Questions and answers about Television & Climate Change:

Why is the relationship between television and climate change important?
In the latter half of the twentieth century television became the screen by which most people got to know about nature, society and publicly important events and issues. In the twenty-first century, as billions of people the world over regularly view television, the planet’s ice caps, rainforests, soil and oceans continue to be depleted. We kind of see what’s happening, and we kind of understand, yet as one more TV ratings season ends and a new season buds, the ice caps keep melting and the soil, wind and oceans continue their climate changing narrative.

Why a book on television and climate change and not the Internet and climate change, surely the online world is more influential in the twenty-first century.
That’s where I began my thinking. I’ve been dabbling online for about twenty years. I introduced convergent technology into the university department where I teach. I once taught university students how to ‘Surf the Net’, build a HomePage, create images in PhotoShop and edit movies on a computer. Twenty years on and primary aged students are doing that type of computing. My two-year-old grandson knows how to click a digital camera. He recently snapped my portrait while we chatted on Skype. Yet, my ongoing research into the daily lives of my university students and their respective families, friends and lovers continues to reveal that television remains the dominant screen in the home.

What’s the difference between all those domestic screens?
It comes down to size rather than content. The ongoing convergence between television technology and computer technology indicates that rather than compete for our attention, they are merging, indeed have merged. We have large fixed screens and small portable screens. The difference in content between the two, decreases everyday.

What’s your most striking impression as a result of writing this book?
How blind we are when it comes to television, and the Internet for that matter. The tragedy is that the domestic screen has the potential to contribute more to the restoration of global environmental equilibrium than any amount of worthwhile placard waving, petitioning or academic surveys. There is a link between the more-than-human world and the well-being of our species. That link, or lack of, has always been rendered on that most human of technologies, the screen, be it a Palaeolithic or contemporary screen.

We know about climate change, but we don’t appear to be addressing it at the pace required?
The literature on global ecological degradation is substantial; the reasons Western society is having difficulty coming to terms with the issue is less understood. Understanding the relationship between humans, ecological awareness and the screen, in particular television, is more central to our personal and community well-being than is currently given credit.

You’re a social ecologist. How does social ecology and television fit?
Social Ecology is concerned the relationships between individuals, social groups and their environments. I lecturer in visual communication, I work at teaching my video and documentary students to think about the ecological and ethical implications of being media producers. The mass media, in particular television, is centre stage in presenting to contemporary society the story of our time.

What got you into television and climate change in the first place?
A long interest in community television, as well as the environment. When the Internet arrived in my university department in the 1990s, I was seduced by it’s potential to communicate at a community and at an ecological dimension. But it didn’t happen. If anything, the digital revolution has taken us further away from both community and ecological awareness. I asked why? The question led back to the influence television has in 99% of Western homes. Climate change is a symptom of living in an environmentally unaware civilization. The two are inextricably linked.

What was the most striking research you encountered during the writing of the book?
Without question, it was the findings of cogitative archaeology concerning the linage of the screen. The screen predates Homo sapiens sapiens. When you place the grounded research of cogitative archaeology alongside the philosophy of technology, you get this amazing view of the human story.

You have a very broad interpretation of what a screen is.
You could turn that around and say current interpretations of the screen are limited. Cogitative archaeology talks about the screen as a surrogate cortex. Any artefact that functions as a surrogate cortex is a screen.

You begin the book by turning off the screen. Why does a book about television and climate change start with an exploration into nature, or the more-than-human world, as you call it?
The book honours the more-than-human world: ocean and creek, moss and rock, sand and soil, grass and tree, insect and animal, bird and fish, as well as Homo sapiens sapiens and their Gods. All of these entities are connected in one way or another. So in order to set that world in place, I take the reader along a creek bed; we journey across farmland, before entering the mystery of Australian native woodland. This opens the opportunity for another way of perceiving the Western worldview, and hence, television.

What do you see as the major ecological/technological advance of the next decade?
That’s a hard one. Contemporary communication technology isn’t and hasn’t enabled us to realise, at a personal level, our individual impact on the Earth’s biodiversity. If the third wave of the Internet, what their calling augmented reality, can place readouts of our personal ecological footprint on every consumer transaction and process, then perhaps significant ecological awareness will result. But don’t hold your breath.

Are you arguing that television is the most influential screen in the home?
Television is the hub; the other screens are the spokes. I argue that a deep appreciation and understanding of contemporary television helps us appreciate how the multiple internet screens, handheld image devices and desktop computers tap into the same dominant, purely human, ecologically destructive Western worldview. I think the academy has forgotten about TV in the face of the Internet. I think this is dangerous.

You write a lot about the screen, and yet you call the book Television & Climate Change.
From ancient rock etchings of Gods to television personalities, the screen needs to be understood across the sweep of humanity. It needs to be understood for what it is, a surrogate cortex, as I mentioned before. Once local, now global, the screen is central to our personal and community well-being. That said, the dominant screen is the television screen. No matter whether our screens are analogue or digital, cabinet or wall-mounted, the contemporary domesticated television screen contributes more to the perpetuation of climate change and global ecological degradation than do any number of exhaust pipes, industrial chimneys and unfettered drains.

What’s the difference between the Screen and Climate Change, and Television and Climate Change?
Some readers might be wondering why, in the face of the digital revolution, and even of film, I’m placing my emphasis on television. Of course in terms of social and ecological degradation all three versions of the screen stand condemned! Television has a particular influence, one that surpassed film years ago, and one that is yet to be, and probably won’t be, overtaken by the domestic computer. For around 99.9% of human history the screen has been an external influence. Television marks a point in time when the screen entered the home, permanently. Television has become the third parent. In that sense, previous screens were influential relatives whose persuasion was distant.

What book are you planning to write next?
I’m researching a book that looks at a primary function within human existence. Homo sapiens sapiens thrive; our thriving, be it in harmony or disharmony with the more-than-human world has resulted from what Heidegger names as ‘care’ (Sorge). If Heidegger’s right, then care underpins the cave art at Lascaux, and continues to be outplayed to this day.  Writing Television & Climate Change led me, obviously, to this thinking.