Change is hard, it’s also remorseless and effects everyone including the government
We want change, but our governments keep doing the same thing. In many cases governments exert stronger control to ensure things stay the same. The irony here is that, over time, the more our leaders attempt to hold things the same, the more things change and slip out of their control. That’s the nature of complex systems. (Part 3 in our series on change.)
Changing things for sustainability: How come we get increments when we need giant leaps?
In the face of an increasingly uncertain future there are growing calls for change across society. But our elected officials, despite talking big at election time, only give us increments of nothing when it comes to delivery.
It’s a hard job being environment minister. Here’s an insider’s view of the key challenges facing Murray Watt
Being environment minister is a hard gig. It often requires difficult choices between environmental and economic priorities. In cabinet, the minister is often up against a phalanx of ministers with economic portfolios and overriding political imperatives such as jobs and growth. In the electoral calculus, job and growth trumps environment.
Time for a change – how are you going to make it happen?
More people are growing concerned about climate change and environmental decline. But when will society respond with real change? Is it just a matter of waiting for a majority before we get the transformative change that scientists are crying out for. What actually catalyses transformative change, anyway?
Earth Day 2025 – a force for change or another siren song of BAU
Earth Day – does it provide hope, make a difference or is it actually something that blinds us to a greater truth? Protect the environment, it demands; let us create a truly sustainable future, it implores. But shift the status quo? Not if it pushes up the cost of living!
Word on the street
Tosh and rubbish, of course, but this is what happens when you mix growing uncertainty with increasing vulnerability, and a decline of trust in our institutions, and hypercharge it with social media and powerful vested interests trampling principle and convention. Plant this tosh in a rich bed of prejudice and fear, and watch a hundred conspiracies bloom.
For ‘peats’ sake, can we please get serious about protecting our peatlands
Wetlands are under threat all around the world but there’s one particular type of wetland that provides a disproportionate ecosystem service in the form of carbon storage that is in dire need of increased protection. We’re talking peatlands, and new research is suggesting it’s way past time we got serious about looking after them.
Labor’s dumping of Australia’s new nature laws means the environment is shaping as a key 2025 election issue
The Albanese government is now the latest in a string of governments that have tried and failed to reform the law known formally as the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act. This is despite two major independent reviews calling for wholesale change. Labor’s capitulation does not, however, change the facts. Australia’s natural environment is deteriorating rapidly. Laws are urgently needed to protect our nation’s valuable natural assets.
Is there still a chance of environmental reform before the federal election? Probably not, but never say never …
The Government’s ambitious ‘Nature Positive’ initiative appears to have founded on the rocks of realpolitik. Peter Burnett has been closely following the saga of Nature Positive policy reform and believes while the chances are small that legislation establishing an EPA and EIA will be passed before the next election, they are not zero. Indeed, as he explains here, there is a credible pathway that might enable the reforms to be acceptable to all parties and still achieve significant environmental outcomes. This might be critical if the Government wants to burnish its rather dull environmental credentials as it heads into what is expected to be a tight electoral race.
CoP out? Maybe you’re thinking about the wrong cop
While it might be that the CoPs are not delivering what most people hope for, and what many politicians have us believe they are supposed to deliver, for now it’s the main game in town. And if we want them to have greater impact, maybe we should be acknowledging the true nature of the CoP and throw the spotlight back onto what our own elected leaders are actually achieving. Someone has to set the pace and the rest might follow.
The Bite
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Out on a Limb: Why Urban Forests Keep Losing the Argument and Our Children Pay the Price
Michael Vardon on why urban forests keep losing the argument — and how a bit of accounting could change the odds. And he begins by looking at the loss of a much loved 80-year-old raintree in Cairns.
