Beyond our Valley, there is so much going on: mass extinction, resource depletion, weapons of mass destruction, climate change, universal toxicity, food crises, population and urban expansion, pandemic disease, dangerous new technologies … the list goes on. I’m inherently worried. The daily news cycle feeds my anxiety. 

I once asked Professor Tim Flannery what kept him going in the face of such challenge, and he replied – “hope”. And so I have learnt to turn to science to counter-balance my anxious woes, to seek hope in scientific fact, to search for optimism in the perspectives and solutions that our amazing scientists bring to the table.  

In Australia, we have some of the best scientists in the world and in our own backyard, one of the best science communicators around.

I heard him speaking on Radio National this year, on how to overcome some of the greatest challenges facing humanity this century and I immediately wrote to him to invite him to our town to tell us more. And – he accepted. 

I’m so looking forward to hearing scientist and journalist Julian Cribb (pictured) speak, providing integrated solutions for the two next generations who will have to deal with the compounding risks they inherit, and which flow from overpopulation, resource pressures and human nature.

I want to figure out what more we can do, and I want to be inspired to do so. That’s why I’ve organised to also screen the film The Age of Stupid by award-winning producer Fanny Armstrong. I missed it when it was in cinemas, so we’ll turn Trader & Co into a one-off cinema for the night. The film is a drama-documentary-animation hybrid that stars Pete Postlethwaite as a man living alone in the devastated world of 2055, watching archival footage from the mid-to-late 2000s and asking “Why didn't we stop climate change when we had the chance?”

If you are like me, swinging between hope and despair, action and inaction, and want to learn more about what we can do, or if you’d just like a super interesting night out, please feel free to come along.