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.

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?

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

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?*

Food or War: is that the question?

Geoff Tansey blog

FoodOrWar200Rather foolishly, when I set up my website  some years ago, I wrote that I was thinking of writing a book provisionally entitled Food is a Key to Avoiding World War III. Life has intervened and I haven’t been able to do that. Now Australian author and science writer Julian Cribb has written a book that covers much of the ground I would have needed to.  Food or War is not a jolly read. But it does end with a range of proposals to help humanity avoid what has been a recurring feature of human life – conflicts over food, land, and water leading to destructive wars. In this interview, Julian discusses the bleak history of the links between food and war and suggests what might be done to avoid them.

He outlines three key ways to avoid to conflicts over food, land and water and suggests how a…

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