I will add obituaries and appreciations to the man as they appear (please alert me to any you know of that aren’t on this list.)
Here’s a really good piece by Graham Readfern of the Guardian Australia.
Here’s a lovely tribute by former Chief Scientist Penny Sackett
Here’s a piece in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Here’s his Wikipedia page.
Here’s a tribute page on the Climate Council website. If you ever met him, or were influenced by him, please do leave a message.
Short version: he moved to Australia from the US in 1977, and spent the rest of his life there. He was a KEY communicator of the science, as well as being a very good scientist indeed. I think of him in the same bracket as the late Stephen Schneider (that’s about as high as praise goes, btw).
I remember him at the 2011 climate conference in Melbourne, during the white hot debates on Gillard’s so-called “carbon tax.” I spoke to him briefly, and watched him engage with other people who he didn’t know from Adam. He was courteous, thoughtful, calm (and this was at the time of lunatics brandishing nooses), and his answers to questions were supremely rich in fact and insight. He did this without ever ever seeming pompous or condescending.
He is a HUGE loss to the Australian (and global) science community.
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