Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Allan, Senior Lecturer in Transport, Urban and Regional Planning, University of South Australia

As climate change rapidly advances, many Middle Eastern states are aiming to make the transition from carbon-based economies to alternatives that attract people from around the world – for tourism, business, work or to live.

One such example is a development known as NEOM, to be built in Saudi Arabia.

A key part of the plan is “The Line”, a A$725 billion futuristic city designed to house 9 million residents. It comprises a mirrored, wall-like structure 200 metres wide and 500 metres tall. To be built in Saudi Arabia’s north-western Tabuk province, the project will extend 170 kilometres inland from the Red Sea across coastal desert, mountain and upper valley landscapes.

The Line claims to set a new benchmark for sustainable development. Its footprint is just 34 square kilometres (less than 4 square metres per person), occupying a fraction of NEOM’s 26,500-square-kilometre site. This allows for a lighter touch on the landscape than would normally be expected for a mega city. In addition, the NEOM project includes an airport and shipping port, industrial areas, research centres, sports and entertainment venues and tourism destinations.

The Line is touted as a post-carbon eco-city, but the scale of its ambitions raises serious questions about whether the project can deliver on its environmental, economic and social goals within just a few years.

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The devil is in the details

At first glance, the project appears environmentally impressive. The urban edge is no more than 100 metres from any point in the city. A high-speed electric public transport service ensures no part of The Line is more than 20 minutes away.

Residing in such a gargantuan structure implies a claustrophobic lifestyle. But, in theory, each resident would enjoy an average of 1,000 cubic metres of urban volume. That’s much more generous than most dense city living environments.

Unfortunately, as in many high-density, high-rise buildings, a sophisticated vertical transportation system would be needed. The structure is equivalent to a conventional 125-storey skyscraper.

The project costs also seem modest at US$55,000 per resident. Let’s say this is achievable in a country with much lower employment costs than in developed economies and only relates to infrastructure. Even then, it remains to be seen how ultra-high-speed transit and cutting-edge infrastructure and services within the most massive building ever constructed can be cost-effective.

The linear design underpinning The Line is not a new idea. The Spanish urban planner Arturo Soria y Mata developed a “linear city” concept in 1882. This concept allowed great efficiencies in infrastructure (such as water, electricity, gas and transport) by incorporating it along a narrow, linear urban corridor. A key plank of the design was to “ruralise” the city and “urbanise” the countryside.

The Line echoes this concept. However, one wonders about its impacts on the countryside. How might a continuous 500-metre-high mirrored barrier, reflecting the desert heat and light and cutting across the landscape for 170km, affect local biodiversity?

The Line appears to be oriented along an east-west axis. This may be optimal for solar thermal management, but is likely to cast large shadows in mid-winter.

Environmental and community impact

The Line aims for zero-emissions living. Energy comes from renewable sources, green hydrogen earns export income, wastewater is recycled, and it features the latest in “smart city” technologies and mixed-use buildings. Car ownership is eschewed in favour of walking, cycling and public transport.

However, the materials and construction of such an enormous project could be very emissions-intensive.

The concept claims no one would be more than two minutes from nature (in other words, the urban edge at ground level). But does this consider the waiting times for a lift? Without careful design, a high reliance on vertical transportation may stymie hopes for genuinely walkable or bicycle-friendly precincts.

The Line may be developed in modules, but whether these would correspond to neighbourhoods is not clear.

And will individuals, businesses and other entities have creative reign over how their designs are expressed – or will all parts of the city look much the same?

Independent expression of built form is an intrinsic part of conventional cities, but may not be possible with such as rigid structure as The Line. This raises questions about whether people would warm to it.

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New cities? It’s an idea worth thinking about for Australia

Creating and maintaining a vision

The Line was to be completed by 2025 in a desire to revolutionise urban living. With construction yet to begin in earnest, it remains to be seen whether such a complex megacity can be completed so soon.

And the project proposal makes precious little mention of important factors such as:

• community structure

• diversity of household types

• likely demographics

• governance

• individual rights (equality of rights, property ownership, access to social services, civic involvement and citizenship)

• tolerance of diverse religious and spiritual beliefs.

The Line promises to have “human experience” at its heart, that there will be “progressive laws” and healthcare will facilitate “individual empowerment”.

But maintaining this vision may be difficult as new migrants bring their own values.

Read more:
In Saudi Arabia, women are turning to business as a form of ‘quiet activism’ in their feminist movement

A nation-building project

The Line appears to be a massive exercise in nation-building. Its planned 9 million population represents a 25% increase on Saudi Arabia’s current population of 35 million people.

The marketing focus of The Line is on environmental sustainability, technology, luxury and professional lifestyles, innovation and a strategic location. This suggests its planners and designers intend to produce a novel and exemplary urban development that will rapidly transition Saudi Arabia to a post-carbon future.

All the elements are there to do that. But, from a planning and construction perspective, it will require enormous strength of will, financial heft and capability.

And it remains to be seen how successfully The Line will attract the residents it needs to succeed.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. What is The Line, the 170km-long mirrored metropolis Saudi Arabia is building in the desert? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-line-the-170km-long-mirrored-metropolis-saudi-arabia-is-building-in-the-desert-188639

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Graeme Coulson, Honorary Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne

Kangaroos can be dangerous. This week a 77-year-old man tragically died in Western Australia after an attack by a kangaroo, which was reported to be his pet. He is believed to be the first person killed in a kangaroo attack since 1936.

Kangaroos are wild animals. It’s important to remember that while they can make interesting pets, they have never been domesticated, so their behaviour is driven mostly by instinct.

All kangaroos are large animals with powerful arms and massive feet. The largest is the iconic red kangaroo, which can easily tower over a tall human. Kangaroos use their arms, claws and feet as weapons in male-male combat, and for self-defence against predators such as dingoes and wedge-tailed eagles.

Indeed, a pet kangaroo may perceive its human owner as a rival kangaroo or a potential predator, or perhaps both. As a result, kangaroos sometimes attack people, causing nasty and even fatal injuries.

There are three species of kangaroo and all are known to attack humans: the red kangaroo, the eastern grey kangaroo and the western grey kangaroo. I’ve studied kangaroo behaviour since the 1970s, with a focus on human-kangaroo interactions. Here’s a reminder of why you should do you best to keep a respectful distance of them.

Vegetarian gladiators

Kangaroo attacks are rare, but not unheard of. Indeed, fewer than five people seek medical attention each year in New South Wales from kangaroo-related injuries.

While a kangaroo’s first response is usually to flee, it will attack if feels cornered or if it sees a human as a sparring partner. Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule.

They can cause serious injury. Their sharp claws can make deep cuts, and their powerful kicks can cause severe bruising and internal injuries.

But don’t get me wrong, kangaroos are essentially peace-loving herbivores. Their days are spent resting in patches of sunshine in winter or shade in summer, then leaving to feed in evening twilight and much of the night, through to early morning.

They are gregarious creatures, forming loose mobs of both sexes and all ages. Only two things disturb their peaceful foraging: fighting among males and the threat of becoming prey.

Kangaroos can live for up to around 20 years and they grow throughout their lives. Males grow faster than females, which means males can become very large indeed. An old man kangaroo may weigh 90 kilograms or more and easily stand more than two metres tall.

Read more:
Is that selfie really worth it? Why face time with wild animals is a bad idea

As males grow, their body proportions also change, giving them huge shoulders, long arms and sharp claws. Their feet grow less in relative terms, but are still formidable, with a long, sharp nail at the tip.

Male kangaroos use these features as weapons in male-male combat, as they kick, claw and wrestle each other in fights for dominance. Most fighting takes the form of ritualised, almost gentlemanly bouts as they hone their skills and learn their place in the hierarchy.

However, serious fights can still occur and males usually carry scars, torn ears and other injuries. Occasionally, these fights are fatal.

Standing up to dogs

Other than humans, dogs – including large pets and dingoes – are the main predators of kangaroos. Dogs usually operate in packs to attack and kill kangaroos by running them down.

Kangaroos avoid attacks by maintaining vigilance, giving warning foot-thumps and fleeing to safety. Large male kangaroos are less likely to flee and may use their size and weapons to defend themselves against any dog that comes too close.

Kangaroos will also seek refuge in streams and dams, standing in the water while the dogs pace the shore.

A large male kangaroo has the height and upper-body strength to kill any dog that enters the water, as the first European colonists learned when their hunting dogs were drowned.

Domestic dogs and kangaroos do not mix. Many attacks on people occur when a kangaroo defends itself against a dog, then the owner tries to intervene.

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When kangaroos and humans interact

When female kangaroos are found dead or injured on the side of the road, or sometimes tangled in a fence, they often have a joey still alive in the pouch. Most people call wildlife rescue organisations to care for the joey, while some may take the joey home to raise as a pet.

In Australia, a permit is usually required to keep a kangaroo as a pet, but regulations differ across the states and territories.

Hand-rearing a joey takes time and devotion, but can be rewarding as the youngster becomes imprinted on its human foster mother and faithfully follows them around.

As the youngster grows, it becomes more independent. By the time it reaches sexual maturity around 4 years of age, a hand-reared male is much bigger and is now quite a handful. Its foster mother could then becomes a sparring partner in practice fights, which are increasingly rough and dangerous as the young male continues to grow.

Another way we come into close contact with kangaroos is when we deliberately feed them. Kangaroos rapidly habituate to humans, losing their natural fear of us as they seek an instant food reward.

This reached has a dangerous extreme on the grounds of the Morisset Hospital on the New South Wales Central Coast, where domestic and international tourists deliberately feed the wild, resident kangaroos to get close-up photos. This unregulated activity has led to a number of attacks on people.

Mixed messages

We share our unusual upright posture with kangaroos. This might make kangaroos endearing to us. However, the message received by the kangaroo is quite different. A kangaroo probably sees our vertical stance as a threat, so may lash out in self defence if we approach.

An adult male kangaroo may view our stance as a serious challenge, and if large and confident, may escalate and attack.

This reaction gave us the classic boxing kangaroo, once a feature of sideshows around Australia in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. The kangaroo wore gloves to protect the human boxer from sharp claws, and the human kept well out of range of a stranglehold or raking kick.

Today we have a more enlightened view of animal behaviour, and recognise that kangaroos are fundamentally wild animals and are potentially dangerous.

If a kangaroo attacks, keep an eye on it and get away as quickly as possible while keeping low in a crouch, because the kangaroo is less likely to give chase. If the attack persists and you can’t escape, drop down low, curl into a ball, protect your head with your arms and call for help.

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Graeme Coulson works for Macropus Consulting.

– ref. Reminder: kangaroos are ‘vegetarian gladiators’ with kicks that can kill. An expert explains why they attack – https://theconversation.com/reminder-kangaroos-are-vegetarian-gladiators-with-kicks-that-can-kill-an-expert-explains-why-they-attack-190539

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mike Grimshaw, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Canterbury

Rugby football was the best of all our pleasures: it was religion and desire and fulfilment all in one.

– John Mulgan, Report on Experience (1947)

Since failing to win the 2019 Rugby World Cup, the way the All Blacks have played – and often lost – has caused much anguish about a “crisis” in New Zealand rugby. It reached boiling point after the recent series loss to Ireland and first Test loss to Argentina.

Is the game’s administrative body, New Zealand Rugby (NZR), not up to the task? Have they and the All Blacks lost their way? Clearly something profound – existential even – is going on. In which case, maybe it’s time NZR turned to another kind of expert for answers.

Given it’s still common to talk of the “religion of rugby” in New Zealand, maybe the sociology of religion would be a good place to start.

The French sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858-1917), for example, would be deeply worried – for the All Blacks and for New Zealand society – even after the All Blacks’ second Test redemption against Argentina.

Durkheim founded “functionalism”, the view that society is divided into parts and sub-parts that fit together. Each institution and social group has its own function to perform for the benefit of society – even rugby.

Anomie and the ABs

For Durkheim, society is more than the sum of parts. If all the parts function well and are connected, then a new society occurs. If they don’t function and aren’t connected, then society and the individuals within it can suffer a breakdown in morals, values and meaning.

He called this “anomie”, where the collective consciousness of society fails to hold together and provide meaning. So the Bledisloe Test series beginning this week will be crucial for keeping that growing rugby anomie under control as we head toward the 2023 World Cup.

The notion of rugby as a religion first arose in 1908 following the Anglo-Welsh rugby tour of New Zealand. Durkheim viewed religion and society as interrelated; to worship your god is to worship your society, and so society is the real object of religious veneration.

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But because society is abstract and complex, we create “totems” as expressions of its identity and values. These become the objects of veneration and the expression of the collective consciousness.

Durkheim was also concerned that if the totems fail, the religion fails. The society then goes into decline. He would recognise the central totemic importance of the All Blacks for New Zealand society, and their role in the religion of rugby.

He would also identify the importance of the two central totemic figures: captain Sam Cane and head coach Ian Foster. Under them, New Zealand rugby has been suffering a totemic crisis. More losses will mean the loss of their totemic value, too.

In turn, those who find meaning and value through the totemic role of the All Blacks risk suffering a crisis of faith and meaning. In other words, they will suffer anomie. And when one section of a society suffers anomie, it can weaken the wider social glue.

The charisma deficit

Maybe NZR might now look to sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920), who would immediately identify the root cause of the problem as a lack of charismatic leadership – the source of authority, able to inspire others.

Distinguishing between the “priestly” and the “prophetic”, Weber would say Cane and Foster were appointed as priestly leaders to maintain the practices of the religious cult, yet neither has the required charisma. He might identify Crusaders coach Scott Robertson as the right prophetic leader to challenge the status quo.

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Turning to sociologist Peter Berger (1929-2017), NZR would learn that the decline in belief in the social function of rugby, and in its All Black totems, is perhaps inevitable due to New Zealand slowly becoming a properly modern society.

Weber would call this the “secularisation” of rugby and the All Blacks, most evident in the declining attendances at services in the churches and cathedrals of rugby (otherwise known as the National Provincial Championship and the Super Rugby competition).

He might link this to NZR’s own “rationalising bureaucracy”, which has seen contests and teams change, plus the effects of COVID restrictions and the impact of televising matches at nights.

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A new rugby religion

At this point, Berger might offer a glimmer of hope by reminding the board that, while it was believed religion would inevitably die out, the past 30 years have seen its return in many new ways and places.

His concept of a single, sacred “canopy” – the collective universe we use to give sense, meaning and order to our lives – has given way to a series of smaller, varied canopies to live under and between.

So, it’s not too late for NZR to restore rugby’s broken sacred canopy and give it meaning. The rise of schoolboy rugby as a new focus of meaning and identity, and the success of women’s rugby and sevens, all suggest a new pluralism within the game.

Rugby’s priesthood just needs to be open to a new, modern, meaningful order (what Berger would call “nomos”) where the secular non-rugby world and this new pluralistic rugby religion can coexist.

But Durkheim and Weber would both still stress the need for new totems and renewed charismatic leadership. If the rugby congregation slips into anomie, the effect can spread. After all, as has been said so often about rugby in New Zealand, it’s more than just a game.

Mike Grimshaw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. If rugby is still a religion in New Zealand, how should its high priesthood respond to a crisis of faith? – https://theconversation.com/if-rugby-is-still-a-religion-in-new-zealand-how-should-its-high-priesthood-respond-to-a-crisis-of-faith-190238

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa Perrott, Senior Lecturer & Researcher in Screen and Media Studies, University of Waikato

Don’t fake it baby, lay the real thing on me

– David Bowie, Moonage Daydream (1971)

Hypnotic, immersive, kaleidoscopic, sublime: Brett Morgen’s film Moonage Daydream has been described as an “experiential cinematic odyssey” and a “colossal tidal wave of vibrant images and overpowering sound”.

But as a Bowie fan of 40 years, this film was a transformative experience for me because of the integrity with which Morgen reassembled “the real thing” to make something authentic and new.

Inspired by Bowie’s cautionary words about comfort and his philosophy to “always go further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in”, Morgen embarked on a mission that would take him far outside his comfort zone.

Boldly eschewing the conventional biopic format, he immersed himself in a seven-year creative process – one that has led to a subjective but respectful representation of the artist who helped him navigate his own teenage journeys.

