This recording is from The City Transformed: Urban life at the end of the world as we know it – Green Institute Conference 2023, specifically the session entitled Urban, suburban, post-urban futures featuring “Perth 2.0”, with Dr Brad Pettit MLC; “Are Large Cities Viable Without Fossil Fuels: an alternative urbanism”, with Terry Leahy; and “The Suburb and the Far Right”, with Dr Simon Copland. Facilitated by Green Institute board director Sue Lewis.

Dr Brad Pettit MLC

Dr Brad Pettitt was elected to the Legislative Council of the WA Parliament in 2021. Until taking up this role in the Upper House of the State Parliament, Brad was the Mayor of the City of Fremantle. He was first elected mayor in 2009 and re-elected in 2013 and 2017.

Prior to this Brad was the Dean of the School of Sustainability at Murdoch University. His research and teaching expertise included climate change, international development policy, and sustainability planning. Brad has also previously worked with Oxfam in Cambodia and with the Australian Government Aid Program, AusAID, in Canberra.

When not working he likes riding his bike, drinking coffee, and playing with his 5-year-old daughter.

Dr Terry Leahy

Dr Terry Leahy is now living in Melbourne, Australia, having retired from his academic position at University of Newcastle at the end of 2016. Between 1974 and 1988 he worked at the University of NSW in Sociology and from 1990 to 2016 at the University of Newcastle.

Terry Leahy’s current writing and research investigates three related topics. Sustainable agriculture and food security. The global environmental crisis. The philosophy of the social sciences. His work is framed by a critique of capitalism and patriarchy.

His most recent publications include a study of permaculture as a social movement The Politics of Permaculture, a sociological analysis of food insecurity in Africa Food Security for Rural Africa: Feeding the Farmers First, a documentary on a permaculture project in Zimbabwe – The Chikukwa Project – and a book on social theory ­– Humanist Realism for Sociologists.

Dr Simon Copland

Dr Simon Copland is the Executive Director of Pedal Power ACT, Canberra’s oldest and largest cycling organisation. In his role Copland is advocating for a mass increase in investment in cycling infrastructure in the ACT.

Simon completed his PhD in Sociology at the Australian National University (ANU), studying online men’s rights groups and communities ‘manosphere’. He has research expertise in masculinity, the far-right, online hate, and digital media platforms. He has a Masters in Science Communication.