“Why?” This is a question I am asked approximately twice every five minutes when in the company of my three-year-old niece, Ella. It used to annoy me at first, I’d get increasingly frustrated, and conversations would often go like this: Ella: “Why are you having a cup of tea?” Kate: “Because I want to.” Walks...
The US government’s Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) just released its much anticipated Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) report which provides a detailed look at how climate change will impact the country. The NCA4 report billed as “the report that the Trump Administration doesn’t want you to see” was released on the Friday after Thanksgiving and buried under...
I live on a 120-acre property surrounded by trees and Australian wildlife and am connected with the natural environment in ways that most people aren’t. Each morning I make a cup of coffee and head to the verandah to watch the trees dancing in the wind, the birds playing kiss chase and my flowers greeting...
UK-based not-for-profit organisation Sinchi advocates for marginalised and indigenous communities around the world, raising awareness of their plights as well as providing a platform for indigenous people to share their own stories to ensure better representation in the media. According to the organisation, there is an estimated 370 million indigenous people in the world, representing 5,000...
Communities, green groups and timber companies have long been at loggerheads with one another over the protection and management of Australia’s forests, most recently in Victoria where activists have been protesting Australian Paper’s logging of Victoria’s forests. However, old scores seem to have been settled with Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Australia announcing the launch of its...
The U.S. midterms are finally over, and as the dust settles and the last few races are called, I’d like to turn our attention to another race that deserves more attention and alarm, especially from environmentalists. On October 28, Brazilians elected Jair Bolsonaro president of Latin America’s largest country and the world’s eighth largest economy....
Brisbane, Australia: According to the Queensland government, its residents use and dispose of nearly three billion beverage containers every year. These containers litter parks, beaches, roadsides, waterways and shopping centres creating not only an unsightly environment but a hazardous one too particularly plastic containers which wreak havoc on nature and wildlife. To deal with these issues, Queensland introduced a...
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Authors: James Allan, Postdoctoral research fellow, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland; James Watson, Professor, The University of Queensland; Jasmine Lee, PhD candidate, biodiversity conservation and climate change, The University of Queensland, and Kendall Jones, PhD candidate, Geography, Planning and Environmental Management, The University...
It is argued that the ideology at the root of all our environmental and social problems is neoliberalism. Although neoliberalism is all around us and is the ideology that drives almost all of our political and economic systems, most people couldn’t explain to you what it is if you asked them. It’s likely, however, that they’ll...
As of 2016, 3.2 billion people globally are considered middle class. A study by the Brookings Institution estimates this number to increase by 140 million annually, and in the next five years, by 170 million. While the growth of the global middle class is not necessarily the same all over the world, it can be considered...
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Authors: Mark Howden, Director, Climate Change Institute, Australian National University and Rebecca Colvin, Knowledge Exchange Specialist, Climate Change Institute, Australian National University. A landmark report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, commissioned at the breakthrough 2015 summit that brokered the Paris climate agreement, outlines what’s...
Climate change is a major contributor to the larger storms striking the Earth and the hurricanes, fire seasons, and droughts that have affected the US and many other parts of the world. There are enormous impacts on the climate that have specifically been caused by humans, and those changes are starting to have a negative...