Propelling the biographical music documentary form beyond the expected conventions of talking heads and expert analysis, Morgen combines a documentary style with music video aesthetics and surrealist assemblage methods to craft a new form.

Employing an even more extensive collage approach than he’d used for his Kurt Cobain film Montage of Heck (2015), Morgen treats Moonage Daydream as an audiovisual tapestry, woven from numerous archival materials: songs, vocal recordings, still photographs and film footage derived from music videos, theatrical films, televised interviews and live performance.

Morgen brings these things to life by punctuating them with sonic and visual effects. Bravely facing the potential wrath of Bowie devotees, he takes the creative liberty of disassembling and reanimating Bowie’s hand-drawn sketches, storyboards and paintings.

Ziggy Stardust lives

A risky way to treat the work of a deceased artist, the approach nonetheless works because Morgen is channelling the Bowie “on his shoulder”. This is his reality of Bowie, but it allows space for viewers to fill in the gaps. As he explained recently:

Bowie invited us the way kabuki does, to kind of project and fill in the blanks. And so I tried to create a film in that manner […] We all have our own Bowie. You have your Bowie, I have my Bowie. I wanted the canvas to reflect back to each viewer their own Bowie, and ultimately themselves.

Taking two years to familiarise himself with millions of archival pieces, Morgen developed an intuitive sense about which materials to use and how they would project when blown up on a cinema screen. By allowing this raw material to retain flaws such as scratches, camera shake and blur, he conjures nostalgia for a moment in time.

Read more:
Space Oddity at 50: the ‘novelty song’ that became a cultural touchstone

Transported to the Hammersmith Odeon in 1973, I marvelled at the grainy texture of the film stock used to shoot D.A. Pennebaker’s film of the famous last Ziggy Stardust concert. I absorbed the texture of Bowie’s hair and the colour of his mismatched eyes in extreme closeups from Mick Rock’s music video Life On Mars? from the same year.

Grounding the film in reality, the rawness and heightened proximity of these projections enhance the sensory experience. One moment I was on stage with Bowie, just behind his shoulder, experiencing his exhilaration as he stepped towards throngs of adoring fans. Next, I was one of those fans in full Ziggy garb, reaching out to touch Bowie on that stage.

Cut-up and collage

This sense of intimacy and immersion in Bowie’s life explains why Moonage Daydream is such a treat for fans. But why did Bowie’s estate give their wholehearted approval to this film and not others?

Firstly, rather than relying on actors or expert commentators, the film allows Bowie to tell his story through his own words and his own art. Secondly, Morgen has taken more than inspiration from Bowie’s philosophy about life and creativity. He approached Moonage Daydream in a way that mirrors Bowie’s own creative process.

Read more:
David Bowie’s late revival belongs to a grand tradition dating back to Beethoven

Often described as a cultural magpie, Bowie was a rampant forager who used methods such as cut-up and collage to weave together a diverse array of inspirations and found materials. Morgen uses similar methods with archive material from across Bowie’s expansive oeuvre.

He shows how Bowie synthesised the gestures of Hollywood starlets, visual motifs gleaned from kabuki theatre and noh mask traditions, protopunk style and a Kubrick-esque science fiction aesthetic.

Morgen also uses cut-up and collage methods to show how Bowie fused the Pierrot persona (derived from the Commedia dell’arte performance form) with visual references derived from surrealist and German expressionist films, along with the aesthetics of the fledgling New Romantic subculture.

Time and space

Mirroring Bowie’s creative process, the approach also replicates the artist’s treatment of time as medium, and his penchant for time travel. His songs, music videos and performances portray a constant, dizzying transit between past, present and future – something Bowie described as “future nostalgia”.

Ironically, Morgen’s non-linear editing works in tension with the film’s overarching linear chronology. This complex structure is appropriate, since it portrays the temporal fluidity and “loose continuity” that Bowie wove across five decades and several mediums.

Read more:
Which Lazarus was Bowie really referring to in his mesmerising swan song?

This sense of time travel extends to the treatment of the songs, too. Morgen worked with Bowie’s long-time friend and collaborator Tony Visconti, who uses cut-up and collage to create new soundscapes by merging isolated tracks from the original song recordings.

At one point, Blackstar (2016) gradually begins to merge with parts of Memory of a Free Festival (1970) and other songs. Combined with visual collage, this surprising mashup forms a densely layered audiovisual bricolage that takes the audience on an exhilarating trip through time and space.

Recalling the liberating experience of dancing up the red carpet at the premiere for Moonage Daydream, and the creative process behind this almost psychedelic filmic experience, Morgen told one interviewer:

If you ingest Bowie into your veins for seven years, you’re probably going to be a better person at the end of it than you were when you started […] It’s like having a natural high, I mean it’s like the endorphins are all alert.

I would never have arrived at that perspective without embracing his teachings, his philosophies towards creation.

Creating this film was a life changing experience for Morgen. Moonage Daydream is a bold work of art that promises a transformative experience for all of us. I saw my Bowie reflected back from Morgen’s canvas. Will you see your Bowie?

Moonage Daydream opens in cinemas worldwide on September 15.

Lisa Perrott does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Moonage Daydream: brilliant Bowie film takes big risks to create something truly new – https://theconversation.com/moonage-daydream-brilliant-bowie-film-takes-big-risks-to-create-something-truly-new-190347

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa Perrott, Senior Lecturer & Researcher in Screen and Media Studies, University of Waikato

Don’t fake it baby, lay the real thing on me

– David Bowie, Moonage Daydream (1971)

Hypnotic, immersive, kaleidoscopic, sublime: Brett Morgen’s film Moonage Daydream has been described as an “experiential cinematic odyssey” and a “colossal tidal wave of vibrant images and overpowering sound”.

But as a Bowie fan of 40 years, this film was a transformative experience for me because of the integrity with which Morgen reassembled “the real thing” to make something authentic and new.

Inspired by Bowie’s cautionary words about comfort and his philosophy to “always go further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in”, Morgen embarked on a mission that would take him far outside his comfort zone.

Boldly eschewing the conventional biopic format, he immersed himself in a seven-year creative process – one that has led to a subjective but respectful representation of the artist who helped him navigate his own teenage journeys.

Propelling the biographical music documentary form beyond the expected conventions of talking heads and expert analysis, Morgen combines a documentary style with music video aesthetics and surrealist assemblage methods to craft a new form.

Employing an even more extensive collage approach than he’d used for his Kurt Cobain film Montage of Heck (2015), Morgen treats Moonage Daydream as an audiovisual tapestry, woven from numerous archival materials: songs, vocal recordings, still photographs and film footage derived from music videos, theatrical films, televised interviews and live performance.

Morgen brings these things to life by punctuating them with sonic and visual effects. Bravely facing the potential wrath of Bowie devotees, he takes the creative liberty of disassembling and reanimating Bowie’s hand-drawn sketches, storyboards and paintings.

Ziggy Stardust lives

A risky way to treat the work of a deceased artist, the approach nonetheless works because Morgen is channelling the Bowie “on his shoulder”. This is his reality of Bowie, but it allows space for viewers to fill in the gaps. As he explained recently:

Bowie invited us the way kabuki does, to kind of project and fill in the blanks. And so I tried to create a film in that manner […] We all have our own Bowie. You have your Bowie, I have my Bowie. I wanted the canvas to reflect back to each viewer their own Bowie, and ultimately themselves.

Taking two years to familiarise himself with millions of archival pieces, Morgen developed an intuitive sense about which materials to use and how they would project when blown up on a cinema screen. By allowing this raw material to retain flaws such as scratches, camera shake and blur, he conjures nostalgia for a moment in time.

Read more:
Space Oddity at 50: the ‘novelty song’ that became a cultural touchstone

Transported to the Hammersmith Odeon in 1973, I marvelled at the grainy texture of the film stock used to shoot D.A. Pennebaker’s film of the famous last Ziggy Stardust concert. I absorbed the texture of Bowie’s hair and the colour of his mismatched eyes in extreme closeups from Mick Rock’s music video Life On Mars? from the same year.

Grounding the film in reality, the rawness and heightened proximity of these projections enhance the sensory experience. One moment I was on stage with Bowie, just behind his shoulder, experiencing his exhilaration as he stepped towards throngs of adoring fans. Next, I was one of those fans in full Ziggy garb, reaching out to touch Bowie on that stage.

Cut-up and collage

This sense of intimacy and immersion in Bowie’s life explains why Moonage Daydream is such a treat for fans. But why did Bowie’s estate give their wholehearted approval to this film and not others?

Firstly, rather than relying on actors or expert commentators, the film allows Bowie to tell his story through his own words and his own art. Secondly, Morgen has taken more than inspiration from Bowie’s philosophy about life and creativity. He approached Moonage Daydream in a way that mirrors Bowie’s own creative process.

Read more:
David Bowie’s late revival belongs to a grand tradition dating back to Beethoven

Often described as a cultural magpie, Bowie was a rampant forager who used methods such as cut-up and collage to weave together a diverse array of inspirations and found materials. Morgen uses similar methods with archive material from across Bowie’s expansive oeuvre.

He shows how Bowie synthesised the gestures of Hollywood starlets, visual motifs gleaned from kabuki theatre and noh mask traditions, protopunk style and a Kubrick-esque science fiction aesthetic.

Morgen also uses cut-up and collage methods to show how Bowie fused the Pierrot persona (derived from the Commedia dell’arte performance form) with visual references derived from surrealist and German expressionist films, along with the aesthetics of the fledgling New Romantic subculture.

Time and space

Mirroring Bowie’s creative process, the approach also replicates the artist’s treatment of time as medium, and his penchant for time travel. His songs, music videos and performances portray a constant, dizzying transit between past, present and future – something Bowie described as “future nostalgia”.

Ironically, Morgen’s non-linear editing works in tension with the film’s overarching linear chronology. This complex structure is appropriate, since it portrays the temporal fluidity and “loose continuity” that Bowie wove across five decades and several mediums.

Read more:
Which Lazarus was Bowie really referring to in his mesmerising swan song?

This sense of time travel extends to the treatment of the songs, too. Morgen worked with Bowie’s long-time friend and collaborator Tony Visconti, who uses cut-up and collage to create new soundscapes by merging isolated tracks from the original song recordings.

At one point, Blackstar (2016) gradually begins to merge with parts of Memory of a Free Festival (1970) and other songs. Combined with visual collage, this surprising mashup forms a densely layered audiovisual bricolage that takes the audience on an exhilarating trip through time and space.

Recalling the liberating experience of dancing up the red carpet at the premiere for Moonage Daydream, and the creative process behind this almost psychedelic filmic experience, Morgen told one interviewer:

If you ingest Bowie into your veins for seven years, you’re probably going to be a better person at the end of it than you were when you started […] It’s like having a natural high, I mean it’s like the endorphins are all alert.

I would never have arrived at that perspective without embracing his teachings, his philosophies towards creation.

Creating this film was a life changing experience for Morgen. Moonage Daydream is a bold work of art that promises a transformative experience for all of us. I saw my Bowie reflected back from Morgen’s canvas. Will you see your Bowie?

Moonage Daydream opens in cinemas worldwide on September 15.

Lisa Perrott does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Moonage Daydream: brilliant new Bowie film takes big risks to create something truly new – https://theconversation.com/moonage-daydream-brilliant-new-bowie-film-takes-big-risks-to-create-something-truly-new-190347

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert E Nordon, Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering, UNSW Sydney

Stem cells are the starting point for all other cells in our bodies. The first such cells to be found were blood stem cells – as the name suggests, they give rise to different types of blood cells.

But there’s much we don’t know about how these cells develop in the first place. In a study published today in Cell Reports, we have shown how a lab simulation of an embryo’s beating heart and circulation lead to the development of human blood stem cell precursors.

The tiny device mimics embryonic blood flow, allowing us to directly observe human embryonic blood formation under the microscope. These results may help us understand how we can produce life-saving therapies for patients who need new blood stem cells.

Growing life-saving therapies in the lab

To treat aggressive blood cancers such as leukaemia, patients often need extremely high doses of chemotherapy; a blood stem cell transplant then regenerates blood after the treatment. These are life-saving therapies but are restricted to patients who have a suitable tissue-matched donor of blood stem cells.

A way around this problem would be to grow more blood stem cells in the lab. Unfortunately, past experiments have shown that harvested adult blood stem cells lose their transplantation potential if grown in the lab.

The discovery of induced pluripotent stem cells – stem cells made out of adult cells – in 2006 led to a promising new approach. Induced pluripotent stem cells are made from the patient’s own cells, so there is no problem with tissue rejection, or the ethical issues surrounding the use of IVF embryos.

These cell lines are similar to embryonic stem cells, so they have the potential to form any tissue or cell type – hence, they are “pluripotent”. In theory, pluripotent stem cell lines could provide an unlimited supply of cells for blood regeneration because they are immortalised – they can grow in the lab indefinitely.

But the development of processes to allow us to grow particular types of tissues, organs and cell types – such as blood – has been slow and will take decades to advance. One must mimic the complex process of embryogenesis in the dish!

Read more:
World’s first ‘synthetic embryo’: why this research is more important than you think

Engineering an embryonic heart

Current understanding of how embryonic blood stem cells develop is based on animal models. Experiments with anaesthetised zebrafish embryos have shown that blood stem cells arise in the wall of the main blood vessel, the aorta, shortly after the first heartbeat. For ethical reasons, it’s obvious this type of study is not possible in human embryos.

This is why we wanted to engineer an embryonic heart model in the lab. To achieve this, we used microfluidics – an approach that involves manipulating extremely small volumes of liquids.

The first step in generating blood stem cells from pluripotent stem cells is to coax the latter to form the site where blood stem cells start growing. This is known as the AGM region (aorta-gonad-mesonephros) of the embryo.

Our miniature heart pump and circulation (3 by 3 centimetres) mimics the mechanical environment in which blood stem cells form in the human embryo. The device pumps culture media – liquids used to grow cells – around a microfluidic circuit to copy what the embryo heart does.

A step closer to treatment

Once we got the cells to form the AGM region by stimulating cells on day two of starting our cell culture, we applied what’s known as pulsatile circulatory flow from day 10 to day 26. Blood precursors entered the artificial circulation from blood vessels lining the microfluidic channels.

Then, we harvested the circulating cells and grew them in culture, showing that they developed into various blood components – white blood cells, red blood cells, platelets, and others. In-depth analysis of gene expression in single cells showed that circulatory flow generated aortic and blood stem precursor cells found in the AGM of human embryos.

This means our study has shown how pulsatile circulatory flow enhances the formation of blood stem cell precursors from pluripotent stem cells. It’s knowledge we can use in the future.

The next step in our research is to scale up the production of blood stem cell precursors, and to test their transplant potential in immune-deficient mice that can accept human transplants. We can do this by using large numbers of pluripotent stem cells grown in bioreactors that also mechanically stimulate blood stem cell formation.

If we can easily produce blood stem cells from pluripotent stem cell lines, it would provide a plentiful supply of these cells to help treatments of cancer or genetic blood diseases.

Read more:
Gut bacteria nurture the immune system – for cancer patients, a diverse microbiome can protect against dangerous treatment complications

This research was funded by Stem Cells Australia (ARC Special Research Initiative in Stem Cell Science) and an internal grant from the Faculty of Engineering, University of New South Wales.

Jingjing Li received Australia Postgraduate Award (APA) scholarship, Women in Engineering Research Top-Up Award and Engineering Supplementary Award (ESA) from University of New South Wales.

– ref. Scientists have mimicked an embryo’s heart to unlock the secrets of how blood cells are born – https://theconversation.com/scientists-have-mimicked-an-embryos-heart-to-unlock-the-secrets-of-how-blood-cells-are-born-190530

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Janet Davies, Professor, Queensland University of Technology

Australia has among the highest prevalence of asthma and hay fever globally. La Niña (and El Niño) will undoubtedly affect allergy sufferers.

Sea-surface temperatures across the east-central equatorial Pacific cycle between episodes of La Niña (when the sea is cooler) and El Niño (when it is warmer). These complex weather patterns are likely to alter the amount of pollen in the air.

