and influenza, and is used most commonly by critics of consumerism. It is not a medically recognized disease.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Quiggin</span> Australian economist (born 1956)

John Quiggin is an Australian economist, a professor at the University of Queensland. He was formerly an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and Federation Fellow and a member of the board of the Climate Change Authority of the Australian Government.

"Greenhouse Mafia" is the title of a TV program aired by Australian network ABC on the 13 February 2006 episode of its weekly current affairs program Four Corners. The program says the term greenhouse mafia is the "in house" name used by Australia’s carbon lobby for itself. The program featured former Liberal Party member Guy Pearse and Four Corners host Janine Cohen, while others concerned about the influence exerted by the fossil fuel lobby also participated. The report was based on a thesis Pearse wrote at the Australian National University between 1999 and 2005 regarding the response of Australian business to global warming. According to the program, lobby groups representing the coal, car, oil, and aluminium industries have wielded their power to prevent Australia from reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, which were already among the highest per capita in the world in 1990.

The Lavoisier Group is an Australian organisation formed by politicians and dominated by retired industrial businesspeople and engineers. It does not accept the science of global warming and works to influence attitudes of policy makers and politicians. The organisation downplays the risk of the effects of global warming, rejects the scientific conclusion that human activity causes it, and opposes policies designed to curtail it. Some members regard climate change as a "scam."

David Murray Horner, is an Australian military historian and academic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Diesendorf</span> Australian academic and environmentalist

Mark Diesendorf is an Australian academic and environmentalist, known for his work in sustainable development and renewable energy. He currently teaches environmental studies at the University of New South Wales, Australia. He was formerly professor of environmental science and founding director of the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology, Sydney and before that a principal research scientist with CSIRO, where he was involved in early research on integrating wind power into electricity grids. His most recent book is Sustainable Energy Solutions for Climate Change.

<i>Silencing Dissent</i> Book by Clive Hamilton and Sarah Maddison

Silencing Dissent: How the Australian Government is Controlling Public Opinion and Stifling Debate is a 2007 Australian book, edited by Clive Hamilton and Sarah Maddison.

<i>Scorcher: The Dirty Politics of Climate Change</i>

Scorcher: The Dirty Politics of Climate Change is a 2007 book by Clive Hamilton which contends that Australia rather than the United States is the major stumbling block to a more effective Kyoto Protocol. In the final chapter of the book Hamilton argues that "the Howard government has been actively working to destroy the Kyoto Protocol".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ross Garnaut</span> Australian economist

Ross Gregory Garnaut is an Australian economist, currently serving as a vice-chancellor's fellow and professorial fellow of economics at the University of Melbourne. He is the author of numerous publications in scholarly journals on international economics, public finance and economic development, particularly in relation to East Asia and the Southwest Pacific.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Garnaut Climate Change Review</span>

Professor Ross Garnaut led two climate change reviews, the first commencing in 2007 and the second in 2010.

Ray Evans was an Australian businessperson, political conservative, and campaigner against climate change mitigation efforts.

The Freedom Paradox: Towards a Post-Secular Ethics is a 2008 book by Professor Clive Hamilton. This is a philosophical book related to the nature and consequences of advanced consumer capitalism. In the book Hamilton proposes a system of "post-secular ethics" that will serve as a challenge to the "moral malaise" occasioned by the "freedom of the marketplace". The book consists of five parts:

<i>Affluenza: When Too Much is Never Enough</i>

Affluenza: When Too Much is Never Enough is a book written by Professor Clive Hamilton and Richard Denniss, and was published in 2005. According to the book, Western society is addicted to overconsumption and this situation is unique in human history. Hamilton and Denniss argue that overconsumption is driven by aspiration, in an effort to emulate the lifestyles of the rich and the famous through the identities and fulfilments that commodities are supposed to, but do not necessarily, deliver. Rates of stress, depression and obesity are high as people try to cope with the emptiness and disappointments of consumer life.

