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Keywords: Catastrophe

  • ENVIRONMENT

    Living in the climate lag

    • Greg Foyster
    • 22 July 2019
    22 Comments

    Five years ago I woke in the middle of the night and wrote a letter to myself about climate change. 'The world around you no longer exists. The conditions that created it have already changed and the society you know remains the same only due to inertia.' Now I know I'm not the only one who's lain shuddering with this awful premonition.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    The west's fossil fuels problem is strategic, too

    • Jeff Sparrow
    • 08 July 2019
    5 Comments

    When discussing climate change, it's easy to depict the world's reliance on fossil fuels as primarily a technological problem, to be resolved by new methods for harnessing renewable energies. But that's only part of the story, as the example of Saudi Arabia shows.

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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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  • 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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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Shifting views of Israel and Palestine

    • Teresa Pirola
    • 06 May 2019
    14 Comments

    I am on a study tour of Israel and Palestinian Territories. It is my eighth visit over 12 years, and each time I come away with less clarity and more questions about the tensions that plague this tiny land. Who is the oppressor? Who is the oppressed? It all depends upon the lens you look through at any given moment.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    The great Murray-Darling swindle

    • Greg Foyster
    • 01 March 2019
    11 Comments

    A million dead fish, floating on putrid green water. Images of this ecological catastrophe on the Darling River over summer shocked the nation. Was it the result of drought? Blue-green algae poisoning? After at least four published reports, we know the answers. It's time to state plainly what has been going on, and who is to blame.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Reckoning is due after Afghanistan endgame

    • Jeff Sparrow
    • 31 January 2019
    18 Comments

    John Howard promised to 'stay the course' in Afghanistan. So too did Tony Abbott, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. So complete was the political consensus that parliament didn't even debate the Afghan intervention until nine years after it began. Now that there's no longer a course on which to stay, we're due some accountability.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Christmas through the ages

    • Jenny Blackford
    • 19 December 2018
    5 Comments

    At twelve, halfway through too many stifling hours crammed in the Holden station wagon, three girls munch Mum's ham sandwiches in a Rotary park ... At thirty, waifs-and-strays Christmases with friends in our adopted southern city.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Climate change is here, now we need to adapt

    • Cristy Clark
    • 26 October 2018
    7 Comments

    We are already suffering from the effects of global warming and the intensification of extreme weather events, and things are going to get worse. The question now is what we do to both limit the damage and adapt to the inevitable. Fortunately many of the actions that we must take will actually make our lives better.

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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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