A La Niña event has been declared for the third year in a row, increasing the likelihood eastern and northern Australia will be wetter than normal. This will raise health concerns for some people due to prolific pastureland growth and more grass pollen.

Allergic rhinitis (hay fever) and asthma can be triggered by pollen from grasses, weeds or trees. Thunderstorms can also be a trigger.

Record rainfalls in regional Victoria led up to Australia’s most catastrophic respiratory allergy event in November 2016, when thunderstorm asthma was linked to several thousand trips to Melbourne hospital emergency departments and ten deaths.

But our understanding of how climate change is affecting risk is limited by sparse and intermittent pollen monitoring in Australia. We’ll need continuous pollen records for at least ten or 20 years to track the effects on pollen exposure.

Read more:
A climate scientist on the planet’s simultaneous disasters, from Pakistan’s horror floods to Europe’s record drought

Climate change and what to expect

Climate change appears to increase our exposure to airborne allergens such as grass pollen. Research recently showed the amount of Brisbane grass pollen measured from 2016 to 2020 was almost triple the amount monitored between 1994 and 1999.

This was linked with increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, increasing temperature and lusher vegetation. The number and proportion of days with grass pollen at high and extreme levels increased significantly over time, bringing more health risks.

Highly elevated grass pollen levels were also seen during the 2021 grass pollen season up until flooding in February 2022.

It’s early days, but given the declaration of another La Niña season, the upcoming grass pollen season will likely to be high again this spring and summer at least in some parts of Australia.

Pollen exposure differs significantly between locations and years. So understanding local environmental drivers is important.

Using over 20 years of satellite data and ground-based cameras to monitor the life cycle of grasses (including peak growth periods, flowering and pollination) we’ve shown climate change is altering the composition of grasslands with warm season grasses steadily increasing. Changes in the types of grasses growing alter allergen composition, severity, and the seasonal timing of pollen exposure. This is important for sensitisation, diagnosis and management of people with hay fever.

Read more:
Do I have COVID or hay fever? Here’s how to tell

Keeping track of pollen

Currently, pollen monitoring is mostly undertaken by academic research groups dependent on short-term competitive funding.

Australia is several years behind Europe and Japan in adopting automated, real-time pollen monitoring. Our current manual pollen monitoring processes are labour intensive and imprecise.

For Australia to set up similar monitoring, instruments would need to learn to detect, match and count local pollens and be capable of operating over time in our diverse and often harsh external environments.

Access to real-time automated pollen monitoring across a broad coverage of sites would help with pollen forecasting. This could inform both short-term daily pollen forecasts, and early pollen season warnings.

While there are approximately 25 active pollen monitoring sites in Australia, these are mostly located in urban areas, and across Victoria. We need a wider network of monitoring sites to serve community needs and to foster better understanding of pollen sources and health implications.

Read more:
No, not again! A third straight La Niña is likely – here’s how you and your family can prepare

A national approach to allergies

The freshly launched National Allergy Centre for Excellence will hopefully push for all Australians with pollen allergies to have access to accurate pollen information.

For now, those with allergies should keep an eye on the currently available pollen counts. If you need advice on how to better manage your pollen allergies, especially if you are at risk of seasonal allergic asthma, consult your pharmacist or discuss treatment options with your doctor.

Janet Davies has received funding in the last five years from National Health and Medical Research Council (GNT1116107), Australian Research Council (DP210100347, LP190100216, DP190100376, DP170101630), National Foundation of Medical Research Innovation with co-funding from Abionic Switzerland. QUT owns patents granted for allergy diagnostics.

Alfredo Huete receives funding from the Australian Research Council (DP210100347, DP170101630), the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), the National Health and Medical Research Council (GNT1116107), and Climate-KIC Australia Fairwater Living Lab.

Paul Beggs does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Lush grasslands, higher allergy risks – what hay fever sufferers can expect from another La Niña season – https://theconversation.com/lush-grasslands-higher-allergy-risks-what-hay-fever-sufferers-can-expect-from-another-la-nina-season-189982

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben McCann, Associate Professor of French Studies, University of Adelaide

So, adieu Jean-Luc Godard. The titan of French cinema has died, aged 91, leaving behind a staggering legacy.

Godard’s free-wheeling, uncompromising film style kickstarted the French New Wave and its glorious, devil-may-care approach to storytelling.

Godard influenced generations of filmmakers, from Jim Jarmusch and Steven Soderbergh to Wong Kar-wai and Kelly Reichardt.

And he had a wonderful knack of summing up the essence of his cinema in short, sharp phrases:

A story should have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order.

Or:

All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun.

And my personal favourite:

Let’s do what has not been done.

A young critic

Born in Paris in 1930 to rich Franco-Swiss parents, Godard grew up in the rarefied world of politics, philosophy and literature. He dabbled with anthropology as a student, but his great love was cinema, and in particular American B-movies directed by Fritz Lang, Nicholas Ray and his idol Howard Hawks.

Drawn to the cinema clubs that flourished in Paris in the aftermath of the war, Godard made friends with fellow cinephiles Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol and François Truffaut. Together, these five musketeers landed themselves jobs at a newly established film magazine Cahiers du cinéma.

Godard would watch dozens of films a week, and his reviews were often highly critical of home-grown films made by directors he felt were out-of-touch with modern France.

In a scathing editorial in 1959, he wrote:

your camera movements are ugly because your subjects are bad, your casts act badly because your dialogue is worthless; in a word, you don’t know how to create cinema because you no longer even know what it is.

To show them how to do it properly, he started making his own films.

What followed was a career of immense creativity that redefined the grammar of cinema. Conventional, “invisible” editing was replaced by abrupt jump cuts; smooth long shots alternated with unsettling montages and rapid close-ups; characters broke the fourth wall and directly addressed the audience.

These audacious innovations were all on display in his debut, Breathless (1960).

Read more:
From Nazis to Netflix, the controversies and contradictions of Cannes

Breathless film-making

Breathless remains a kind of cinematic Year Zero, marking a point of rupture between everything that came before it (coherence, elegance, neatness) and everything that would follow (iconoclasm, irreverence, rule-breaking).

Watched today, it remains sparklingly modern: a jazz soundtrack to die for, Paris shot in luminous monochrome, and the effortless cool of Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg.

The golden rule of cinema up to this point was that your heroes had to be “doing” something. Not so, says Godard.

Instead, in the film’s famous hotel scene, we spend 23 minutes watching Seberg and Belmondo shoot the breeze: nothing happens, but everything happens – two lovers talking, smoking, play acting, being.

Godard’s work rate post-Breathless was astonishing: 25 films in seven years; three alone in 1963.

This was an artist brimming with ideas who shot guerrilla-style on the streets of Paris, becoming the most famous director in the world.

He crisscrossed genres, moving from crime film to science-fiction to Shakespeare adaptation. He’d leave in mistakes – like actors forgetting their lines – to remind viewers that all cinema was essentially fake.

Contempt (1963) is a glorious, technicolour moment of high modernist European cinema. Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1967) sees a remarkable close-up of swirling coffee, complete with Godard’s whispered voice-over.

Read more:
Agnès Varda, a pioneering artist who saw the extraordinary in the ordinary

Innovation

He pivoted in the late 1960s into political and militant cinema, addressing the Vietnam War, the May 1968 student riots and radical Marxism in his work.

He continued to innovate: his later films embraced video, 3D and digital technology.

Histoire(s) du cinéma (1998) – a four-hour video project that reflects on the history of cinema – took ten years to produce, and is now considered his greatest achievement.

Godard was awarded an honorary Oscar in 2010, but famously did not attend the ceremony.

As a young man, Godard had tremendous reverence for the American studio system. By 2010, he had fully distanced himself from the Hollywood machine, excoriating it as the worst kind of rampant commercialism.

“Every film is the result of the society that produced it. That’s why the American cinema is so bad now. It reflects an unhealthy society”, he once said.

Godard’s DNA continues to flow through contemporary cinema, from Martin Scorsese’s Casino (1995) to Greta Gerwig’s Frances Ha (2012). Quentin Tarantino called his production house A Band Apart in homage to Godard’s 1964 film Bande à part.

Godard’s final film, The Image Book (2018), was a fitting legacy to this career of formal daring: a collage of iPhone footage, old movies clips, paintings and photographs, narrated by himself. The voice was raspy. The hands frail. But the intellect as sharp as ever.

We will not see his like again.

My much-loved quote from Breathless is when a character is asked what his greatest ambition is. His response: “to become immortal…and then die”.

Well, Jean-Luc, you certainly did that.

Ben McCann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Jean-Luc Godard has died. He redefined what film is, and leaves a staggering legacy – https://theconversation.com/jean-luc-godard-has-died-he-redefined-what-film-is-and-leaves-a-staggering-legacy-190568

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Williamson-Dean, Postgraduate Research Fellow, Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Auckland

The claim last week by National Party leader Christopher Luxon that 100,000 New Zealand schoolchildren were chronically truant quickly turned into an argument about terminology, statistics and how to interpret them.

In fact, it appears Luxon was referring a figure from term one this year that showed 101,861 children were “chronically absent”. This means they miss 70% or more half-days of school, but is not the same as being truant.

The wider political context of the debate was the current concern over youth crime and attendance levels in general. While truancy and chronic absenteeism are an obvious focus, there is another problem that deserves just as much attention: transience.

This refers to the frequent movement of students from one school to another. It’s linked to poverty and is typically driven by changes in family or employment circumstances, or by changes in housing availability.

Often overlooked in discussions of transience, however, is the impact it has on the school environment – and particularly on those students who are not transient themselves.

The impact of transience

The development of positive social relationships and social skills during childhood increases the likelihood of positive outcomes later in life. Schools provide opportunities for students to form bonds with peers and, through these relationships, build important social and emotional skills.

But a school’s ability to nurture social skills and relationships can be undermined by external factors such as poverty, which is linked to increased transience.

According to the Ministry of Education, children are considered transient if they attend two or more schools in a single school year. Over their eight years of primary school, some children change schools as often as ten times.

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Although transience has been declining since 2016, transience rates are almost six times higher at low decile schools than high decile schools. Sadly, compared to other OECD countries, Aotearoa New Zealand has one of the highest rates of residential mobility among families of school children.

Children who move schools frequently can experience peer rejection, bullying, mental health problems, and, in some cases, demonstrate antisocial behaviour. Transience can also affect the school environment by disrupting or unsettling established classroom routines.

Children who attend highly transient schools are affected by the constant flux of peers moving in or out of the school community, which erodes social networks, social skill development and classroom climate.

Measuring the impact of transience

School programmes designed to build the social skills needed to mitigate the negative impact of transience have been shown to work. But less is known about the effect on students who attend schools with high transience rates, but who are not transient themselves.

Our research explored the impact of Kiwi Can, a values and life skills programme operated by the Graeme Dingle Foundation charity, on the classroom climate and social health of children.

The programme teaches positive relationships, integrity, resilience and respect. The curriculum is standardised, but can be tailored to the needs of the school. One Kiwi Can lesson is delivered each week to each class over the course of the school year.

À lire aussi :
Why student absences aren’t the real problem in America’s ‘attendance crisis’

We used a student questionnaire about positive relationships and classroom climate in 15 Kiwi Can schools (763 students) and nine control schools (456 students) at the start and end of an academic school year.

Seven Kiwi Can schools were classified as “new” because they had been in the programme for less than two years. The eight that had been in the programme for two or more years were classified as “experienced”.

We calculated the rate of transience for all schools using the number of students who completed both surveys as a proportion of the school roll. Rates were classified as “high” if the transience level was equal to or greater than 33%, “middle” between 32% and 15%, and “low” if under 15%.

Helping non-transient pupils

In our sample, five Kiwi Can schools were classified as having high transience rates. Of these, three were classified as experienced.

We found non-transient children attending highly transient schools struggle to forge healthy social relationships, feel connected to their peers or schools, behave in prosocial ways, and show caring and compassion for others.

À lire aussi :
Truancy: parents who take children on holiday during term time not the problem

They also seemed to feel less safe in their schools and enjoyed their schooling experience less than those in more stable (less transient) school environments.

While all schools reported lower scores against all these measures by the end of the year, this was greatest in schools with the highest rates of transience and the shortest experience of Kiwi Can. High transience schools that had longer experience with Kiwi Can had end-of-year results similar to those in middle transience schools.

Importantly, sustained participation in the Kiwi Can programme was found to mitigate the negative effects of transience for non-transient children. In fact, children who attended experienced Kiwi Can schools showed fewer declines in their social health over the course of the school year than children who attended new Kiwi Can schools in highly transient communities.

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More support for schools

This work draws much needed attention to the complexities of transience, which affects not only children who move frequently, but also those who do not.

Although we are all aware of the impact of poverty and should be working towards a long-term solution, we must also do what we can now to mitigate the negative impact of transience on the health and wellbeing of our tamariki (children).

Transience negatively affects children who don’t move a lot, but this can be mitigated through positive youth development programmes.

Long term investment is needed to support whole school programmes that nurture social skills and help children feel more connected to school. But schools must be funded to deliver these programmes consistently if we are to support the needs of those “left behind”.

Noting to disclose.

Gavin Brown et Rachel Williamson-Dean ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur poste universitaire.

– ref. What happens when your classmates keep leaving? The impact of school transience on pupils ‘left behind’ – https://theconversation.com/what-happens-when-your-classmates-keep-leaving-the-impact-of-school-transience-on-pupils-left-behind-190420

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bruce Chapman, Director, Policy Impact, College of Business and Economics, Australian National University

We recently published two reports that highlight the devastating financial consequences borne by women who leave their partners after suffering domestic violence.

We found women who experienced domestic violence fared much worse financially after separating from their partner compared to those who didn’t face such violence, for women both with and without children.

Before separation, mothers who experienced domestic violence had about the same household income as mothers who didn’t. But after separation, the mothers who experienced domestic violence on average suffered a significantly higher drop in income of 34%, compared with a 20% decrease for mothers who didn’t experience domestic violence.

It’s the first time in Australia (to the best of our knowledge) that we have specific data on what happens financially to these women.

Our results highlight the terrible option facing those who are experiencing domestic violence: to stay in a violent relationship, or leave and face a major decline in financial wellbeing.

What we studied

The first report, The Choice: Violence or Poverty by Anne Summers, presents previously unreported data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) 2016 Personal Safety Survey.

The data reveal that of all women who’d ever been in a partnership, 22% have experienced violence from a current or previous partner. And, of single mothers living with children under 18 years of age, a staggering 60% had experienced physical violence, and 70% emotional abuse, from a partner they had previously cohabited with.

The data also show 50% of these now single mothers live in poverty, relying on government benefits such as JobSeeker as their main source of income.

It’s important to note the ABS figures come from what’s known as a “cross-section”, which means they reflect circumstances at a given point in time (2016). They can’t tell us what happens to women over time, or the immediate effects of domestic violence on their separation and/or income. This is a critical issue for domestic violence policy.

Understanding the dynamics of the financial situation of victim-survivors requires what’s known as “panel data”. This issue is addressed in the second report by Bruce Chapman and Matthew Taylor, where we analyse the Household Income and Labour Dynamics of Australia (HILDA) survey. HILDA is Australia’s best longitudinal data set, meaning it surveys the same people over time. To date, HILDA has followed around 19,000 people from 2002 to 2021.

We analysed HILDA data looking at the financial consequences for women likely to have experienced domestic violence. We covered both mothers and women who don’t have children.

HILDA doesn’t ask questions about the origins of violence experienced directly. So we had to devise a method of identifying separation due to domestic violence by linking the date of separation to reporting of an incident of violence: the presumption being that the incident was domestic violence (rather than, say, a street crime).

The report uses averages before and after separation of the three income categories, all measured in annual terms:

• the partner’s contribution to household income
• the woman’s wages and salaries
• and total government financial support received by women.

What we found

In dollar terms, the drop in household income (which measures the total of all income) for mothers who experienced domestic violence after separation was from $54,648 to $35,921 a year.

There was also a fall in the household income for separating mothers not subject to domestic violence. But this fall is about $7,500 less compared to mothers who experienced domestic violence.

