Rubrica

Hot on the heels of the Hurricane Helene which flattened large tracts of North Carolina, and the devastating floods in Spain, the death toll from which has exceeded 200 people, the CSIRO last week released its State of the Climate Report for 2024. The report, compiled from global and Australian data and placed within a 100-year context to determine trends and outcomes, provides an outlook for our short to medium term expectations. And these expectations paint a worrisome picture. While globally, the hottest year on record was 2023, thanks to back-to-back La Niña systems since the Black Summer, our hottest year was 2019.  However, the report warns that our land and oceans continue to warm:   “Extreme fire weather is increasing. Sea levels are rising. Marine heatwaves are becoming more intense and frequent. And oceans are getting more acidic. All of these come with serious consequences for Australia’s environment and communities.”   It’s not like this is a revelation. We’v...

  The Games of the XXXIII Olympiad have begun with all the stunning techno wizardry and cultural iconography the French could muster, and when it comes to cultural iconography, the French have it in spades. As we all know, Australia needs to do well in the first week of any Olympic Games because once the swimming concludes, we’re pretty much like fish out of water. Sure, we’ll pick up medals in a few other sports later in the show, but we know that if we have any chance of ending up in a respectable position on the final medal tally, it’s mostly up to the swimmers to get us there. Since the era of the modern Olympic Games, which commenced in 1896, various sports have been discontinued and others added. In the 1900 Games in Paris, hot air ballooning and croquet were contested. They only survived one Games, mainly because the only competitors were French. Other sports we don’t see at Olympic level any more are tug-of-war, obstacle course racing, steeplechase and...

Golf is an unlikely sport in which to learn about teamwork. When a golfer stands on the first tee it’s the player and his or her handicap against the competition. It is, in almost every respect, the ultimate individual game. But I have learned some unexpected and useful lessons about teamwork which are applicable across the spectrum of activism. Some backstory: I belong to a small golf club in a country town in SE NSW. We compete in the regional Pennants competition against 15 other clubs. These are all the clubs in the ACT, plus those on the NSW Southern Tablelands and Southern Highlands and for non-golfers, I assure you, Pennants is a Big Deal. Our club is by far the smallest in the region, with only eight women available to play in the Pennants comp. By comparison, some of the other clubs have up to 80 women from which they can draw a team of five players for each of the home-and-away rounds and then the finals if they qualify. Despite our...

  My friend Bill is standing for election in this year’s NSW local government elections. Bill is a teacher, musician and wildlife hero who runs, alongside his long-suffering wife Lesley, a wombat refuge. Bill is on call 24/7 for injured wildlife. He and Les typically care for dozens of wombats on their refuge, ranging from tiny pinkies rescued from the pouches of road-killed mothers, through to adults being treated and rehabilitated prior to release back to the bush. We’re talking a lot of wombats here. Bill also has a weekly radio program on the local FM station where he interviews a local person on various topical issues. Apparently all these commitments aren’t enough because now Bill wants to be a councillor. Is Bill bonkers? Probably, but that’s not the point. The point is climate change. Does local government have a role in taking climate action and how can one elected council representative make a difference? Let’s go back a few decades …  From ...

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. Aristotle             Gina, by Namatjira Gina Rinehart’s intemperate response to her portrait by Vincent Namatjira on display in the National Gallery has resulted in considerable mockery and hilarity across the full spectrum of social media platforms. Mrs Rinehart is not a self-made woman or a battler who’s made good. She inherited her wealth from her father, Lang Hancock, a man who treated Australia as his own personal quarry, and she has built on his legacy by buying off successive governments in order to extend her claims on vast swathes of the country for her personal gain. In the process, as well as becoming one of Australia's most reviled characters, she has managed to alienate at least two of her children whom she now only sees in court. According to a 2021 Guardian Australia report, Rinehart owns and controls 9.2 million hectares of Australia – a...