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Keywords: Bushfires

  • AUSTRALIA

    When hope is not enough: Preparing for the next Black Saturday

    • Barry Gittins
    • 26 February 2024

    February marks 15 years since the Black Saturday fires in Victoria when some 400 fires raced through 78 locations, taking 173 lives, injuring hundreds more, destroying more than 2,020 homes and the entire township of Marysville. In a warming climate, that reality of loss is likely to be repeated ad infinitum.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    40 Days: Humility

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 14 February 2024

    Lent is a time of asking what matters and on commitment. It is a time of grounding, on awareness of the ground and the ash on which we stand, and of focusing on what is important. That being grounded underlies the idea of humility, of being earthed with one’s bare feet on the soil.

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  • RELIGION

    Can ashes find a voice?

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 13 February 2024
    5 Comments

    In a world grappling with war, inequality, and environmental devastation, can a celebration of sacrifice offer hope? For a secular Australia, the relevance of Lent may lie in bridging the gap between a seemingly dehumanizing act and the profound belief in the preciousness of human life. Can this paradoxical notion inspire action to heal the wounds of our world?

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    How do we talk about the cost of net-zero?

    • Anthony N Castle
    • 28 November 2023
    1 Comment

    There is an economic case for acting on the climate crisis but the economics can be a distraction unless we start the conversation at the right place: the environment. A heating climate will cost us trillions. If we don’t act at all, it will cost us everything.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    On budgets, popes and thinking local

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 24 May 2023
    1 Comment

    When exploring the ties between Federal Budget week and Laudato Si’ Week, it becomes clear there's an urgency to address economic inequality and climate change as a single, intricately linked problem. While the latest budget promises minor benefits, it lacks robust measures to tackle these major issues. 

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    The book corner: Humanity's Moment

    • Michele Gierck
    • 24 March 2023

    Climate science doesn't make for comfortable reading. As the climate crisis continues to escalate, Dr. Joëlle Gergis, prominent climate scientist and one of Australia's lead authors of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, offers readers a unique perspective on the urgent need for mass climate action and why we have reason to hope. 

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    A merry little Christmas

    • Barry Gittins
    • 20 December 2022
    1 Comment

    There's something to it, the Advent adventure. Its allure transcends and moves us beyond the corny. The sentimental. When we wade our way through the tinsel, the lights and jolly holly, we find there's a deep, sweet magic to the season.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Wanted: A liberal dose of climate action

    • Stephen Minas
    • 09 June 2022
    4 Comments

    The Liberal wipeout in inner-city electorates is without precedent in Australian politics. For the Liberal Party, ‘existential crisis’ is not an overstatement. As the party founded by Robert Menzies finds itself in the hall of mirrors, climate policy should be a major focus of critical self-appraisal.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Deep calling on deep

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 13 April 2022
    4 Comments

    In our culture, Easter celebrates the benignity of the ordinary. It is a time for getting together with family, for going away to bush or beach, and in southern states a time of mild weather ideal for watching big football matches and other sport. The important question raised now by Easter is whether the meanings of Australian Easter, and indeed those available to our secular society, have the depth needed to handle our present predicaments. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The fable of the frog and the federal election

    • Barry Gittins
    • 21 March 2022

    Like the trusting frog, voters have in the backs of their minds the inkling that when a government achieves power, they lavish time, energy and resources on staying in power. Promises are non-core, or open to interpretation, or de-prioritised as new issues bob up to the surface.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    On remembering the First Fleet

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 25 January 2022
    19 Comments

    In recent years, Australia Day has been a holiday without title. It has been marketed as a day for all Australians, but is held on a date is seen increasingly as the beginning of the dispossession and humiliation of the First Australians. As a result it is generally received as an opportunity to laze around undisturbed by serious thoughts about Australia.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Children don’t need counselling for climate anxiety, they need climate action

    • Cristy Clark
    • 13 September 2021
    7 Comments

    It was reported recently that Coalition MPs have been calling for an expansion of the government’s school chaplaincy program in order to reduce the mental health impacts of climate change ‘activism and alarmism’ on children. Yes, that’s right, they want to address the mental health impact of activism, not the impact of the actual, visible effects of climate change itself, or the very real threat that it poses to children’s futures.

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