We also looked at the changes to a particular component of household income, the wages and salaries of the mothers (again, following separation). Similarly, we found those who’d gone through domestic violence fared far worse than those who didn’t.

It was expected the wages and salaries of women would increase on average after separation because of their need to compensate for the loss of the former partner’s income. But the extent to which this happened is quite different depending on whether or not the women experienced domestic violence.

Specifically, the wage and salary increase for mothers who’d experienced domestic violence was just 19% (from $11,526 to $13,747). But the wage and salary increase for mothers who hadn’t experienced domestic violence was much greater at 45% (from $14,414 to $20,838).

This means that these now single mothers who experienced domestic violence are considerably worse off financially than single mothers who didn’t face such violence.

When the pre- and post-separation incomes of women without children are examined, the findings are similar to those for mothers, but with even greater losses for childless women who’d experienced domestic violence compared to childless women who hadn’t. Childless women who experienced domestic violence suffered an extraordinary 45% drop in household incomes, compared with 18% for childless women who didn’t experience domestic violence.

The relatively large loss in household income for childless women is the result of significant differences in the post-separation income levels between childless women, depending on their experience of domestic violence.

Childless women who hadn’t experienced domestic violence had an average increase of 68% in their wage and salary incomes (to about $38,000) after separation. But childless women who’d experienced domestic violence had an actual decrease in wage and salary incomes of around 20% on average (to about $13,000).

Read more:
Why victims of domestic abuse don’t leave – four experts explain

A different way of illustrating the issue is the recognition that experiencing domestic violence doubles the likelihood of victim-survivors ending up in the bottom quarter of the income distribution.

We found around 50% of the women included in the data who have faced domestic violence and separated from their partners end up in the bottom quarter of the income distribution.

The ABS data reports a similar outcome, with 48.1% of now single mothers with children being in the lowest fifth of the income distribution.

More research and better data needed

These two reports have dug deeply into available data and unearthed findings of tremendous significance, results that reinforce each other.

While these findings have been rigorously tested and found to be statistically significant, the sample sizes for the longitudinal data are small.

This is currently the best available longitudinal data capturing incomes. But as both reports have highlighted, data collection in the field of domestic violence needs to be expanded considerably if we’re to have more comprehensive information on longer-term outcomes.

We urgently need a national longitudinal study of social behaviour and experience that probes the consequences of domestic violence (with respect to perpetrators as well as victims) and the financial, employment and health outcomes for all concerned, including the children caught up in these violent relationships.

Anne Summers receives funding from the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

Bruce Chapman and Matthew Taylor do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Women who suffer domestic violence fare much worse financially after separating from their partner: new data – https://theconversation.com/women-who-suffer-domestic-violence-fare-much-worse-financially-after-separating-from-their-partner-new-data-190047

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tamara May, Psychologist and Research Associate in the Department of Paediatrics, Monash University

Adult attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been in the spotlight lately, with comedian Em Rusciano detailing, at the National Press Club, her journey to diagnosis and how she now reflects on her younger self.

There has been a growing awareness of ADHD, a lifelong, neurodevelopmental condition that affects attention, activity levels and impulsivity. Perhaps you’ve read or watched something online about adult ADHD, or maybe another family member or friend has recently received a diagnosis.

If you think you have ADHD, getting a diagnosis can be a long, frustrating and often expensive process. So it’s important to decide what it might mean for you.

What is ADHD? And how can it affect your life?

People with ADHD have difficulties with flexibly focusing their attention. This means it may be hard to focus and sustain their attention on tasks that are a priority.

Instead, they may spend time getting lost scrolling on their phone or doing unimportant tasks. They may procrastinate: not starting activities or getting distracted so they don’t finish tasks. They may be forgetful, disorganised and run late.

Those with impulsive symptoms may overshare, be impatient and say yes to things without thinking it through, often with negative consequences in the long-term.

Read more:
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Those with hyperactive symptoms will have a constantly busy mind, find it hard to sit still and relax, and may be a chatterbox. They may be constantly “on the go” seeking new and exciting stimulation, getting easily bored with hobbies, jobs and relationships.

Some people will have only inattentive symptoms, others only hyperactive-impulsive symptoms, and some will have both.

Inattentive, hyperactive and impulsive symptoms can impact achievement in studies and at work, negatively affect relationships, and result in feeling different to others and developing a negative sense of self.

The symptoms are neurobiological, resulting in differences in brain development. For most people symptoms persist throughout their lives.

Importantly, ADHD is not caused by “bad behaviour” or “laziness” and it is not a “character flaw”. ADHD symptoms can’t be changed through “putting in more effort” or “applying yourself”.

Sound familiar? So how do you get a diagnosis?

In Australia, this is not as easy as it should be. There are no adult public mental health services that can diagnose ADHD without cost.

Accessing private clinics and clinicians is the usual way adults can be assessed for ADHD in Australia.

If you are interested in accessing stimulant medication, the most effective treatment for ADHD, then seeing a psychiatrist who specialises in ADHD is usually the most efficient path.

A psychologist with expertise in ADHD can also conduct a diagnostic assessment for ADHD, they just can’t exclude possible medical causes or prescribe medication should the diagnosis be confirmed.

Read more:
Adult ADHD: What it is, how to treat it and why medicine ignored it for so long – podcast

An adult ADHD assessment usually involves an ADHD-experienced psychiatrist or psychologist conducting a clinical interview with the person and often with a partner and parent(s).

This will include asking about your early development including developmental milestones, academic and social development, signs and symptoms of ADHD, and your mental health history. You will usually be asked to provide your school reports, so the clinician can look for any evidence of symptoms in childhood as reported by teachers.

As ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition, evidence of the symptoms in childhood before age 12 is needed. You and your family, and sometimes a partner or close friend, will be asked to complete rating scales for ADHD symptoms, in both childhood and current symptoms as an adult.

There should be a thorough examination of other possible diagnoses that may account for apparent ADHD symptoms; and other common co-occurring conditions should also be explored and diagnosed if present.

Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council has just approved an evidence-based clinical practice guideline for the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD in Australia, ahead of its release in October.

The guideline explains the diagnostic process and the most helpful treatments so clinicians can provide consistent and evidence-based assessments and treatment for people with ADHD. It’s hoped this will lead to easier access to diagnosis and support.

What might a diagnosis mean for you?

Finally receiving an ADHD diagnosis for many is a positive, life-changing experience. It can make sense of a lifetime of unexplained difficulties, often attributed incorrectly to being “lazy” or “incompetent”.

An awareness can result in a fuller understanding yourself and why your life may have taken a certain path. It can explain why certain things happened to you, why you experienced anxiety and depression but it didn’t go away with treatment, and why your trajectory has perhaps not been the norm.

It is not an easy process. Some experience a period of grief following a diagnosis when they reflect on how their life may have been different had they known and received support and understanding from an early age.

However, diagnosis can allow you to access medication which, for most people, is effective in reducing the core symptoms of ADHD and can result in clarity and focus.

Read more:
ADHD in adults is challenging but highly treatable – a clinical psychologist explains

You can also access psychological therapy, ADHD coaching and occupational therapy support to make changes in your life to minimise your symptoms and maximise your strengths.

An adult ADHD diagnosis can help you reject damaging self-beliefs. You may finally understand yourself as different, not defective, and see your strengths and value.

Tamara May works in private practice as a psychologist providing diagnosis and support for people with ADHD. She is a member of the Australian ADHD Professionals Association and was a member of the Australian ADHD guideline development group.

– ref. I think I have ADHD, how do I get a diagnosis? What might it mean for me? – https://theconversation.com/i-think-i-have-adhd-how-do-i-get-a-diagnosis-what-might-it-mean-for-me-190239

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joseph Crawford, Senior Lecturer, Management, University of Tasmania

Imagine you have years-worth of research and it is dismissed by a 15-word rejection letter from a journal editor. That has happened to us.

Or peer reviewers write demeaning, anonymous commentary about your work. That has also happened to us.

Or student evaluations critique your appearance or the way you speak. Yes, that’s also happened to us.

Read more:
The peer review system is broken. We asked academics how to fix it

Academics also get negative feedback on research grants and funding applications, conference submissions and mainstream writing outlets, like The Conversation. And, yes, we’ve experienced all this, too. And we are not alone.

We are experts in management and psychology. The good news is, there are strategies available to help you overcome and even use negative feedback to your advantage.

Feedback is unavoidable

Feedback is a key component for any academic career. It is part of how the profession maintains rigour and quality in what it does.

While it can of course be positive, research shows, it tends to be negative. And this comes at a cost to individuals, their sense of self worth and their mental health.

Academia is not alone here. Managers across all industries use feedback to enhance workplace performance and online reviews are a fact of life for businesses. Yet, despite this, not many people know how to do it well. And, the receivers are not always able to use the feedback in the way it was intended.

On top of calls to improve training for academics, managers and leaders on how to provide helpful feedback (we do this here and here), being able to use the feedback we get is also important for our wellbeing.

Tough feedback can hurt and shake our confidence. Yet it may be necessary to process this feedback to grow and develop as professionals. And this is where positive psychology can help.

Positive psychology is the study of strengths and virtues over human deficiencies and diagnoses. It focuses on promoting strengths – like courage, optimism, and hope – as a buffer against mental ill-health.

6 things to do when you get negative feedback

1. Empathise with the person giving feedback

Do you remember receiving formal training for providing feedback? Probably not. It is likely the reviewer or person giving you feedback did not either.

And humans have a bias towards negative information too. Perhaps this is an evolutionary challenge, with early humanity needing to fixate on dangerous and threatening matters to survive.

A reviewer or manager’s potential lack of training and natural bias does not excuse their harmful comments, but it might help us to empathise with their circumstances.

Academics have complex, very busy careers. When anonymous reviews are negative, it might have more to do with their (lack of) experience and heavy workloads, rather than our work.

2. Pause

When dealing with negative feedback, it can help to pause, take a walk around the block or grab a cup of tea. One of the authors of this piece has the practice of reading a review and then putting it in a draw for a week before she begins to address the feedback.

Distance allows us to gain perspective and think through the parts of the feedback that are valuable and worth addressing. This puts us into a positive state of mind and prompts us to considers solutions as a way of coping.

3. Talk about what happened

Vent to some friends or your colleagues.

Affective labelling theory says when people talk about their feelings, they feel better about them. A Geneva Emotion Wheel might help label more complex emotions.

You can also try self-affirmations, or the practice of recognising the value of one’s self. Affirmations may not suit everyone’s style but if you think they will work for you, useful self-affirmations may include: “I am getting better as a researcher” or “this obstacle will help me grow”. (You can look at some more examples here).

Positive affirmations give rise to more positive emotions and this is useful because positive emotions boost our problem-solving skills.

4. Address your inner critic

Our inner critic is often an ally who motivates us to achieve. It can sometimes be toxic though, especially when receiving unwanted feedback. The inner critic prompts cognitive distortions, such as catastrophising (“I’ll never be published”) or assigning self-blame (“I’m not smart enough”).

As we know, distortions are not true and they stop us seeing the situation clearly. When these voices are left unchecked, it can lead to mental health problems.

Read more:
We have developed a way to screen student feedback to ensure it’s useful, not abusive (and academics don’t have to burn it)

Instead, we need to practice self-compassion. This could include, visualising positive and non-judgmental images. Perhaps visualising a walk on your favourite beach, without a care or concern.

Talking back to our inner critic (verbally or non-verbally) also helps. Cognitive reappraisal is the practice of identifying a negative thought pattern and changing the perspective. In response to “I’m not smart enough” try “This time, this work was not valued, but it is valuable, and I can grow from the feedback”.

5. Reframe what happened

Our brains almost prime us to take negative feedback personally at first.

When receiving negative feedback, the primal (“fight or flight”) and emotional (“do they hate me?”) parts of our brain often jump to respond first.

But we can deliberately look for benefits, upsides and lessons if something bad happens. This is what psychologists call “positive reframing”.

For example, if you get unhelpful personal feedback on anonymous student feedback forms, it might prompt you to talk with your next group of students about the purpose of this feedback and about the importance of them being professional and constructive.

6. Look for opportunities

Each strategy above is designed to help you cope with and accept feedback. The final strategy is to focus on the opportunity.

Despite the negativity or the difficult conversation, someone took time to give this feedback. What is it that can be learned? Or done better next time?

All of this is of course assuming the feedback was constructive. Sometimes negative feedback is just toxic. In these cases, submit your work somewhere else!

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Dr Crawford is the Editor in Chief, Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice.

Kelly-Ann Allen is the Editor-in-Chief of the Educational and Developmental Psychologist and the Journal of Belonging and Human Connection.

Lea Waters does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Negative feedback is part of academia (and life) – these 6 strategies can help you cope – https://theconversation.com/negative-feedback-is-part-of-academia-and-life-these-6-strategies-can-help-you-cope-190069

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charles Livingstone, Associate Professor, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University

Sydney now has two casinos run by companies deemed unfit to hold a gaming licence.

The independent inquiry into Star Entertainment Group, operator of The Star casino, has found it “not suitable” to hold a New South Wales casino licence.

This follows a similar finding against Crown Resorts in NSW in 2021 (and in Victoria and Western Australia since).

Read more:
Crown Sydney casino opens – another beacon for criminals looking to launder dirty money

Star is also facing an inquiry in Queensland, where it operates two casinos, with a third – at Queen’s Wharf Brisbane – on the way.

The litany of malfeasance at its Sydney casino is on par with (and perhaps even greater than) Crown’s, with the inquiry overseen by Adam Bell SC finding it threw its doors open to irresponsible gamblers and criminal infiltrators for years.

The chief of NSW’s new casino regulator, Philip Crawford, said Star’s “institutional arrogance” was “breathtaking”. It had knowingly facilitated money laundering, and made no effort to work out what it needed to fix about its organisational culture.

Whether Star can now satisfy him it can learn now may determine if it gets to keep its licence.

But just as important as it fixing its culture is the wider issue of fixing the failed regulatory and political culture that has allowed institutional corruption to flourish.

Obscuring gambling transactions

The report cites a litany of failures by the company to adhere to anti-money-laundering and counterterrorism regulations.

One was allowing A$908 million over seven years to pass through the casino in contravention of anti-money-laundering rules, fabricating receipts to hide the truth.

This involved allowing guests at the complex’s hotel to buy casino chips using China UnionPay credit cards and recording the transactions as hotel-related expenses. This breached China UnionPay’s ban on its cards being used for gambling.

The Star also appeared to deliberately mislead its banker, NAB. When the bank queried such transactions, including at the request of China Pay, Star executives made “false, misleading and unethical communications”.

Another breach of anti-money-laundering rules was to allow a junket operator, SunCity, to run a private gaming room (known as Salon 95) with its own “cage” (where cash is exchanged for casino chips).

The cage operated from 2018 until 2021 – ending only after the arrest in China of SunCity’s principal, Alvin Chau, in December 2021. The report says Star knew enough to close Salon 95 and end its relationship with SunCity at least three years earlier.

Casino’s culture needs fixing

The report concludes Star’s risk-management processes were deficient, and the overall culture poor.

Executives failed to take issues seriously and communicate them promptly and accurately to the board of directors. The board in turn failed to properly address issues of which directors were aware.

Among the report’s recommendations is introducing a gaming smart card that will enable the casino (and authorities) to track all gambling activity.

Crawford said all options were on the table, and that the Independent Casino Commission would not hesitate to close The Star down if it does not show cause for keeping its licence.

Time will tell.

The commission replaced the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority as casino requlator only last month. The regulatory overhaul also includes higher penalties for breaches (to a maximum of $100 million) and clarifies the regulator’s powers to suspend or cancel a casino licence.

Victoria introduced similar legislation, and a new gambling regulator, in the wake of its royal commission.

But is this enough?

What about the regulatory culture?

This inquiry, as with the others, further exposes a culture of gambling regulation bent to the influence of gambling operators.

The activities of Star (and of Crown) took place over many years, under the nose of regulators. None of revelations triggering these inquiries came from regulators. They came from whistleblowers and investigative journalists, with the assistance of concerned politicians such as Andrew Wilkie.

Regulators have been nobbled by limited resources, lack of political support and even bullying by gambling operators.

