Keywords: Victorian Bushfires
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ENVIRONMENT
- Bree Alexander
- 11 May 2020
3 Comments
While the federal government has set a zero net emissions target by 2050, along with the states and territories and local councils in some areas, the steps that are taken to get there are vitally important. Yet there seems to be no signs of a rapid move away from fossil fuels.
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ENVIRONMENT
- Andrew Jackson
- 21 February 2020
6 Comments
As the bushfires raged and air quality worsened, we were constantly told to stay indoors, keep cool and be alert for emergency orders on our phones. But with each public service announcement, we continued to leave some of our most vulnerable behind.
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AUSTRALIA
- Neve Mahoney
- 22 January 2020
11 Comments
My dog I've had for 14 years dies, and I decide to spend two days in bed. I look online and see that more than a billion Australian animals have died in the fires. Guilt spirals on top of guilt. How gauche, to feel this private grief, when there is such public grief already.
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AUSTRALIA
- Kate Galloway
- 20 January 2020
16 Comments
For our society to function responsively to what is now a dynamically changing context, we urgently need differently oriented governance. This will, no doubt, be unpalatable for some — both in government and in the general public. But without re-setting how we are governed, our land and our society will suffer further destruction.
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ENVIRONMENT
- Greg Foyster
- 16 August 2019
2 Comments
The media often portrays climate change as a political issue. But politicians are the least trusted messengers for climate information. They really turn off the public. The most trusted are scientists, firefighters, farmers and weather presenters. Of these, only weather presenters have a large audience and are already skilled communicators.
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ENVIRONMENT
- Greg Foyster
- 31 January 2019
9 Comments
One of Australia's foundational myths is of white settlers weathering nature's worst. It's actually in our national character — the story we tell about the nation — to dismiss climatic extremes like heatwaves. Maybe one missing part of taking climate change more seriously in Australia is a shift in culture to respect the heat.
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AUSTRALIA
- John Warhurst
- 25 January 2011
18 Comments
Some advocates of monarchy have jumped on the film The King's Speech as evidence that Australia needs a monarch. Monarchists often argue like this when they want to personalise the constitutional debate by concentrating on a member of the Royal family with attractive features.
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ENVIRONMENT
- Paul Collins
- 04 August 2010
16 Comments
Sadly the Commission played the blame game. This happens after every major fire and originates in the need to find scapegoats. Neither Christine Nixon nor the others who copped the blame could have known they were dealing with a whole new era of firestorm.
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ENVIRONMENT
The Black Saturday Royal Commission seems to be ignoring scientific evidence that climate
change was a major causal factor. The possibility that Victoria's cool mountain ridges
and valleys are drying out and that such ferocious fires are the way of the future might be a truth
too much to bear.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Tim Kroenert
- 07 January 2010
1 Comment
The world of pop music is dominated by prettiness and skin-deep
perfection. In that context, Cohen's greatness is not instantly
discernable. Lately a Buddhist, he has spent his latter years in study of religion — 'But cheerfulness keeps
breaking through.' February 2009
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AUSTRALIA
- Bronwyn Lay
- 05 January 2010
A year ago, on the day of the National Apology, the emotion was palpable over the seas. But it was hard not being there, standing on the same dirt as your fellow countrymen. It is similarly difficult to be away from home during a time of natural disaster. February 2009
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Gillian Bouras
- 02 September 2009
3 Comments
In Australia it would beggar belief to see elderly nuns directing garden hoses
against the fires that threaten their convents. But that is what happened
last week in Greece. Australia and Greece resemble each other in many ways, but not in the way they cope with fire.
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