This chapter is about wellbeing in the Anthropocene. ‘The Anthropocene’ is the name given to the new chronological period the Earth is said to now be in as a result of human modifications, representing its exit from the Holocene (the past, relatively stable 10–12 millenia)
In Australia, nearly one third of our national population — approximately 7 million Australians — live in rural and remote areas. For all the complex reasons that health and place are associated, the health of this spatially, economically, socially and culturally distinct group is generally quantitatively and qualitatively different to — and often significantly poorer than — that of those living in major cities
Here are a couple of questions about asking questions: If interviewing is central to journalism why are so many interviews so boring to watch? If interviewing is a cornerstone skill in journalism, why do so many aspiring journalists find it so difficult to do?
Upon witnessing the last execution ever to take place in France, Judge Monique Mabelly was confronted with the horror of killing a lucid and healthy human being. At the end of her account, she describes the washing away of the blood as akin to concealing a crime. In modern times, methods of execution have become increasingly sanitised and silenced. There is a shroud of secrecy that envelopes its use, and this is designed to conceal the fact that the death penalty is, at its very core, inhumane and cruel
It is difficult to think of an area of our lives that is not touched by the earth sciences — whether it relates to the energy used to fuel our vehicles and homes or the natural disasters that dominate the evening news, to the dependence of our daily lives on weather forecasting or the precious metals used in electronic devices — to name a few
On 4 June 2008, Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, announced his vision for the establishment of an Asia-Pacific Community. Subsequently, the Human Rights Subcommittee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade has undertaken an inquiry into international and regional human rights mechanisms and possible models for the Asia–Pacific region
The past 12 months have been, without a doubt, the most exciting in recent history in terms of disclosure of information. The disclosure of information by WikiLeaks, including collateral murder, the Afghanistan and Iraq War logs, Cablegate, the Guantanamo Bay files, the spy files and the global intelligence files
On 24 January 1946, the very first resolution of the UN General Assembly called for the ‘elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons’. More than 71 years later, in Conference Room 1 at the United Nations in New York at 10:47 on 7 July 2017, governments voted 122 to 1 to adopt the text of a historic Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (UN General Assembly, 2017). A room filled for weeks with formal procedure, composed diplomats and committed campaigners erupted with applause, joy, tears and embraces
These are times where one should question how we, as members of society, will formulate meaningful responses to the ever-increasing global complexity: what is the world that our children will grow up in like? How can today’s crises empower parents and children across the globe to cease the current political standstill and instead implement sustainable strategies to prevent further destruction?
No question, Bruce Guthrie is a survivor. He, like thousands of journalists world-wide, lost his job during the tumultuous last decade. Newspapers reeled as advertisers realised they could decouple from journalism and shake off costs