There are numerous examples in the climate change and sustainability literature of people not getting the message, not connecting emotionally with the evidence, and not modifying their behaviours in the face of overwhelming evidence that they need to care for their world, or face catastrophic health consequences
It is 40 years since the first land rights claim by Aboriginal people was instituted in Australia. It was dismissed: Milirrpum v Nabalco Pty Ltd (1971) 17FLR 141 (the Nabalco case). This loss was a great disappointment to those who had devoted their lives to claims that Indigenous Australians had land rights at the time of British settlement and that where those rights still existed they should be recognised and the land returned to that community
For too long our politicians have focused only on short-term goals and objectives; never thinking much beyond the next election. It is time that we all start thinking about our long-term future; in 100 years, what sort of society would we like our grandchildren to be part of
In September 2011, a high-level UN meeting brought together leaders from across the globe to discuss the prevention and control of chronic diseases. This meeting acknowledged that the global burden of preventable health conditions such as cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes was so immense that if uncurbed, it will cripple global health systems and undermine social and economic development
When I was invited to contribute a chapter to a new book about climate change I found myself with a problem: how does one, in just a few thousand words, even begin to cover a subject of such scale and complexity? From which a myriad possible angles should the issue be approached? After all, I am not a scientist, nor am I an economist, a lawyer, a policy-maker, an engineer or a scholar
The term ‘water crisis’ has entered the public lexicon of Australian society. A sense of impending water scarcity has been given critical urgency through growing recognition of climatic change in the amount, location and variability of rainfall due to anthropogenic warming of the atmosphere
Recognising the failure to meet the needs of the world’s poor, the United Nations General Assembly, on 8 September 2000, unanimously adopted the Millennium Declaration. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which followed the Declaration, are the world’s most broadly supported and comprehensive development targets — creating numerical benchmarks for tackling poverty and hunger, ill health, gender inequality, lack of education, lack of access to clean water, and environmental degradation by 2015
The challenge of assuring global food security for the world’s increasing population — estimated to reach 9 billion by 2050 — has been much discussed. Many solutions have been proffered, but most are from limited perspectives and often represent vested interests of some sort — economic, political, or academic
Print media is dying — at least, that’s the conventional wisdom. Circulation figures show sales of major Australian newspapers have been in consistent decline. And that’s a worldwide trend. In its State of the News Media 2015 report the Pew Research Center said: ‘Newspapers continue to struggle as an industry.’ In the United States, newspaper advertising revenue is less than half what it was a decade ago and daily circulation is down 19 per cent over that same period
Our world in the second decade of the 21st century is characterised by extensive growth of the human population (7.2 billion humans in 2014, with one billion extra expected in the next 12 years), and a parallel increase in the use of fossil fuels such as crude oil, natural gas and coal. These present trends cannot continue without resulting in grave implications affecting the global quality of life. Numerous speculations exist regarding future scenarios