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Keywords: Extinction

  • MEDIA

    Ban polar bears! Climate visuals that work

    • Greg Foyster
    • 18 September 2019
    3 Comments

    The visual language of climate change has become predictable and stunted. In the 1980s activists used an image of a polar bear adrift on a floe of ice to tell the story of global warming and rising sea levels. It's become visual shorthand for the topic — useful for quick categorisation, but stale and easily dismissed.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Power in Rebellion's civil disobedience

    • Jacinta Bowler
    • 15 August 2019
    7 Comments

    Extinction Rebellion is the biggest environmental movement we've seen in Australia in years, and the group is well aware of the disruption they are causing — it's baked into their strategy. Is the inconvenience, disruption, and vitriol worth it? Is it actually going to turn public opinion one way or another? History suggests it just might.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    The view from Svalbard of PM's climate neglect

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 27 June 2019
    4 Comments

    This might be the Mediterranean were it not for the snow-lacquered mountains abutting the fjord we're sailing through. But no, it's the Arctic in summer — or, more precisely, the Arctic in the summer of 2019, when the climate emergency is at its zenith and the region is expected to record the lowest sea ice on record.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    'Climate emergency' endangers democracy

    • Jeff Sparrow
    • 21 June 2019
    7 Comments

    Historically, a declaration of emergency, whether in response to war, civil unrest or natural disaster, allows the state to suppress debate to enable a militarised response to an urgent problem. You can see why that might appeal as a solution to the environmental crisis. But addressing climate change requires more democracy, not less.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    A medieval light on modern day darkness

    • Brian Matthews
    • 22 May 2019
    1 Comment

    For modern readers of Huizinga's The Autumn of the Middle Ages, there is a curious kind of double vision. While 21st century life has incomparably eclipsed medieval counterparts, there are aspects of the comparison that remain at least intriguing and, in some cases, enlightening.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    What went wrong for Labor on climate

    • Jeff Sparrow
    • 20 May 2019
    19 Comments

    Had Labor flatly opposed Adani, it would have been better positioned to sell a different model for the creation of local jobs and security. Instead, the lack of clarity prevented the ALP from articulating a persuasive economic alternative to a mine it wouldn't say definitely was closing.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Living with dystopia

    • Cristy Clark
    • 09 May 2019
    7 Comments

    Researchers have been documenting the rise of 'eco-anxiety' or 'eco-angst' for some time, and these feelings of despair and powerlessness are common. But we need to become the heroes of this dystopic film plot. Somehow, in the face of all our anxiety and despair, we need to locate our capacity for hope and our courage to take action.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Spirit wit: Five sonnets for Les Murray

    • Philip Harvey
    • 02 May 2019
    4 Comments

    You could contrive a meandering sonnet, broach the third level of meaning with ease — Once main lines are coursing and images breeze. You were in it, around, beyond, upon it.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Extinction Rebellion taking bold action

    • Kate Galloway
    • 21 November 2018
    15 Comments

    The movement is not secretive: it declares itself publicly, and openly. It announced in advance to police and emergency services: 'We are bold. We will not hide. We are all in open rebellion.'     

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The rewards of reviving languages

    • Sheila Ngoc Pham
    • 27 April 2018
    4 Comments

    As someone who has a language background which will in all likelihood not make it past one more generation in my family here in Australia, I've long understood the way language loss can occur as a result of migration, to say nothing of acts like colonisation. These are great forces that are difficult but, as I've found, not impossible to resist.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Another page torn from the glossary of life

    • Fatima Measham
    • 29 March 2018
    10 Comments

    The last male northern white rhinoceros was euthanased in March. With two females still alive, there is hope the subspecies might be saved. The impending loss of an animal that evolved over six million years, and once grazed in hundreds of thousands, is worth noting. There can be room in our hearts to lament.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    My coal dilemma

    • Jennifer Pont
    • 24 November 2017
    11 Comments

    I can't see the issues around the coal industry in black and white terms, even though I'd vote for any ethical replacement plan in a heartbeat. As much as people build places, places substantially build our identities, and people literally lived and died by coal mines where I grew up.

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