Read more:
Responsible gambling – a bright shining lie Crown Resorts and others can no longer hide behind

Donations, revolving door appointments, relationship-building (with promises of significant state revenue) and, in some cases, outright political campaigning has beaten politicians into submission.

From cosy lunches with a power media figure and a NSW premier, to opaque preferential deals for prime real estate, and repeated “memoranda of understanding” between NSW’s pokie clubs and the state government, Australian political culture needs major reform

Charles Livingstone has received funding from the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation, the (former) Victorian Gambling Research Panel, and the South Australian Independent Gambling Authority (the funds for which were derived from hypothecation of gambling tax revenue to research purposes), from the Australian and New Zealand School of Government and the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education, and from non-government organisations for research into multiple aspects of poker machine gambling, including regulatory reform, existing harm minimisation practices, and technical characteristics of gambling forms. He has received travel and co-operation grants from the Alberta Problem Gambling Research Institute, the Finnish Institute for Public Health, the Finnish Alcohol Research Foundation, the Ontario Problem Gambling Research Committee, the Turkish Red Crescent Society, and the Problem Gambling Foundation of New Zealand. He was a Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council funded project researching mechanisms of influence on government by the tobacco, alcohol and gambling industries. He has undertaken consultancy research for local governments and non-government organisations in Australia and the UK seeking to restrict or reduce the concentration of poker machines and gambling impacts, and was a member of the Australian government’s Ministerial Expert Advisory Group on Gambling in 2010-11. He is a member of the Lancet Public Health Commission into gambling, and of the World Health Organisation expert group on gambling and gambling harm.

– ref. Now Sydney has two casinos run by companies unfit to hold a gaming licence – https://theconversation.com/now-sydney-has-two-casinos-run-by-companies-unfit-to-hold-a-gaming-licence-190540

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Broomhall, Director, Gender and Women’s History Research Centre, Australian Catholic University

In the last week, I’ve been contacted by several friends and colleagues telling me if you type #catherinedemedici in Twitter, a snake emoji automatically appears. Designed to sync with The Serpent Queen, the serpent now appears even with hashtags made in tweets years ago.

This new Catherine is now the old Catherine.

In a life lived across most of the 16th century, Catherine de’ Medici was Queen of France, the mother of three kings and two queens, and the mother-in-law of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Anyone with that degree and longevity of access to influence across Europe was bound to attract attention.

In The Serpent Queen, we get a clever and powerful Catherine (played by Liv Hill as a teenager and Samantha Morton as the woman in her 40s), beguiling and dangerous, forged in the violence of her childhood and as an emotional response to the rejection of her love by her husband Henri (Alex Heath as the young Henri and Lee Ingleby in adulthood).

This Catherine decides to govern aided by the dark arts, determined to teach her enemies a lesson. She is also playful, musing “it feels good to be bad,” to a backing track of rock guitar.

But do we actually have a new interpretation? Here, a familiar story of one of history’s favourite bad girls strikes again. And in the process, Catherine de’ Medici is again diminished.

It seems the well-crafted propaganda of her own century – and additions of those since – remain as compelling as ever.

A woman of power

Catherine was never the ruler of France, but she was intimately acquainted with politics at the highest level.

She was an assiduous networker. Her remaining letters (some 6,000 survive) give us just a sense of the enormous reach of the relationships she maintained over a long and well watched life.

Hers was a remarkable trajectory. The Medici were not a dynasty of royal blood, but she nonetheless became queen of France, served as regent for her husband and was governess and advisor to her sons.

Her access to influence as a wife and mother, while conventional, was perceived by political men and commentators beyond the court as dangerous because it sat outside formal mechanisms for regulating power.

Multiple versions of Catherine

Catherine was at the height of power when the French kingdom was at war with itself. The French Wars of Religion, lasting from 1562 to 1598, pitted Catholics and Huguenots against each other, fighting for the soul of France.

Widowed in 1559, Catherine remained close to the throne as the advisor to her three sons who became king.

Although Catholic, Catherine’s recommendations for her sons generally favoured a middle course that aimed to maintain the integrity of the realm, and the reputation of the dynasty she had married into.

This pleased few among the ardent on either side, who turned to the pen to respond, creating multiple versions of Catherine as suited their cause.

Sexualised tropes presented Catherine as a danger to men of either side in this conflict. A pamphlet of 1575 versified:

She unmans cocks, tearing off their crests and testicles, a virago holds sway over the French. An unbridled woman dines on the testicles of cocks, and as she devours this food, she smacks her lips and says: ‘Thus, I castrate Gallic courage, thus I unman the French, thus I subdue them!’

This version of Catherine was catchy.

There were many versions of Catherine. Some were the versions she made with her allies for public consumption: versions made in art, ceremony, palaces and acts.

Others had their own ideas about who Catherine was, or what version of Catherine best suited their objectives. Not all had the same reach and not all have been reproduced through to the present day.

Catherine knew the high stakes for women. She had a fraught and complex relationship with Mary, Queen of Scots, but she defended her to Elizabeth I’s courtier Francis Walsingham, telling Walshingham she “knew very well how often people said things of a poor afflicted princess that did not always turn out to be true.”

After her death, dozens of Catherines took free flight in novels. Alexandre Dumas’ Queen Margot (1845) has Catherine dissecting the brains of a chicken whose head she has severed with a single blow, for prophetic analysis. She conducts herself with a “malignant smile”.

She fared little better among 19th century scholars. The influential historian Jules Michelet, a Huguenot, famously termed Catherine “the maggot from Italy’s tomb”.

This version of Catherine was also catchy.

Read more:
Mary, Queen of Scots was a poet – and you should know it

Women in the public eye

Catherine’s treatment throughout history reflects our problematic relationship with women’s roles in public life. There has been a long history of hostility to women of power and women in power.

The Serpent Queen traces Catherine’s life from the trials of her childhood to the beginning of what would become almost 30 years as a central figure in the reigns of her sons. Here we have an engaging Catherine with agency, narrated by Catherine herself. Her lines even echo speeches recorded by contemporary ambassadors.

Does Catherine at last have the final word?

This Catherine seems to seek our sympathy. She looks and speaks directly to us, seemingly eliciting our understanding of her decisions. “Tell me what you would have done differently?” she asks us.

But it is perhaps our collusion in the making of a familiar version of Catherine the series seeks to elicit.

Is this a new Catherine for new times, complex, contextualised, freed from the “bad girl” reputation that has followed her through time? Or a dangerously attractive, lavish rehash of Catherine as “bad girl” all over again?

The Serpent Queen is now airing on Stan.

Susan Broomhall receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is the author of the book, The Identities of Catherine de’ Medici, published by Brill in 2021.

– ref. Who was Catherine de’ Medici? The Serpent Queen gives us a clever, powerful and dangerous woman – https://theconversation.com/who-was-catherine-de-medici-the-serpent-queen-gives-us-a-clever-powerful-and-dangerous-woman-189541

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Crystal Abidin, Associate Professor & ARC DECRA Fellow, Internet Studies, Curtin University

An American seven-year-old named Tariq went viral on the internet last month after appearing in an 85-second Instagram clip professing his love for corn. His quirky quips, including the catchphrase “Have a cornstastic day!” quickly found favour with internet audiences, who turned him into the meme affectionately known as “Corn Kid”.

At the time of writing, the original Instagram clip has been viewed over 26 million times and has been widely reposted by several other accounts across Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and TikTok.

On the strength of accidental viral popularity, Corn Kid is now well on his way to becoming a child celebrity. His time in the limelight has followed a predictable path carved out over the past decade as the era of “cute videos of kids” has given way to a full-blown child influencer industry.

Turning accidental virality into commercial opportunities

Corn Kid’s humorous interview was auto-tuned into a catchy song “It’s corn!” by comedy music YouTubers The Gregory Brothers. He began featuring in a string of content collaborations with notable influencers. He was even recently named “Corn-bassador” – an ambassador of corn – for South Dakota in the US.

But Corn Kid’s serendipitous fame has also brought tangible commercial opportunities.

He starred in a social media ad for Chipotle that went viral, and also registered an account on Cameo – a video-sharing platform where users can pay for personalised video messages.

And it is here where what seems like fun on the internet can begin to have real-world consequences.

Accelerated pathways into ‘child celebrity’

If Corn Kid’s story sounds familiar, it is because this rapid pathway from “accidental virality” to “meme celebrity” to “influencer” has been a tried-and-tested recipe for more than a decade.

In 2011, British cousins Sophia Grace and Rosie (then aged 8 and 5, respectively) went viral with a short dance clip. It led to regular appearances on The Ellen Show, followed by music and film opportunities, and careers as YouTube influencers.

In 2014, five-year-old Noah Ritter’s viral street interview eventually led to regular fixtures on talkshows and appearances at cons, after similarly being picked up by The Ellen Show.

But there are also less wholesome examples, such as when 14-year-old Danielle Bregoli went viral for her appearance on the Dr. Phil Show in 2016, after he had called out her bad behaviour and publicly shamed her. She went on to establish herself as a rapper and as a NSFW influencer who reportedly earned US$50 million in her first year.

As I note in my book Internet Celebrity: Understanding Fame Online, young children who go viral on social media are quickly perceived by industry stakeholders as commercial investments to be “spotted and groomed”. And this initial period of instant fame is a critical moment for important decisions.

Some pitfalls of the influencer industry

Parents of children who go viral online often suddenly find themselves in a world of opportunity. Paid cameos, corporate partnerships, offers of talent brokerage and child influencer contracts can line up swiftly. In the growing market, even micro- and mid-tier influencers can demand thousands of dollars for a single post.

As parents are quickly pushed into the glitzy world of child celebrity, there is usually little time to make concerted and informed decisions. Tantalising offers may be short-lived and contingent upon wavering public interest.

Yet, it is important to consider the pitfalls and longer-term consequences in the child influencer industry.

Earlier this year, a TikTok-famous child was sexualised by fan accounts, leading to a public conversation about the safety and privacy of similar child influencers. In another instance, an influencer in my research reported she and her child were involved in a car chase by over-enthusiastic fans.

Read more:
When exploiting kids for cash goes wrong on YouTube: the lessons of DaddyOFive

As advertising opportunities expand in range, parents may also find themselves on a slippery slope as they move from child-centred products to less child-relevant recommendations like car decals and fast food.

Parents must also recognise when their children may no longer enjoy creating content, such as when they need to be “enticed by rewards for compliance to stay in the frame and continue filming”.

In some cases, parents have also been found to exploit and abuse their children when creating sensational content to attract viewers.

In Australia, the industry is growing rapidly.

Navigating unregulated terrain

The child influencer industry is still largely unregulated terrain. One exception is in France, where the government passed a law in 2020 to regulate workable hours, safeguard the income of under-16s, and ensure that companies apply for permission to work with child influencers.

In the UK, a House of Commons committee conducted an inquiry into the child influencer industry in 2021. The UK parliament is presently working on a response to calls for more regulation.

Formal regulations are beginning to catch up with the industry.

In the meantime parents of aspiring child influencers are also doing more to protect their children.

Established “family influencers” on YouTube have role-modelled how to negotiate children’s involvement in content creation – treating it as a reward rather than an obligation, and allowing them to opt out when they want.

Lessons from Asia

I am conducting a five-year ethnography of the influencer industry in Australia and East Asia, during which I have found many more examples of parents doing more to stand up for the interests of their children.

Parents in South Korea are requesting specific clauses in their child influencer contracts with sponsors to give their children more agency. These may accommodate “no shows” if a child refuses to participate in a client event at late notice, or flexibility to renegotiate advertising briefs if a child does not want to engage with the sponsored product or service.

In China, talent managers are trained professionals who act as mediators and brokers for child influencer services. They safeguard access to prominent child influencers, ensure client contracts are fair, educate parents by advising them on legal and contractual matters, and provide quality control for the content that child influencers deliver to clients.

Further, influencer agencies are contractually responsible for any faux pas. Thus, they work quickly to resolve issues that impinge on the welfare of the child.

Even the most loving and well-meaning parents may not have the capacity and skills to protect the interests of their children in the volatile influencer industry. And while change is coming, we can draw on lessons from the past.

Crystal Abidin receives funding from the Australian Research Council (DE190100789). She has previously consulted for Facebook, Google, and Instagram as an independent researcher on policies regarding the safety of minors and child influencers, but is not otherwise affiliated with the platforms.

– ref. It’s corn! How the online viral ‘Corn Kid’ is on a well-worn path to fame in the child influencer industry – https://theconversation.com/its-corn-how-the-online-viral-corn-kid-is-on-a-well-worn-path-to-fame-in-the-child-influencer-industry-189974

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lauren Rickards, Professor, RMIT University

“Work” – broadly defined – is what allows society to function. Like other old certainties, it is under threat from climate change.

A key reason climate-related stresses and disruptions can have such a big impact is precisely because of their effect on the work we do and on the wider system of work we rely on. But little attention has been given to the urgent need to adapt work to climate change.

Our new report on climate impacts at work, released today, documents emerging serious risks.

A female professional told us: “there were days where I simply had to use up sick leave because it was too hot to get safely to work”.

One male sales worker told us about working during the Black Summer of 2019/2020:

Smoke from bushfires two years ago was intolerable. The heat also was horrific at times. During the smokiest days temperatures often shot up to over 40 degrees. It was like the planet Venus. My employer … provided no masks at all at that time, despite numerous requests, even pleadings.

Australia is already 1.4℃ warmer than it was in 1910. Climatic extremes and events like the 2022 floods and Black Summer – as well as many less visible disruptions –  are already undermining our capacity to work across different organisations, industries and sectors.

We will have to get better at adapting to our changed climate – and quickly.

What did we find?

We found the effects of climate change on workers reach more widely than than previously thought.

In short, no one is immune to climate harms, whether indoor or outdoor, junior or senior. Given we rely on each others’ work, that means climate change impacts are likely to increasingly “cascade” through society, as the 2022 IPCC report on Australasia details.

Our research comes from a survey of 1,165 workers across ten industries undertaken in the first half of 2022, assisted by six unions. The sample is not representative of the workforce as a whole and is skewed towards types of workers not typically considered on harms from climate change, such as professionals and community and personal service workers.

Read more:
Unions can – and will – play a leading role in tackling the climate crisis

Previous research has documented the serious ways heat affects workers, especially those outdoors or in poorly cooled spaces. Other studies have found outdoor council workers and delivery cyclists in Sydney are already having to use coping mechanisms such as extra breaks, lighter duties and temporarily stopping work to try to avoid heat stress.

Our data similarly points to heat’s health impacts. Outdoor workers were especially likely to report being tired and fatigued, dehydrated and less productive. They were also more likely to sweat excessively and be sunburnt.

Less recognised is that indoor workers are also being affected by heat and smoke.

These health impacts are serious. Close to 450 people died from the effects of smoke inhalation over the Black Summer. These issues were compounded by the COVID pandemic, notably for those workers who have to had to wear personal protective equipment or work from poorly cooled houses during heatwave conditions.

Climate change can undermine people’s capacity to work in other ways. Some workers reported impacts on the amount and focus of their work. For example, some had to take on new tasks to cover for colleagues who were overwhelmed or furloughed due to the Black Summer fires. A quarter reported having to work additional hours due to emergency situations such as the floods, while others reported they had lost hours, had to take personal leave or even lost their job as a result of climatic events.

There are even impacts from climatic effects on the wider public. Half of the survey respondents reported having to manage angrier customers, while 60% said climatic events had led to staffing disruptions. Some reported extreme weather was causing supply chain disruption.

One male professional said:

The frequency of storm events has noticeably increased, and these storms are often more severe with higher wind speeds and rates of precipitation than in the past. […] Our workload has increased accordingly and risk to people and property has also increased.

Management are struggling to come to terms with the frequency and severity of storm events and this is leading to anxiety and conflict with management in relation to the perceived need to close the site, or part of it, during severe weather events. Site closure protects individuals from harm […] but is bad for revenue raising for the many businesses that operate on our site.

Our capacity to work often relies on intricate systems of settlements, infrastructure and services that consist of workplaces and support others. When any of these workplaces are affected, there are flow-on effects.

Our survey found more than a third of workers had not been able to travel to work due to climatic factors. If trains don’t run or roads are blocked, it can bring many workplaces to a halt.

