Opinion
How do we prepare for life on a hot planet?
There has always been a sense of unreality about our climate change predicament, especially through the long years of denial, disputation and delay. More recently, Australia seems to have jumped from the delusions of denial to faith in increasingly implausible”solutions”, bypassing sober assessment of the seriousness of the reality we
‘Neo-nature’ and the new world of the Anthropocene
Do you, like me, hesitate when you refer to floods or bushfires as natural disasters? When Earth’s atmosphere is warmer and moister because of human-induced climate change, all weather events have a human fingerprint. The now well-developed field of ‘attribution studies’ calculates the increased likelihood and severity of extreme weather
It’s just not cricket: rich kids win at the expense of everyone else
The opening on Friday of Radford College’s multi-million dollar cricket facility—described as ‘better than Lords’—draws attention to the fundamental unfairness of our education system. Elite private schools are engaged in a kind of arms race to build the most lavish facilities for their already privileged pupils, which not only highlights
Elite privilege isn’t a product of wealth Class shame is woven into the fabric of society
Almost a year ago, in July 2023, Rishi Sunak’s government named and shamed Britain’s most unruly towns. The media, unsurprisingly, lapped it up: places subjected to higher levels of social disadvantage were described as “bad towns” filled with “streets of shame”. All who lived there were tainted. We rarely think
Magic thinking vs the hard truth of climate change
Clive Hamilton and George Wilkenfeld Can Australia become a renewable energy superpower and help the world limit global warming? Across Australia, citizens rightly anxious about the changing climate are cautiously optimistic; after all, the alternative is grim. The federal government is building an economic strategy for the nation’s future around
We’ve come a long way on gender diversity but what about class?
In 2021, the coach of the Perth-based West Coast Eagles Australian rules football team said recruits who attended public schools and came from single-parent families are too costly to manage off-field and the club might be better off concentrating on private school boys from stable families. His comments came a year after a
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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