Opinion
A New Kind of Human Being: Reply to Steve Fuller
An article I wrote critical of those who plan to build a spaceship to escape an Earth ruined by climate change attracted a response from Steve Fuller, who is described as the sociologist of the “space ark” project I had in mind. Fuller situates my commentary within my wider critique
Political Correctness: Its Origins and the Backlash Against It
Please note: This article contains a word some find offensive. Mexican immigrants are “bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists.” In response to outrage at his statements like this one, Donald Trump replies: “I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct”. On this vague platform Trump
Damned Lies, Minister Hunt and Climate Models
If you believe what you read in the Daily Telegraph saving the planet must mean trashing the economy. That’s their story and they’re sticking to it, no matter what the evidence shows. If the numbers show the opposite, well, they have ways. And so last week the Murdoch tabloid took
Australia’s Special Pleading on Climate: Kyoto deja vu
When the Climate Change Authority – of which I’m a member – concluded that Australia should reduce its carbon emissions by 40-60% below 2000 levels in 2030, and by 30% in 2025, it did not pick the numbers out of the air. Those target levels are the minimum necessary for Australia to
When Racism Masquerades as “Equality”: The Adam Goodes Furore
Throughout most of Australia’s modern history white society has worked hard to make Indigenous Australians disappear. In the early days it took the brutal forms of ‘dispersion’ and taking children from their families. But a people can be made invisible in subtler ways. Aborigines were declared a dying race, written
‘There is such confusion in my powers’: Is an ETS a tax?
Here is a definition in search of a term: what do we call a calculated political strategy to confuse the citizenry in order to gain an electoral advantage? For anyone who thinks clearly, and wants to minimise ambiguity in their communication, definitions matter. In political discourse certain terms have diverse
More Posts:
Free Speech vs Gender Dogma
First posted on Substack August 26, 2026 Part of the crowd at the rally This is the speech I gave to the ‘Restore Women’s Rights’
On Jizz and Bird Worlds
First published on my Substack August 15, 2026 In the world of birding, “jizz” is a fascinating but little-used term (perhaps little used because of
The lesbian phallus, and how it found its way into the Federal Court of Australia
First published on Substack June 30, 2026 In May, the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia ruled that Sall Grover, the proprietor of a women-only
The Rise of Resilience Power, and Odd Arne Westad’s Climate Disavowal
First published on my Substack June 16, 2026 The Coming Storm, the new book by Yale historian Odd Arne Westad on great powers and the prospects