We are now enmeshed in a different climate to the one we grew up in – and it will change more.

To make our societies and systems resilient to climate change, we will have to adapt how, where, when we work, who “we” is, what we work on, and why. This adaptation work is urgent. No one is immune.

Read more:
As heatwaves become more extreme, which jobs are riskiest?

Lauren Rickards received funding from the Victorian Government for the Climate Resilience Living Lab. She is a member of the Victorian Agriculture and Climate Change Council and the Regen Melbourne Research Council. She was a Lead Author on the Australasia chapter for the IPCC 2022 Sixth Assessment Report by Working Group Two on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.

Todd Denham receives funding from the Victorian Government for the Climate Resilience Living Lab.

– ref. ‘Too hard to get to work’: climate change is making workers’ lives more difficult – https://theconversation.com/too-hard-to-get-to-work-climate-change-is-making-workers-lives-more-difficult-190442

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carl Mika, Professor of Māori and Indigenous Studies, University of Canterbury

In 2017, the Whanganui River was made a person in the eyes of the law. The Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act acknowledged, in its own way, that the human world includes other, more-than-human entities.

It was perceived at the time as quite a radical step for the law, and it is undoubtedly legally significant. But this profound interconnection that underpins all things has been self-evident for Māori and other Indigenous peoples for millennia.

With all things in the world possessing one fundamental essence, any single object owes its existence to everything else. Within one object, everything else resides. The Te Awa Tupua Act took a conceptual step towards recognising this in law.

Depending on who one is talking to, these metaphysical concepts may be called spiritual or holistic, or they may have no label. But it is clearly important that we employ a language that accommodates this thinking, and that its terms are treated with the integrity they’re due, even in the political sphere.

Te Reo Māori is often invoked as one such language – a spiritual taonga, gifted by human and non-human ancestors, and imbued with their presence. It registers the more-than-human realm – Te Po (night), Te Kore (nothingness), and so on – while talking about a single thing.

These more abstract dimensions of te reo Māori, however, can clash with the generally more instrumentalist use of language in policy and law.

Deeper meanings

So it was that earlier this year Justice Minister Kiritapu Allan objected to the tokenistic use of te reo Māori in government departments. Other Māori have objected to this too, and the issue also arises in the debates around science and mātauranga Māori, and tikanga and law.

The problem, one suspects, relates to the overuse and inappropriate use of te reo Māori. Indeed, there may be times when the taonga status of the language can only be honoured when we decide not to use te reo in certain circumstances.

With these political and philosophical concerns at the forefront, one arm of my research has been to examine – from a Māori vantage point, where all things are interconnected or “one” – how a Māori text does not essentially connect with its English translation.

Read more:
Three rivers are now legally people – but that’s just the start of looking after them

With Kiritapu Allan’s challenge in mind, and in light of this year’s 50th anniversary of the Māori language petition itself, consider the position of te reo Māori in policy and legal texts. From a Māori perspective of the interconnectedness of things, there is a particularly isolating, divisive tendency in English, which diminishes full Māori meanings.

Words such as “whakapapa” and “whanau”, for example, often lack their more holistic dimensions in these contexts. Ironically, they have no whakapapa or whanaungatanga with the text. The surrounding English text in law and policy will emphasise measurable, tangible things, whereas te reo terms always refer to intangible worlds as well.

The problem for te reo Māori in these situations is that a term’s “essence” – some might call this its “wairua” – has been modified to refer and equate to an English language term, and also to conform to a colonising worldview in the background.

The Māori worldview

As I said earlier, this worldview is isolating. It separates out things in the world, it actively rejects their togetherness and their relationship with the more-than-human, and it inhibits te reo Māori’s ability to transcend human existence.

We see a warping of te reo Maori in these circumstances – a negating of its spiritual character in order to refer to more tangible things. “Whakapapa” in those instances merely refers to genealogy, “whanau” to human family.

Read more:
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Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori offers a chance to recall and honour the work of those who have fought to increase the number of Māori speakers. Through their efforts we’ve seen the language flourish in areas we would never have dreamed of only a decade ago.

But with the language now being so widely deployed in previously unforeseen ways and contexts, it’s also timely to think about how the spiritual reality of te reo should be preserved against these colonising backdrops.

When English will do

This is just as important as the effort to have te reo widely used. Sometimes the two camps may not agree with each other, either. It might involve, for instance, not being scared to reject an offer to use te reo Māori in certain forums.

Wherever we see the naturally expansive nature of te reo Māori being “disciplined” by other registers of language, we need to consider withdrawing it. We would simply advise policymakers and legislators to use English terms if they are referring to a non-Māori worldview.

This might seem unthinkable for many, given the apparent push to use te reo Māori at every opportunity to ensure its survival. But it would also be the face of a deeper mission to ensure te reo Māori accords with a Māori worldview.

Instead of being forced to act as a receptacle for a colonising worldview, te reo Māori could “take a breather” to allow Māori to discuss the issue in more depth. After that, it might be that our precious terms are returned to the text with special provisos – or maybe not at all.

Carl Mika does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Tokenism and te reo Māori: why some things just shouldn’t be translated – https://theconversation.com/tokenism-and-te-reo-maori-why-some-things-just-shouldnt-be-translated-190140

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew King, Senior Lecturer in Climate Science, The University of Melbourne

After weeks of anticipation, it’s finally official: the Bureau of Meteorology has declared another La Niña is underway. This means Australia’s east coast will likely endure yet another wet, and relatively cool, spring and summer.

It’s the third La Niña event in a row. This is rare, but not unheard of. Triple La Niñas have also occurred in, for example, 1973–1976 and 1998–2001.

The past two La Niñas mean water catchments are already full, and soils are sodden from Noosa in the north through to Lismore and the Hunter Valley in the south. It means more flood events are likely in the coming months.

The bureau’s declaration will be unwelcome news to many people – especially those in parts of New South Wales and Queensland still recovering from recent floods. So what else can flood-weary Australians expect in the coming months? And is a fourth La Niña on the cards?

A potentially mild La Niña

La Niña is part of a natural climate cycle over the tropical Pacific Ocean. Sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific vary between being warmer than average (El Niño) and cooler than average (La Niña).

This variability has worldwide effects as it shifts weather patterns – bringing droughts to some regions and floods to others.

For most of Australia, La Niña raises the chance of rain. It has contributed to some of Australia’s wettest ever conditions, and some of the driest in the southern United States across the Pacific Ocean.

The Bureau of Meteorology says this La Niña may peak during spring, and return to neutral conditions early in 2023. Most seasonal prediction models are suggesting this La Niña event will be weaker and shorter-lived than the last two.

Typically, stronger La Niña seasons are associated with more extreme rainfall in eastern Australia. So hopefully a mild La Niña comes to pass and flood-hit regions avoid the worst of the summertime rain, at least.

La Niña is a part of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, a natural phenomenon. We know these events have occurred in the past – before large-scale greenhouse gas emissions from human activities.

We don’t yet know how La Niña may change as the planet continues to warm, but evidence suggests climate change may make La Niña (and its counterpart El Niño) events more frequent and intense.

And research from earlier this year suggests relationships between La Niña and regional climate may become stronger over many parts of the world, including much of Australia. This could mean Australia feels the force of La Niña and El Niño events more in future as the planet continues to heat.

Three climate forces at work

It’s not just La Niña affecting Australia’s climate at the moment. Two other natural climate forces are also in play: the Indian Ocean Dipole and the Southern Annular Mode.

The Indian Ocean Dipole is characterised by variable sea surface temperatures in the Indian Ocean, and the Southern Annular Mode by the positioning of winds and weather systems to Australia’s south.

We’re currently in a “negative” Indian Ocean Dipole and a “positive” phase of the Southern Annular Mode.

These all have different effects on the Australian climate. In springtime, these conditions – in combination with La Niña – are conducive to more rain in eastern Australia.

We saw all three of these phenomena occur simultaneously in the spring of 2010, when eastern Australia experienced record high rainfall.

It’s too early to say where exactly in Australia is most likely to experience flooding this spring. While La Niña, the negative Indian Ocean Dipole and positive Southern Annular Mode raise the chances of rainfall, individual weather systems and their trajectories will determine where the worst is located.

Read more:
A wet spring: what is a ‘negative Indian Ocean Dipole’ and why does it mean more rain for Australia’s east?

What does La Niña mean for drought and bushfire?

One positive aspect of La Niña is it keeps drought out of the picture for the time being. Some of Australia’s worst droughts are characterised by a lack of La Niña or negative Indian Ocean Dipole conditions over several years. Eastern Australia is unlikely to experience severe drought in the near future.

The La Niña conditions also reduce the likelihood that we’ll see a bad bushfire season in eastern Australia this coming summer.

But it isn’t all good news. La Niña and the other climate influences raise the chances of plant growth and greening in eastern Australia. And this could provide fuel for future fires once conditions dry out again.

Historically, major bushfire seasons in eastern Australia have often followed La Niña events. In 2011, after a La Niña and very wet conditions, we saw some of the biggest fires on record.

A background trend towards hotter, drier weather due to climate change could spell trouble down the track.

Another effect of the triple La Niña is that we haven’t seen record high global-average temperatures since 2016 (noting that 2020 and 2016 are almost tied). This is despite our continued very high greenhouse gas emissions, which have rebounded since the pandemic-associated dip.

La Niña typically reduces global-mean temperatures slightly by cooling a large area of the Pacific Ocean – but this is a temporary effect. Record high global-average temperatures will come again soon, and are more likely when the next El Niño occurs.

Read more:
2021 was one of the hottest years on record – and it could also be the coldest we’ll ever see again

Could we have a fourth La Niña?

Many Australians hoping La Niña was behind us for a few years now have to contend with a third in a row.

While we’ve seen triple La Niña events before, we have never seen quadruple La Niña in the historical record. This doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen. In fact, the 2001-2002 season that followed the 1998-2001 triple La Niña wasn’t a long way off from being yet another La Niña.

For now, we must prepare for a wet spring and possibly another wet summer to come.

Severe flooding is more likely than usual in already flood-hit zones, so lessons learnt from the devastation caused by the recent floods should be put in place.

Read more:
No, not again! A third straight La Niña is likely – here’s how you and your family can prepare

Andrew King receives funding from the National Environmental Science Program.

– ref. La Niña, 3 years in a row: a climate scientist on what flood-weary Australians can expect this summer – https://theconversation.com/la-nina-3-years-in-a-row-a-climate-scientist-on-what-flood-weary-australians-can-expect-this-summer-190542

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

As well as her interviews with politicians and experts, Politics with Michelle Grattan includes “Word from The Hill”, where she discusses the news with members of The Conversation politics team.

In this podcast Michelle and Amanda Dunn, the Conversation’s politics editor, canvass Anthony Albanese’s announcement of ten “everyday” Australians who will travel with him to the United Kingdom on Thursday for the Queen’s funeral, which will be held on Monday. They include Dylan Alcott, 2022 Australian of the Year.

Amanda and Michelle also discuss the (slightly delayed) introduction of the legislation for a national integrity body, the future of the republic issue, and Albanese’s determination to follow proper processes.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Word from The Hill: Will Queen Elizabeth’s death affect Australian politics? – https://theconversation.com/word-from-the-hill-will-queen-elizabeths-death-affect-australian-politics-190558

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachael Sharman, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, University of the Sunshine Coast

The numbers of climate sceptics are dwindling. But they remain a noisy and at times powerful minority that continues to have political influence. This group is unmoved by the near-universal agreement among scientists on the reality and impact of climate change.

Past research into climate change scepticism has focused on sociodemographics. It has found people are more likely to express scepticism if they are older, male, highly value individualistic beliefs and don’t value the environment.

These characteristics are generally entrenched. It means this information, while interesting, may be of little use when trying to increase public support for climate action.

Our latest study of Australian sceptics focused on potentially more malleable factors – including the thought processes of people who reject climate science messaging. Our findings suggest some people reject consensus science and generate other explanations due to mistrust in climate science and uncritical faith in “alternative science”.

We hope these findings help researchers, scientists and those responsible for public messaging to understand and overcome sceptics’ concerns.

Read more:
Almost 90% of us now believe climate change is a problem – across all political persuasions

What factors did the study consider?

For our research, we surveyed 390 Australian climate change sceptics. They were recruited via social media, including from sceptic interest groups and websites. We explored whether the following variables predicted climate change scepticism above and beyond sociodemographic factors:

• the extent to which you feel your life’s outcomes are within your personal control, or are mostly influenced by external factors

• information-processing style

• trust in those who defend the industrial capitalist system against accusations that its activities are causing harm.

We broke scepticism down into four types based on rejection of, or uncertainty about:

1. the reality of climate change

2. its causes

3. its impacts

4. the need to follow scientific advice.

Read more:
Why old-school climate denial has had its day

Similar to previous research, our study found:

• older people were more likely to be sceptical of the reality of climate change

• conservatives were more likely to be sceptical of the reality, causes and impacts of climate change

• lower environmental values were strongly linked to all types of scepticism.

Unlike in the United States, we found religious beliefs had little influence on climate change sceptics in the largely secular Australian population. Instead, they had faith in “alternative” or pseudo-science explanations.

Those who favoured explanations of chance, believing that luck determines outcomes, were also more likely to believe there was no need to act on climate change.

This suggests those who believe outcomes in life are beyond their control are more likely to think individual action on climate change is of little use. Hence, we suggest increased efforts to emphasise the difference individual efforts can make.

Those with stronger individualistic worldviews – their priority is individual autonomy as opposed to a more collectivist worldview – were more sceptical about humans causing climate change.

Contrary to our predictions, people with high analytical abilities were even more likely to be sceptical about this. Our further analyses suggested that mistrust in climate science and uncritical faith in “alternative science” prompted them to reject consensus science and generate other explanations.

Read more:
Climate explained: why some people still think climate change isn’t real

How people explain their scepticism

We asked participants to explain their scepticism. From their responses, we identified five overarching themes:

1. faith in alternative science – they offered answers such as “real science concerning solar activity and other factors such as planetary tides” to explain their rejection of climate science

2. belief that climate changes naturally and cyclically – expressions such as “the climate has always changed quite naturally and always will. Nothing we can do about it” defend against the overwhelming evidence of human-enhanced climate change for five decades or more

3. mistrust in climate science – questions such as “how can anyone support a premise supported by consensus science based on adjusted temps?” invoke claims of data manipulation to support the supposedly nefarious aims of climate scientists

4. predictions not becoming reality – explanations such as “seeing climate change alarmists’ predictions being completely false” result from a basic misunderstanding of model-based climate projections (“prediction” is rarely used any more) and probabilities

5. ulterior motives of interested parties – claims such as “the Man-Made climate change HOAX is pushed by the UN to transfer wealth to poorer nations and make wealthier nations poorer” are contradicted by recent studies that suggest soaring adaptation costs in developed countries like Australia will limit their future generosity to poorer neighbours.

Read more:
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So how do we begin to change minds?

In all, our results suggest climate change scepticism may be influenced by:

• favoured explanations of pseudoscience and/or belief that events happen by chance
• a belief that the problem is too large, complex and costly for individuals to deal with alone.

Unlike sociodemographic characteristics, these thought processes may more open to targeted public messaging.

In the end, reality bites. Multi-year droughts and successive never-before-seen floods will struggle to fit a sceptic narrative of yet another “one-in-100-year event”. Even the attitudes of Australian farmers, including some of the most entrenched sceptics, are shifting.

Climate change is upon us, and scepticism is rapidly becoming a topic for historians, not futurists.

Patrick D. Nunn receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Natural Environment Research Council (UK) and the British Academy (UK)

Rachael Sharman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Inside the mind of a sceptic: the ‘mental gymnastics’ of climate change denial – https://theconversation.com/inside-the-mind-of-a-sceptic-the-mental-gymnastics-of-climate-change-denial-189645

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

Much has been written about how, with the passing of the Queen, we have lost one of our last continuing links to the second world war.

We have, but we have also lost something even more profound – the link she gave us back to when the kind of world we know began.

On Tuesday last week Queen Elizabeth appointed a new prime minister of Britain, Liz Truss, who was born in 1975.

