No Country for Wet Buildings

Cormac McCarthy’s world is one where the old rules no longer apply and the threat is relentless — it doesn’t negotiate, it doesn’t respond to the usual countermeasures, and it doesn’t stop. Climate change earns its place here: conditions in northern Australia are already beyond what most HVAC systems were designed for, and the gap is widening. This title works best for a talk that lands hard on the idea that past practice is no longer adequate. What worked in a temperate southern Australian climate doesn’t work in a 2026 Cairns building. The threat keeps finding you.