By Julian Cribb AM* Paralysis. Atrophy. Inertia. Perplexity. These terms describe the state of mind of governments around the world, grappling with an existential crisis they do not understand and whose course they appear impotent to change. None of the usual levers work, push them, pull them how you will. You can’t halt wildfires by … Continue reading The End of Politics
The rise and rise of petrofascism
By Julian Cribb* A new world superpower is arising. One that is unelected, borderless, controls most governments and, increasingly, employs the familiar tools of repression and deception to attain its goals. In Australia, the US and Britain, young people calling for urgent climate action are being arrested and gaoled. Harsh new laws are being passed … Continue reading The rise and rise of petrofascism
Don’t vote for a political party. Vote for a good woman (or man) instead.
By Julian Cribb* Election 2022 may herald the end of party rule in Australian politics. Indeed, like Gorbachev, Scott Morrison seems poised to pull the trigger on the dissolution of the rotten old party system. It could be his political legacy. It’s a big thought, after a century or more of the national interest being … Continue reading Don’t vote for a political party. Vote for a good woman (or man) instead.
The Earth Strikes Back
By Julian Cribb AM Fifty-five million years ago, the Earth took a fever. Somehow, 12,000 billion tonnes of carbon escaped into the atmosphere – and global temperatures soared by 5-8 degrees Celsius over the next few thousand years. What caused this event [i] is still subject to scientific debate, but a vast release of methane … Continue reading The Earth Strikes Back
Idiocracy: is the decline in human intelligence undermining democracy?
The early 21st Century has been noteworthy for a marked increase in the number of governments willing to act against the interests of their electors – and the number of electors prepared to vote against their own best interests and choose such governments. Since an educated, thoughtful and responsible electorate is indispensable to any democracy … Continue reading Idiocracy: is the decline in human intelligence undermining democracy?
Time to end the mass killing
Many times larger than climate change and more deadly than Covid or war, humanity’s chemical emissions are the crisis nobody wants to acknowledge. It is the worst case of mass homicide in human history. Worse than World War II and the Holocaust, worse that World War 1, worse even than the great famines in China … Continue reading Time to end the mass killing
Choosing between national happiness – and global misery
With 30,000 wildfires blazing from one end of the Planet to the other on any single day, melting icecaps and glaciers, dying coral reefs, polluted oceans, lakes, rivers and cities, vanishing wildlife and forests and growing scarcity of water and soil, the fate of humanity is already plain to see. The missing element in our … Continue reading Choosing between national happiness – and global misery
Why we must clean up the Earth
Humans emit more than 200 billion tonnes of chemical substances each year, in a toxic avalanche that is injuring people and life everywhere on the Planet. Earth, and all life on it, are being saturated with man-made chemicals in an event unlike anything in the planet’s entire history. Every moment of our lives we are … Continue reading Why we must clean up the Earth
Our existential crisis: what is to be done?*
Quarter of a century ago, as a science writer, I began encountering a lot of rather depressed scientists. Every day they went to work and grappled with data showing that the Earth was falling apart. Species were vanishing at accelerating rates, poisons were spreading unchecked, the climate becoming more violent, oceans fouled and lifeless and … Continue reading Our existential crisis: what is to be done?*
Solving the mega-risks
By Julian Cribb Humanity’s capacity to inflict mass harm on itself has been accelerating exponentially since the mid-20th Century. It is rapidly approaching the point where it can bring down civilization and, quite possibly, eliminate our species. This is the greatest existential emergency of human history. In the coming decades it will determine whether we … Continue reading Solving the mega-risks
Surviving C21 