Seven decades earlier, Elizabeth II ascended to the role alongside Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who was born in 1874.

That her first and last prime ministers were born a century apart is remarkable enough. But it is particularly significant that the thread of her reign extended all the way back, through Churchill, to the 1870s. That’s when, according to a new economic book, the expectations we all grew up first began.

As the new UK Prime Minister was sworn in last week, University of California, Berkeley economist Bradford DeLong published his long-awaited Slouching Towards Utopia. It’s an economic history of what he calls “the long 20th century”, a century he says began in 1870.

Why 1870, and not 1901, or even a century earlier at the start of the industrial revolution?

Because, DeLong says, right up until the 1870s living standards hadn’t changed much.

More importantly, living standards hadn’t changed much since the dawn of recorded time.

Until 1870, we weren’t much better off

In the millennia leading up to the birth of agriculture, what humans were able to produce barely increased at all.

In the 10,000-odd years between the year minus-8000 and the industrial revolution in 1500, our ability to produce food and other things increased tenfold, still not enough to be noticed over our (short) lifetimes.

Our ability to produce more than doubled again between 1500 and the 1870. But so did population, which kept most people desperately short of calories – and in near continual childbirth in an attempt to produce surviving sons – while necessitating smaller farm sizes that blunted the benefits of mechanisation.

From the 1870s, life got a lot better – fast

Then, from the decade of Churchill’s birth, things went spectacularly right.

Delong writes that in 1870 the daily wages of an unskilled male worker in London, the city then at the forefront of economic growth, would buy him and his family about 5,000 calories worth of bread. In 1600 it had been 3,000 calories.

He says today the daily wages of such an unskilled worker would buy 2,400,000 calories worth of bread: nearly 500 times as much.

The population grew, but our ability to produce things grew far faster. It grew to the point where, even in our lifetimes, we could see things getting better.

In the words of Billy Joel, every child had “a pretty good shot to get at least as far as their old man got”.

Unimaginable change in one lifetime

From the 1870s on, continual improvements in living standards became a birthright – not for everyone, but for humanity as a whole.

As did the development of once unimaginable products. The motor car, the radio, the television and the computer became ubiquitous during Queen Elizabeth’s life.

With more to go around, it became easier to share rather than take things. Democracies grew to the point where they became natural.

Economically, DeLong credits the development of research labs, modern corporations and cheap ocean transport that “destroyed distance as a cost factor”.

From the 1870s onwards, people were able to get what they wanted from where it was made, and were able to seek better lives by travelling to where they were needed.

Most economists didn’t see it coming

The market economy was necessary for this explosion in living standards, but not sufficient. People had bought and sold things for prices for millennia, but the prices had little to work with.

Almost no one saw such an extraordinary change coming.

The leading economist of the 1870s, John Stuart Mill, wrote it was “questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toil of any human being”. They had merely “enabled a greater population to live the same life of drudgery and imprisonment”.

Mill wanted population control. He wanted the expanding “pie” to be split among the people we had, rather than the hordes that would grow to cut each slice back to size.

Read more:
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The fathers of communism, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, saw things more clearly.
They expected technology and the taming of nature to produce so much wealth that there would one day be more than enough to go around, making the problem one of how to make sure it went around.

DeLong sees the long 20th century that began in 1870 as an ever-shifting battle between those who wanted the market to determine the distribution of wealth (believing it was the best way to grow the pie), against those who believed such unfairness wasn’t what they signed up for.

The end of certainty

How long did that “long 20th century” last? DeLong thinks it ended in 2010, making it a long century of 140 years. Since the global financial crisis, we have been unable to return economic growth to anything like the pace of those 140 glorious years.

Today, DeLong says material wealth remains “criminally” unevenly distributed. And even for those who have enough, it doesn’t seem to make us happy – at least “not in a world where politicians and others prosper mightily from finding new ways to make and keep people unhappy”.

DeLong sees “large system-destabilizing waves of political and cultural anger from masses of citizens, all upset in different ways at the failure of the system of the twentieth century to work for them as they thought that it should.”

Read more:
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Not only are we not near the end of the Utopian rainbow, Delong says the end of the rainbow is “no longer visible, even if we had previously thought that it was”.

King Charles III inherits a future with no guarantee of ever-increasing living standards, no guarantee human ingenuity will prevail over global warming, and no guarantee democracy will prevail.

It’s almost impossible to predict what the rest of this century has in store. But that’s how it was in the 1870s too – when even the brightest minds of the time couldn’t imagine what was to come.

Peter Martin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The certainty of ever-growing living standards we grew up with under Queen Elizabeth is at an end – https://theconversation.com/the-certainty-of-ever-growing-living-standards-we-grew-up-with-under-queen-elizabeth-is-at-an-end-190425

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julie Andrews, Professor Indigenous Research & Convenor of Aboriginal Studies, La Trobe University

The family of Uncle Jack Charles have given permission for his name and images to be used.

Once again, Aboriginal Melbourne is mourning the loss of another iconic member of its community – Uncle Jack Charles.

Uncle Jack Charles was born on the Cummeragunja Aboriginal Reserve in 1943 and was descended from the Victorian peoples of the Boon Wurrung, Dja Dja Wurrung, Woiwurrung and the Yorta Yorta. He spent his life retracing his ancestral heritage after being forcibly removed from his family.

His search brought about happy and sad stories that he documented for us all across his autobiography, screen and theatre. He took us on his journey and cemented this as proof for generations to come. His search for his family even led him to the shores of Tasmania where he was also descended from.

At this year’s NAIDOC week, Uncle Jack was awarded the 2022 Male Elder of the Year. In his acceptance speech, he drew attention to the prisoners he visited. He was always dedicated to acknowledging those who looked on from the sidelines, and to fight for change.

It was fitting he received that award. Thank you, Uncle Jack, for bringing to people’s minds and homes to not fear the other. No doubt there is mourning across all Aboriginal communities, prisoners and street people across Australia.

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Truth telling

Uncle Jack Charles was a valued member of our Aboriginal community. His commitment to advocating on behalf of incarcerated Aboriginal people knew no bounds.

Despite the hardships he faced of abuse as a child and incarceration as a young adult, his life made a difference to many others to hold their head up and not be ashamed. We are not invisible, and for this we thank you Uncle Jack.

His truth telling of his personal experiences as a member of the Stolen Generation opened the minds and understanding of many Australians, making it easier for his people to find a voice.

He spoke for all Aboriginal people who struggle with everyday life. He helped people believe in the future. He showed no matter what wrong they might have done in the eyes of the law, or in the eyes of other people, there is a way to come to your own understanding and gain control of the situation.

Uncle Jack would have said this much better than I can. That is what was so inspiring about him: the way he spoke about his life experiences as a child, a youth, a young man and an adult.

To us, he was a well travelled Elder that brought so much teaching and knowledge to those who struggled or were forced to live in alternative ways. He never judged others – except to call out where there was injustice for those who did not have a voice.

He gave us his life teachings and, in return, there was human understanding and support for those he advocated for.

Read more:
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An amazing artist

Uncle Jack’s work towards understanding and comprehending the impact of government policies upon Aboriginal children and the trauma they carry with them as a result of being institutionalised became just one of the many roles he created.

His training as an actor instilled within him the most eloquent speech.

There will never be another Jack Charles – his ability to educate and tell a narrative on stage, in a television commercial and his pure acting talent in a film.

As an actor, performer and author he documented his life. He controlled his own narrative.

In 2008, his documentary Bastardy told of his life as a street person and heroin addict. It was a groundbreaking teaching to those who did not know about living with addiction. By placing his own heroin use in the spotlight, he created an awareness of the perils of addiction and incarceration.

He toured the world with his brilliant 2010 stage play, Jack Charles vs the Crown. Through storytelling and song, he converted government assimilation policy into an artform and a teaching tool.

Telling stories of the plight of Aboriginal homelessness, mental health and incarcerated men and women, he could reach an audience of all ages and make a connection to them.

Across Melbourne, he was easily recognised in streets, cafes and continued to be a valued member of the Aboriginal community.

Most of all, the younger generations recognised him. He had the ability to speak to them and they listened.

The young ones across Australia are feeling shock and disbelief today. My son asked “Why?”; my nephew texted me today and said “Aunt, I met him a few times, he was deadly, a deadly man”.

Yes, he was.

Julie Andrews receives funding from Australian Research Council.

– ref. ‘He was deadly, a deadly man’: remembering the incredible life and work of Uncle Jack Charles – https://theconversation.com/he-was-deadly-a-deadly-man-remembering-the-incredible-life-and-work-of-uncle-jack-charles-190533

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joyce Siette, Research Fellow, Western Sydney University

What’s the daily routine like for older people in residential aged care facilities?

To find out, we spent 312 hours observing 39 residents at six Australian aged care facilities to find out how and where they spend their time across the day. We wanted to know how socially engaged residents actually were and how this could affect their wellbeing.

Our study, published in the journal PLOS One, highlights some long-standing issues in aged care but also provides promise.

Residents were largely active, both in terms of communicating with other people in the centre and in terms of doing activities. But there’s more we can do to create opportunities for socialising.

Read more:
Overseas recruitment won’t solve Australia’s aged care worker crisis

Humans are a social species

Transitioning from life at home to life in aged care can be challenging, often linked with loss of independence, loss of identity, and loss of control.

Many also associate moving into aged care with a decline in their social lives and overall physical health.

So it’s no surprise people living in aged care homes suffer from generally low levels of wellbeing.

Previous research has found residents hardly attend activities in their facility. The conversations they do have are often with care staff – these are very rare, short, and mainly about their physical care.

However, previous studies often fail to capture critical aspects of how and where socialisation occurs in aged care.

We know humans are a social creatures and that we’re wired to connect, with more social connections boosting our overall wellbeing.

That’s why we decided to take a closer look at how aged care residents spend their time.

What we found

During the 312 hours we spent observing 39 residents, we found a day in the life of a resident looks something like this:

• waking up in the morning and getting ready for the day (with the help of personal care staff if necessary)

• attending the dining room for breakfast and spending most of the morning in the common area or lounge room – perhaps participating in an activity run by the lifestyle staff at the facility – before returning to the dining room for lunch

• after that, depending on whether there is an activity being organised, most will go back to their own rooms to recuperate before coming back to the dining room for dinner in the early evening.

We found social interactions peak at breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Across the day, residents

• spent the greatest proportion of time (45%) in their own room

• were alone 47.9% of the time

• were inactive 25.6% of the time

• were most likely to chat with other residents, followed by staff, then family

• outside of meal times, residents had conversations in the common area or in their own rooms.

Overall, residents spent more than half their time being socially and physically active.

Over a third of their time was spent with another resident. Spending time with other residents was most likely to be associated with a higher quality of life.

We also found spending time with staff or too much time alone was linked to poorer quality of life.

Creating opportunities for socially active lives

Based on our research, here are three ways aged care providers and governments can do to improve older Australians’ wellbeing:

1. Improve staffing

Staff shortages and time pressures are key reasons why residents spend little time with staff.

Including more activities chosen and assisted by residents in aged care facilities could help create new social opportunities between residents and strengthen existing ones.

2. Tailor Montessori programs to the aged care environment

Montessori programs create a collaborative approach filled with self-directed activities with hands-on learning and play. Activities include things like sorting and recognising objects, completing puzzles, and practising opening locks.

Montessori programs in small groups or led by family members would suit the smaller staff to resident ratios in many aged care centres. They would also help residents (including those with dementia) regain some independence, feel less bored or isolated and have a sense of purpose.

3. Change the physical environment and offer more afternoon activities

Changing the physical environment to accommodate for more social spaces would go a long way to help.

Increasing the number of activities in the afternoon would mean residents have more opportunities to socialise with each other, especially those who are busy with personal care routines in the mornings.

Doing residential aged care differently

After media reports and a royal commission highlighted the failings of Australia’s aged care system, it’s time to think differently about aged care.

Our study reveals residents can and do socialise, and that it can significantly improve people’s quality of life.

We must now find ways to change aged care environments and practices to create more social opportunities.

Read more:
Complaints, missing persons, assaults – contracting outside workers in aged care increases problems

Joyce Siette is affiliated with the Australian Association of Gerontology.

Laura Dodds receives funding from Macquarie University.

– ref. What do aged care residents do all day? We tracked their time use to find out – https://theconversation.com/what-do-aged-care-residents-do-all-day-we-tracked-their-time-use-to-find-out-190147

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rodolfo Ocampo, PhD student, Human–AI Creative Collaboration, UNSW Sydney

An art prize at the Colorado State Fair was awarded last month to a work that – unbeknown to the judges – was generated by an artificial intelligence (AI) system.

Social media have also seen an explosion of weird images generated by AI from text descriptions, such as “the face of a shiba inu blended into the side of a loaf of bread on a kitchen bench, digital art”.

Or perhaps “A sea otter in the style of ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ by Johannes Vermeer”:

You may be wondering what’s going on here. As somebody who researches creative collaborations between humans and AI, I can tell you that behind the headlines and memes a fundamental revolution is under way – with profound social, artistic, economic and technological implications.

How we got here

You could say this revolution began in June 2020, when a company called OpenAI achieved a big breakthrough in AI with the creation of GPT-3, a system that can process and generate language in much more complex ways than earlier efforts. You can have conversations with it about any topic, ask it to write a research article or a story, summarise text, write a joke, and do almost any imaginable language task.

Read more:
Robots are creating images and telling jokes. 5 things to know about foundation models and the next generation of AI

In 2021, some of GPT-3’s developers turned their hand to images. They trained a model on billions of pairs of images and text descriptions, then used it to generate new images from new descriptions. They called this system DALL-E, and in July 2022 they released a much-improved new version, DALL-E 2.

Like GPT-3, DALL-E 2 was a major breakthrough. It can generate highly detailed images from free-form text inputs, including information about style and other abstract concepts.

For example, here I asked it to illustrate the phrase “Mind in Bloom” combining the styles of Salvador Dalí, Henri Matisse and Brett Whiteley.

Competitors enter the scene

Since the launch of DALL-E 2, a few competitors have emerged. One is the free-to-use but lower-quality DALL-E Mini (developed independently and now renamed Craiyon), which was a popular source of meme content.

Around the same time, a smaller company called Midjourney released a model that more closely matched DALL-E 2’s capabilities. Though still a little less capable than DALL-E 2, Midjourney has lent itself to interesting artistic explorations. It was with Midjourney that Jason Allen generated the artwork that won the Colorado State Art Fair competition.

Google too has a text-to-image model, called Imagen, which supposedly produces much better results than DALL-E and others. However, Imagen has not yet been released for wider use so it is difficult to evaluate Google’s claims.

In July 2022, OpenAI began to capitalise on the interest in DALL-E, announcing that 1 million users would be given access on a pay-to-use basis.

However, in August 2022 a new contender arrived: Stable Diffusion.

Stable Diffusion not only rivals DALL-E 2 in its capabilities, but more importantly it is open source. Anyone can use, adapt and tweak the code as they like.

Already, in the weeks since Stable Diffusion’s release, people have been pushing the code to the limits of what it can do.

To take one example: people quickly realised that, because a video is a sequence of images, they could tweak Stable Diffusion’s code to generate video from text.

Another fascinating tool built with Stable Diffusion’s code is Diffuse the Rest, which lets you draw a simple sketch, provide a text prompt, and generate an image from it. In the video below, I generated a detailed photo of a flower from a very rough sketch.

In a more complicated example below, I am starting to build software that lets you draw with your body, then use Stable Diffusion to turn it into a painting or photo.

The end of creativity?

What does it mean that you can generate any sort of visual content, image or video, with a few lines of text and a click of a button? What about when you can generate a movie script with GPT-3 and a movie animation with DALL-E 2?

And looking further forward, what will it mean when social media algorithms not only curate content for your feed, but generate it? What about when this trend meets the metaverse in a few years, and virtual reality worlds are generated in real time, just for you?

These are all important questions to consider.

Some speculate that, in the short term, this means human creativity and art are deeply threatened.

Perhaps in a world where anyone can generate any images, graphic designers as we know them today will be redundant. However, history shows human creativity finds a way. The electronic synthesiser did not kill music, and photography did not kill painting. Instead, they catalysed new art forms.

