Barry Brook

Research Professor, Environment Institute, University of Adelaide

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Barry Brook, a leading environmental scientist and modeller, is a Research Professor in ecology and conservation biology at the University of Adelaide's Environment Institute. He holds the Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change and an ARC Future Fellowship, and has published three books, over 200 refereed scientific papers, is a highly-cited researcher, and regularly writes popular articles for the media. He has received a number of distinguished awards for his research excellence and public outreach, including the Australian Academy of Science Fenner Medal and the 2010 Community Science Educator of the Year. His research interests are climate change impacts, species extinctions, simulation and statistical modelling, energy systems analysis (with a focus on modelling future nuclear and large-scale renewable energy scenarios), and synergistic human impacts on the biosphere.

He runs a popular climate science and energy options blog at Brave New Climate, has written a popular book on sustainable nuclear energy, is an International Award Committee member for the Global Energy Prize, and considers himself a 'Promethean environmentalist'. Prometheans are realists who shuns romantic notions that modern governments might guide society back to an era when people lived simpler lives, or that a vastly less consumption-oriented world is a possibility. Prometheans seek real, high-capacity solutions to environmental challenges - such as nuclear power and other techno-fixes - which history has shown to be reliable and timely.