July 1 has rolled past and Australia has a carbon tax. As Government Ministers prepare to hit the road to spruik the benefits of the tax, it’s worth shining a spotlight on the kinds of messages they love…
Our parks are an incredible asset, and if we ran them more like a business we would see that.
AAP/Patrick Horton
National parks are among Australia and New Zealand’s most precious assets. But we don’t account for them properly, so they’re struggling. It’s time for a rethink. The assets managed by the parks agencies…
Quarries and quandaries: Australia’s natural splendour is a major source of income, yet it sits uncomfortably with mining’s spread.
AAP/Fantasea Adventure Cruising
Australia has built a strong global brand based on its iconic natural beauty. For example, the new Australia Tourism campaign, “There’s nothing like Australia”, features icons like the Kimberley, Uluru…
To know how to ease the damage we do, we must first take stock of the natural world. New Zealand does; Australia does not.
Flickr/borkazoid
In 1992-93, 168 countries including Australia and New Zealand signed the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) acknowledging an urgent need to halt ongoing decline in the planet’s biodiversity. In its…
Lost generations: if Australians now cycled at the same rates as in the mid 1980s, up to a million more people would be riding.
Flickr/taisau
Cycling industry reports of significant bicycles sales in Australia suggest a growth in cycling participation. As the Tour de France re-excites interest in cycling around the world, a new analysis published…
Sanctuary: marine parks can create new ways to prevent illegal fishing.
Mia Hoogenboom, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University
Environment Minister Tony Burke announced the final proposed Commonwealth marine protected area (MPA) network last month. The network would be the largest in the world, covering more than a third of Commonwealth…
Climate change is only one of many pressures farmers will have to adapt to.
Pete Hill
Opinions on anthropogenic climate change vary greatly across society, and it appears that Australia’s farmers remain largely sceptical about the causes of climate change. Recent surveys show that only…
Behind the times: Europe already had carbon taxes in 1992 back when Vanilla Ice topped the Australian charts.
AAP/Musicbiz
We price carbon. This is nothing new. The first time this explicitly happened, Vanilla Ice hit number one in Australia, and Bryan Adams was topping the global charts with “(Everything I do) I do it for…
Sometimes even the clearest signs of change are ignored.
Flickr/baldeaglebluff
With increasing global greenhouse gas emissions, and no clear internationally-agreed path for emission reductions, we are faced with a global climate that will be at least two degrees warmer than today…
State of dependency: Australia imports the majority of its oil for the first time since 1970.
Flickr/Sr. Samolo
For all the talk about Australia’s resource and energy riches and the country’s economy riding the waves of a resource boom, one facet of the country’s energy situation has largely been under the radar…
Do you see the light? Solar costs are comparable to fossil fuels, and are falling 45% annually.
Flickr/MyEye85
John Mathews, Macquarie Graduate School of Management
Recent postings to The Conversation have enlivened the debate over the “Great Transition” that is underway all around the world from the fossil-fuelled energy systems of the 20th century to the renewably…
Hard numbers: less than 1% of the world’s oceans are protected but marine scientists think 20% should be off-limits to fishing.
AAP/Lloyd Jones
As a marine scientist, I welcome Senator Burke’s brave decision today to roll out Australia’s marine park system. This puts us on a par with other leading nations like the US and UK who have established…
Networks of nature: a potato cod with striped cleaner wrasse at Osprey Reef, an area in the expanded marine reservations announced today.
Flickr/richard ling
Today’s announcement of a national network of marine parks is really a memorable day for Australian nature conservation. The political rhetoric and self-congratulation associated with major events is often…
Julia Gillard espouses “evidence-based” policy and Bob Hawke set up a Future Commission, but policy-making is necessarily subject to all manner of short-term pressures.
AAP/Tracey Nearmy
In part five of our multi-disciplinary Millennium Project series, Scott Prasser questions easy sloganeering about the importance of “long-term” policy-making. Global challenge 5: How can policymaking be…
Back, sperm, back: a human egg on the tip of a pin.
Flickr/wellcome images
Elephants in the room, part two For all our schemes and mantras about making our lives environmentally “sustainable”, humanity’s assault on the planet not only continues but expands. What are the deep…
How far are you from the treatment you need? Having a heart attack puts the patient in a race against time.
Flickr/alexkess
Australians considering where to have a heart attack can now do a postcode check on the speed and quality of medical treatment they are likely to receive. The Cardiac Accessibility and Remoteness Index…
Payday lenders can seem a necessity for many Australians.
Flickr/taberandrew
Almost 3 million adult Australians are entirely or severely excluded from mainstream financial services including bank loans and even bank accounts, and are often instead uninsured and reliant on loansharks…
Tug of water: the Murray-Darling Basin is fraught with competing interests.
AAP/Lukas Coch
The Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) today released a revised plan that recommends cutting the volume of groundwater to be extracted, in a variety of changes following 20 weeks of consultations. The…
Embrace the blazing sphere.
AAP/EPA/NASA/Solar Dynamics Observatory
John Gardner, US Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare joined Lyndon Johnson’s cabinet in 1965 to help create a ‘Great Society’ to end poverty, promote equality, improve education, rejuvenate cities…
In today’s world, businesses have to find new ways to tackle wicked problems.
luxamart
Obesity. Climate change. Brain drain. Tax havens. War in Afghanistan. All have been described as “wicked problems”. UC Berkeley scholars, Rittel and Webber, coined the term in 1973 when they were reacting…
Managing Director, Triple Helix Consulting; Chief Executive Officer, Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research; Professorial Fellow, ANU Fenner School for the Environment and Society, Australian National University
Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, and Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt University
Associate Professor of Environmental Economics and Policy, School of Environment, Science and Engineering, and Fellow of the Marine Ecology Research Centre, Southern Cross University