AustLit

'a) The researched topic Climate change poses massive and varied challenges to the ways in which people live throughout the Asia-Pacific region. And despite the earnest requests of many of its most vulnerable peoples, emissions of greenhouse gases over the past few decades have made many climate-change impacts unavoidable, whatever action the world now takes to reduce these emissions. Emissions reductions and the clean energy initiatives that underpin them are still desirable since they will affect the world our descendants inherit in fifty or sixty years’ time but within that period – at least – we have no choice but to adapt to the changes we have brought upon ourselves.

'b) Creative response A ficto-critical piece that seeks to represent the scientific ‘reality’ of ‘drowning islands’ / ‘global warming’ in narrative form through the eyes of a narrator and a Torres-Strait islander whose people fled the drowning island of Saibai in the 1940s. This piece includes song lyrics, Biblical verses, post-apocalyptic images of drowning islands, literary motifs, and a narrative scenario which serves as a microcosm of this impending crisis.' (Publication abstract)