If currently implemented policies are continued with no increase in ambition, there is a 90% chance that the Earth will warm between 2.3°C and 4.5°C, with a best estimate of 3.5°C.
Tony Birch, left, and Kim Scott in conversation at the recent Blak & Bright writer’s festival.
James Henry. Courtesy Blak & Bright
With all the talk of “truth-telling” in Australia, some of it worthwhile and some clichéd, Kim Scott’s writing provides an invaluable entry point to a meaningful dialogue.
Less gold in the mines. Unrest in the camps. And a new fishery for the giant Murray cod which decimated their population. The 19th century gold rush has left a bad environmental legacy.
Amanda Thomas, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington; Gradon Diprose, Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research et Sophie Bond, University of Otago
Over a decade of protest led to the banning of fuel exploration in New Zealand waters. As this extract from a new book explains, that ‘win’ is still precarious and may depend on the election result.
The integrity of the academic project should underscore universities’ work at all times.
xtock/Shutterstock
It has become an Aboriginal campfire classic. Kids in American inner-city public schools sing it in choir. Chris Gibson unpacks the mystery and enduring appeal of The Church’s Under the Milky Way.
As a young child, Amy Thunig, a Gomeroi/Gamilaroi/Kamilaroi woman, moved with her family to be near her father, who was incarcerated in Adelaide. It was a difficult time, but he has taught her much.
Joelle Gergis pictured in 2020 following the Black Summer bushfires.
Photo: ANU Media
The science tells us this is our last chance to avert planetary disaster. Accepting our feelings of intense loss – for ourselves and the Earth – can propel us into action, writes Joelle Gergis.
Anatomist and anthropologist Matthew Drennan in his anthropology laboratory at the University of Cape Town in 1931.
Cape Argus, 27 August 1931
The lesson to draw from our conflict over China policy is not that Australia is having trouble identifying its national interest, but that there’s really no such thing as a single national interest.
Sludge cakes the landscape in the aftermath of a burst mining dam in Brazil.
EPA/Antonio Lacerda
Contemporary mining disasters echo the devastation caused by Victoria’s gold fields. Victorians campaigned for some of the world’s first laws against industrial pollution.
The British First Fleet knew little of conditions in Port Jackson, later Sydney Cove, before their arrival.
George Edwards Peacock, State Library of New South Wales.
When the First Fleet sailed into Sydney Cove in 1788, they entered an ancient and unforgiving landscape. A new book charts Australians’ relationship with one of the world’s most volatile climates.
O-Week has changed drastically since the 1960s, especially the student newspaper reportage, which was much more provocative back then.
The University of Queensland
A new book from historian Sally Percival Wood explores how the politically active student media of the 1960s changed Australia socially, culturally and politically.
Future learners will need an excellent start in early learning if they are to cope with mid to late 21st century challenges.
Shutterstock
In this book extract, Iram Siraj explains how to help kids get a leg up in a digital world by teaching them communication and other essential 21st century skills young.
Malcolm Turnbull on the day he deposed Tony Abbott as Liberal Party leader in September 2015.
AAP/Sam Mooy
Temporary migrants are excluded from the benefits and rights of Australian citizenship. Is such immigration policy compatible with Australia’s democratic principles and values?
John Howard confirms the nation’s involvement in the war in Iraq in March 2003, a decision subject to remarkably little oversight by comparison to Australia’s allies.
AAP/Alan Porritt
It is important to restore public trust in any future decision for Australia to go to war. For this, a system that provides better democratic accountability is essential.
Mutual admiration between big businessmen like Alan Bond (left) and the Labor Party was a double-edged sword for Bob Hawke in the 1980s.
AAP/NAA
In the 1980s Australians grappled with the challenges of living in an era that brought together boom and crisis, nationalism and globalisation, confidence and anxiety, and conservatism and exuberance.
Queensland Police Commissioner Terry Lewis was a target of the Fitzgerald Inquiry.
Supplied
Matthew Condon’s new book, All Fall Down, ends Queensland Police Commissioner Terry Lewis’ story amid the demise of the Rat Pack and their corrupt system of graft payments known as “The Joke”.