What's Left? The Death of Social Democracy is written by Australian Professor Clive Hamilton and was published as Issue 21 of the Quarterly Essay in 2006. In What's Left? Hamilton comments on topics written about in his previous books Growth Fetish and Affluenza: When Too Much is Never Enough. He argues that there is an emergence of new forms of "alienation and exploitation", and what he calls the ravages of the free market and the profit motive. According to Hamilton, they have "robbed life of its meaning".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Denniss</span>

Richard Denniss is the Executive Director of The Australia Institute. He is a prominent Australian economist, author and public policy commentator, and a former Associate Professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. Denniss was described by Mark Kenny in the Sydney Morning Herald as "a constant thorn in the side of politicians on both sides due to his habit of skewering dodgy economic justifications for policy". In October 2018, The Australian Financial Review listed Denniss and Ben Oquist of The Australia Institute as equal tenth-place on their 'Covert Power' list of the most powerful people in Australia.

Sarah Maddison CF is an Australian author and political scientist.

<i>Requiem for a Species</i> Book by Clive Hamilton

Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth about Climate Change is a 2010 non-fiction book by Australian academic Clive Hamilton which explores climate change denial and its implications. It argues that climate change will bring about large-scale, harmful consequences for habitability for life on Earth including humans, which it is too late to prevent. Hamilton explores why politicians, corporations and the public deny or refuse to act on this reality. He invokes a variety of explanations, including wishful thinking, ideology, consumer culture and active lobbying by the fossil fuel industry. The book builds on the author's fifteen-year prior history of writing about these subjects, with previous books including Growth Fetish and Scorcher: The Dirty Politics of Climate Change.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Clive Hamilton". Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics. Archived from the original on 6 July 2011.
  2. "CSU EXPERTS". Charles Sturt University. Archived from the original on 3 March 2011. Retrieved 9 November 2010.
  3. "The Australian Climate Change Authority board announced. 21 June 2012". Archived from the original on 1 June 2013. Retrieved 22 June 2012.
  4. 1 2 "Clive Hamilton: Brief CV" (PDF). Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics. Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 July 2011.
  5. Schmidt, Lucinda (30 July 2008). "Profile: Clive Hamilton". The Age. Archived from the original on 11 April 2011. Retrieved 7 November 2008.
  6. "It's an Honour". Archived from the original on 20 January 2019. Retrieved 15 November 2009.
  7. "Visitors - Faculty of Philosophy". Archived from the original on 28 September 2011. Retrieved 5 October 2011.
  8. "24 November 2003: Shifting priorities". Archived from the original on 27 December 2004. Retrieved 5 October 2011.
  9. 1 2 Kelsey Munro. Too late for all but prayers Archived 14 May 2010 at the Wayback Machine The Sydney Morning Herald, 27 February 2010.
  10. Tim Flannery. Scorcher: the dirty politics of climate change Archived 19 January 2010 at the Wayback Machine The Age, 25 May 2007.
  11. Steven Yearley. Book of the week: Requiem for a Species Archived 16 September 2012 at the Wayback Machine Times Higher Education, 3 June 2010.
  12. Ross Gittins. When growth turns into a monster Archived 16 November 2010 at the Wayback Machine The Sydney Morning Herald, 7 May 2008.
  13. 1 2 Kirsty Needham. A serious bout of affluenza Archived 10 July 2010 at the Wayback Machine The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 May 2005.
  14. Maley, Barry (1 June 2006). "When the left is half right". Quadrant. Retrieved 12 November 2008.
  15. Richard King. The Freedom Paradox: Towards a Post-Secular Ethics Archived 24 July 2010 at the Wayback Machine The Sydney Morning Herald , 26 September 2008.
  16. Brophy, David (April 2018). "David Brophy reviews 'Silent Invasion: China's Influence in Australia' by Clive Hamilton". Australian Book Review. Archived from the original on 13 March 2018. Retrieved 11 April 2018.
  17. Fife, Robert; Chase, Steven (19 June 2020). "Legal challenge halts Canadian, U.S. and U.K. release of book critical of Chinese Communist Party". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 23 June 2020.
  18. "Greens announce candidate for Higgins". ABC News. 23 October 2009. Archived from the original on 26 October 2009. Retrieved 23 October 2009.
  19. Australian Electoral Commission: Higgins By-election results Archived 8 December 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  20. "Books by Clive Hamilton".
  21. Readings Archived 20 December 2016 at the Wayback Machine , retrieved 4 December 2016