The Users’ Guide to the Future #3 – Can we fight bushfires with cool burns?

Life in the bush can be beautiful – and dangerous. Can a simple examination of our homes make them safer in bushfires? How can we ‘read’ the bush – and heal it – to avoid catastrophic bushfires?

We speak with Indigenous land and fire expert Victor Steffenson about what we don’t know about the bush – and should. Architect Ian Weir then walks us through some simple steps to make a home in the bush more resistant to bushfire.

Victor Steffenson is the author of Fire Country, about the Indigenous land management practices explored in this episode.

Victor is part of the Firesticks Alliance, an organisation working to educate Australians on how to live within and heal the bush.

Ian Weir specialises in the architecture of bushfire-resistant homes and properties.

Dr. Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick is a Senior Research Associate at the Climate Change Resarch Centre at UNSW.

The Users Guide to the Future #1 – Designing for Flood Resilience in a Wetter World

We’ll be seeing more, heavier rain and coastal erosion. How can we prepare to meet these risks – to keep ourselves and homes safe?

We listened to some of the world’s leading climate scientists – including Australian of the Year Tim Flannery – to learn all about the future of precipitation, then spoke with a leading architect on how to make our homes resilient in floods – and even a storm surge!

Our great guests in this episode were:

Fellow futurist and friend Sally Dominguez;

UNSW climate scientist Professor Steven Sherwood;

Monash University climate scientist Professor Christian Jakob;

Brisbane architect James Davidson.

Tim Flannery has an amazing new book coming out – The Climate Cure shows us what the COVID-19 pandemic can teach us about how to take some necessary steps to manage our climate.

The Users Guide to the Future was produced in partnership with GIO.