LAUSR

This part of the book combines explanations of the major natural systems shaping (southeastern) Australia’s climate, and evidence from the primary sources of past weather events and settler responses to them. There is relatively little conventional historical analysis among the quotes and descriptive passages, but it is sufficient to drive the story forward. Part two delves into the creation of the historical sources and assesses their utility. This part includes one of the stand-out chapters of the book, which uses Australia’s high-quality instrumental record to compare the Federation, World War II and Millennium droughts. Gergis shows how the last of these was different in ways that are clearly linked to anthropogenic climate change. Part three introduces the natural record, showing how tree rings, ice cores and coral slices provide windows onto past climates. Such records, properly deployed, provide an essential long-run southern hemisphere perspective on a field dominated by the north. They show, for example, that the Medieval Climate Anomaly was not a global event, but that both hemispheres are now subject to temperatures outside the range of natural variability. Part four is the one you will flag when you gift a copy of the book to your climate changedenying uncle for Christmas. Here Gergis systematically rebuts arguments that what we are experiencing is just more natural variability and provides incontrovertible proof of the effects of anthropogenic climate change in relation to snow, fire, flood and sea level rise. The final part of the book looks squarely at the future under different emission scenarios, pointing to the manifold areas that stand to be affected – from agriculture and biodiversity to public health. The book concludes with a discussion of Australian and global climate politics – from Gillard to Abbott, Trump to Turnbull – locating hope in the groundswell of grassroots climate leadership emerging in the face of parliamentary failure and highlighting the many benefits to be gained from transition to a carbon-neutral society. While Gergis acknowledges Indigenous Australians’ climate wisdom it would have been good to see more on Indigenous people and Australian climates – past and future. And as a Western Australian I was irked by the easy conflation between ‘Australia’ and ‘southeastern Australia’ in the first parts of the book in particular. This is a minor fault, however, in an important and powerful work. Sunburnt Country is not a book to read before bed, at least not if you want to sleep well. The global climate breakdown, presented by Gergis with such accessible and evocative certainty, is the stuff of nightmares. It is most definitely, however, a book to be read.