I believe something similar will happen with AI generation. People are experimenting with including models like Stable Diffusion as a part of their creative process.

Or using DALL-E 2 to generate fashion-design prototypes:

A new type of artist is even emerging in what some call “promptology”, or “prompt engineering”. The art is not in crafting pixels by hand, but in crafting the words that prompt the computer to generate the image: a kind of AI whispering.

Collaborating with AI

The impacts of AI technologies will be multidimensional: we cannot reduce them to good or bad on a single axis.

New artforms will arise, as will new avenues for creative expression. However, I believe there are risks as well.

Read more:
So this is how it feels when the robots come for your job: what GitHub’s Copilot ‘AI assistant’ means for coders

We live in an attention economy that thrives on extracting screen time from users; in an economy where automation drives corporate profit but not necessarily higher wages, and where art is commodified as content; in a social context where it is increasingly hard to distinguish real from fake; in sociotechnical structures that too easily encode biases in the AI models we train. In these circumstances, AI can easily do harm.

How can we steer these new AI technologies in a direction that benefits people? I believe one way to do this is to design AI that collaborates with, rather than replaces, humans.

Rodolfo Ocampo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. AI art is everywhere right now. Even experts don’t know what it will mean – https://theconversation.com/ai-art-is-everywhere-right-now-even-experts-dont-know-what-it-will-mean-189800

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patricia A. O’Brien, Faculty Member, Asian Studies Program, Georgetown University; Visiting Fellow, Department of Pacific Affairs, Australian National University; Adjunct Fellow, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC., Georgetown University

If you are trying to find traces of the United States’ long and layered ties with the Pacific Islands in Washington D.C., you need to look hard. Apart from the names of iconic battles chiselled into the Washington Mall’s second world war memorial, evidence of America’s complex Pacific history stretching back to the beginning of the Republic is not there.

Until very recently, this absence was replicated throughout Washington’s institutions, where the Pacific Islands have been at the back of mind since those epic battles were fought 80 years ago.

But over the past few months, things have changed.

The reason for this dramatic shift is plain for all to see: China. Washington is now undergoing a Pacific re-discovery that goes all the way to the top.

At the end of September, US President Joe Biden will host Pacific leaders at the White House for the first US-Pacific Island Country Summit. This will be in the style of the ASEAN meeting held in May.

After the second world war, the US was largely absent in the Pacific. There were notable exceptions, not least the shameful Marshall Islands atomic testing programme that continues to deeply affect the present.

Now the US is striving to be seen and viewed as a force for good in a part of the world where China has been making deep, transformative and worrying inroads for over 15 years.

Read more:
75 years after nuclear testing in the Pacific began, the fallout continues to wreak havoc

This isn’t the first time US postwar hegemony has been challenged in the Pacific. In the 1980s, the Soviet Union was disrupting the Pacific Islands power balance and the US responded with a series of treaties and agreements. One was the 1987 South Pacific Tuna Treaty, signed with 16 Pacific Islands. The treaty’s ongoing importance was underscored in recent weeks as part of the renewed US diplomatic drive.

The US also brokered three Compacts of Free Association (COFA) with its former United Nations Trust Territories that became the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of Palau in the mid-1980s. (Rather than becoming independent at this time, the Northern Marianas Islands opted to join American Samoa and Guam as US territories).

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, so too did US interest in the Pacific. But the compacts spurred the formation of numerous Micronesian diaspora communities across the US. Meanwhile, in exchange for certain rights, the COFA states gave the US exclusive control over their oceanic territories and a vital military base on Kwajalein Atoll.

In the current geopolitical context, these 20-year agreements were expiring and languishing, much to the frustration of several congressional representatives from both political sides. Fears of Chinese encroachments spurred the White House into action in March.

Since then, the visibility of the US’s Pacific outreach has risen. Congress took the lead in upping the US game in the Pacific, with numerous bills such as the 2021 Blue Pacific Act. Its budget lines were also designed to address both the immense needs of the region and shore-up the geopolitical interests of the US and its friends and allies, not least Australia.

In August, the urgency of US outreach has been on display in the Solomon Islands, the nation most precariously situated in the unfolding geopolitical contest thanks to the security deal signed in April with China.

At the beginning of August, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and US Ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy led poignant and very personal commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the commencement of the Battle of Guadalcanal in August 1942.

At the month’s end, the US hospital ship Mercy docked in Honiara, where it was welcomed by Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare. Only days before, he had prevented US coastguard cutter, Oliver Henry, from doing likewise.

Along with urgently needed medical, dental and veterinary aid, the Mercy brought music and a sense of celebration, with the US navy band even singing Solomon Islands tunes, in a demonstration of distinctive tone the US now seeks to set.

Also in August, USAID released its five-year Strategic Framework. This detailed how the US is going to rapidly restore itself in the region as it challenges “authoritarian actors” who “challenge the region’s stability and democratic systems”. The three development objectives are:

• strengthening community resilience particularly in the face of acute climate challenges
• bolstering Pacific economies
• strengthening democratic governance.

The framework cites the regional objectives laid out by the Pacific Islands Forum over the past eight years as the framework’s guide in 12 Pacific Island nations. It has a particular agenda to drastically improve the lives and status of women and girls across the region. The USAID plan is ambitious in its hope to transform conservative Pacific societies, while at the same time offer opportunities more attractive than those of China, thereby limiting its power projection throughout the region.

It is the 12 Pacific nations where USAID seeks to expand operations that have been invited to the White House in late September. The withholding of invitations to the remaining members of the Pacific Islands Forum – the Cook Islands, Niue, French Polynesia and New Caledonia – has been duly noted.

It is a puzzling move, but one that indicates the agenda for the summit: for Biden’s administration to specifically develop its US programmes. The recent revelation that the five foreign ministers heading the Partners in the Blue Pacific Initiative (US, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Britain) will meet before the summit also suggests multilateral proposals will be tabled too.

Given how little the region has been seen and heard in Washington, the summit offers a rare opportunity for the administration to listen to what Pacific leaders have to say and reshape their approach accordingly.

Patricia A. O’Brien received funding from the Australian Research Council as a Future Fellow, the Jay I. Kislak Fellowship at the John W. Kluge Center, Library of Congress, Washington D.C. and New Zealand’s JD Stout Trust.

– ref. US takes a renewed interest in the Pacific – and China’s role in it – https://theconversation.com/us-takes-a-renewed-interest-in-the-pacific-and-chinas-role-in-it-190053

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ralph Cooney, Professor Emeritus in Advanced Materials, University of Auckland

More than half of the thousands of satellites in orbit are now defunct, and this accumulation of floating space debris has been described as a “fatal problem” for current and future space missions and human space travel.

An estimated 130 million objects smaller than 1cm and 34,000 larger than 10cm are travelling in orbit at speeds of thousands of kilometres per hour, according to the European Space Agency (ESA). A report presented at this year’s European conference on space debris suggests the amount of space junk could increase fifty-fold by 2100.

While many fragments of space junk are small, they travel so fast their impact has enough energy to disable a satellite or cause significant damage to space stations.

Both the Hubble Telescope and the Solar Maximum Mission (SMM) satellites had coin-sized holes punched into them by flying debris and a mirror on Nasa’s James Webb space telescope was damaged by micrometeoroids.

Most satellites were not designed with the end of their usefulness in mind. About 60% of the 6,000 satellites in orbit are now out of order. Along with the smaller objects these defunct satellites constitute a major problem both for existing and future satellites and space stations.

Mega constellations of satellites currently being sent into space by corporations such as SpaceX and Amazon are expected to transform access to the internet for all countries. But these private telecommunications ventures will also contribute 50,000 more satellites to already dangerously populated orbits.

Scientists have warned the rapid development of mega constellations risks several “tragedies of the commons”, including to ground-based astronomy, Earth’s orbit and Earth’s upper atmosphere.

Read more:
Soon, 1 out of every 15 points of light in the sky will be a satellite

Methods to remove space debris

There is a growing concern, described as the Kessler Syndrome, that we may be creating an envelope of space debris which could prevent human space travel, space exploration and the use of satellites in some parts of Earth’s orbit. This scenario, perpetuated by collisions between space objects creating ever more debris, could also damage our global communications and navigation systems.

This is why the development of practical debris removal technologies is important and urgent. So far, various strategies have been conceptualised to solve the space debris problem and some have been recently prioritised.

To date, not a single orbiting object has been recovered from space successfully.

One of the main problems in designing space debris removal strategies is how to transfer the energy between the debris (target) and the chaser during the first contact. There are two prioritised approaches and a third in development:

• Impact energy dissipation methods seek to decrease the impact energy of the debris. In one approach, the chaser satellite deploys a harpoon to penetrate the space debris. After the successful shot, the chaser satellite, harpoon and target would become connected by an elastic tether and the chaser would pull the debris to re-enter the atmosphere and burn up together.

• Neutral energy balance includes a magnetic capture method which uses magnetic coils to achieve perfect energy balance between chaser and target. This is a soft docking method which is a preliminary step to some subsequent method of debris disposal.

• Destructive energy absorption aims to destroy small debris targets using a high-powered laser. But the challenge is to develop a laser and battery combination that is powerful but lightweight enough. A laboratory in China has been developing a space-based laser system to be installed on a chaser satellite capable of targeting debris of up to 20cm in size. The Nasa Orion project uses ground-based lasers to destroy small debris.

Read more:
A chunk of Chinese satellite almost hit the International Space Station. They dodged it – but the space junk problem is getting worse

The first space removal project is scheduled for 2025 and will be led by the ESA. It involves a consortium approach based on a Swiss spinoff company, ClearSpace.

The ClearSpace chaser will rendezvous with the target and capture it using four robotic arms. The chaser and captured launcher will then be de-orbited and burn up in the atmosphere.

High cost and more pollution

A key challenge is the substantial cost associated with these proposed solutions, given the immense scale of the space debris problem. Another important aspect is the potential impact of space-clearing efforts on our planet’s atmosphere.

The idea that a growing number of satellites and other objects would be incinerated in the atmosphere as they are removed from space concerns climate scientists. Space debris is pulled downward naturally and burns up in the lower atmosphere, but increasing levels of carbon dioxide are reducing the density of the upper atmosphere, which could diminish its capacity to pull debris back towards Earth.

The combustion of more and more satellites and other space debris (80 tonnes per year at present) falling either naturally or via the new removal methods will also release decomposition products into the atmosphere.

These will certainly contribute more carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The decomposition of certain materials in satellites is also likely to release chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases, which could damage the ozone shield.

One cannot miss the parallels between the space junk problem and waste recycling. Clearly, we need to devise a circular economy strategy for our space waste.

At present the legal responsibility for space debris lies with the country of origin. This seems to militate against future international cooperative programmes of space junk removal.

Ralph Cooney does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Harpoons, robots and lasers: how to capture defunct satellites and other space junk and bring it back to Earth – https://theconversation.com/harpoons-robots-and-lasers-how-to-capture-defunct-satellites-and-other-space-junk-and-bring-it-back-to-earth-189698

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Tomkins, Geologist, Monash University

A “folded diamond” doesn’t sound entirely plausible. But that’s exactly what we’ve found inside a rare group of meteorites known as ureilites, which likely came from the mantle of a dwarf planet or very large asteroid that was destroyed 4.56 billion years ago in a giant collision.

Within these space rocks, we found layered diamonds with distinctive fold patterns. Our discovery is published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Now of course, everyone knows diamond is the hardest naturally occurring material, so the obvious question was – how on Earth (or in space!) could a folded diamond possibly form?!

This was exactly the sort of curiosity-piquing observation that sends scientists diving down rabbit holes for months on end.

A new analysis technique

Carbon, one of the most abundant elements in the universe, can form all kinds of structures. Among the more familiar ones are graphite and, of course, diamond. But there’s also an unusual hexagonal form of diamond known as lonsdaleite, which has been suggested to be even harder than standard cubic diamonds.

Our team includes a bunch of people who drive development of advanced analysis techniques. At CSIRO, Nick Wilson, Colin MacRae and Aaron Torpy developed a new approach in electron microscopy to map the distribution of diamond, graphite and lonsdaleite in the meteorites.

When our mapping suggested the folded diamond might actually be lonsdaleite, we – Dougal McCulloch, Alan Salek and Matthew Field at RMIT – performed a more detailed investigation via a method called high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (TEM).

The results were exciting: we had found some of the largest lonsdaleite crystallites (microscopic crystals) ever discovered, about 1 micrometre across. So, those intriguing fold shapes were composed of polycrystalline lonsdaleite, meaning they were made from numerous tiny crystals.

Reconstructing the cataclysm

And there was even more. We found the lonsdaleite had been partially converted to diamond and graphite, giving us clues to the sequence of events that had happened in the meteorites. Follow-up work at the Australian Synchrotron by Helen Brand confirmed this result.

By comparing the diamond, graphite and lonsdaleite across 18 different ureilite meteorites, we started to form a picture of what probably happened to produce the folded structures we found. At the first stage, graphite crystals folded deep inside the mantle of the asteroid thanks to high temperatures causing the other surrounding minerals to grow, pushing aside the graphite crystals. (You can see this in the schematic below.)

The second stage happened in the aftermath of the gigantic collision that catastrophically disrupted the ureilite parent asteroid. Evidence in the meteorites suggested the disruption event produced a rich mix of fluids and gases as it progressed.

This mix then caused lonsdaleite to form by replacement of the folded graphite crystals, almost perfectly preserving the intricate textures of the graphite. Of course, it’s not actually possible to fold lonsdaleite or diamond – it formed by replacement of pre-existing shapes.

We think this was driven by the hot fluid mix as pressure and temperature dropped immediately after the cataclysm. Then, shortly after, diamond and graphite partially replaced the lonsdaleite as the fluid further decompressed and cooled to form a gas mixture.

Read more:
How rare minerals form when meteorites slam into Earth

Manufacturing clues from nature

The process is quite similar to a process used to manufacture diamonds known as chemical vapour deposition. These manufactured diamonds are widely used in industry today, particularly for cutting and grinding because diamond is so hard. The difference is that we think the lonsdaleite replaced the shaped graphite at moderately higher pressures than those normally used to grow diamonds, from a supercritical fluid rather than a gas.

So, nature appears to have given us clues on how to make shaped ultra-hard micro machine parts! If we can find a way to replicate the process preserved in the meteorites, we can make these machine parts by replacement of pre-shaped graphite with lonsdaleite.

Being able to study these weird folded diamonds was possible because lead author Andrew Tomkins had time to follow his nose – we call this type of research “curiosity-driven science”. However, although curiosity-driven science produces important breakthroughs, it isn’t normally funded by major funding agencies. They like to see well thought-out details for grand projects that already have a solid foundation of prior research.

We think a good way to boost Australia’s innovation would be to provide recognised science innovators a small grant annually to spend on research as they see fit; no questions asked, no justification or follow-up required.

For curiosity-driven research like our project, scientists need a small amount of time (and money) that can be spent with complete freedom; this produces the creativity that drives innovation. You never know what else we might find out there.

Read more:
We created diamonds in mere minutes, without heat — by mimicking the force of an asteroid collision

Andrew Tomkins receives funding from the Australia Research Council.

Alan Salek receives a RSS Scholarship.

Dougal McCulloch receives funding from Australian Research Council.

– ref. Folded diamond has been discovered in a rare type of meteorite. How is this possible? – https://theconversation.com/folded-diamond-has-been-discovered-in-a-rare-type-of-meteorite-how-is-this-possible-190134

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Sussex, Fellow, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University

Vladmir Putin has a new problem. His invasion of Ukraine is not just bogged down. It’s going rapidly backwards.

Ukraine’s armed forces have launched two stunningly successful counteroffensives around Kharkov in the nation’s east, and in the south near the Russian-occupied city of Kherson. Kyiv is now claiming to have recaptured some 2,000 square kilometres of its territory, with the potential to cut off and trap a sizeable portion of the Russian invasion force.

By the Kremlin’s own standards, this is hardly winning. Realising Russia’s war aims – including regime change and the establishment of a “Crimean corridor” that denies Ukraine access to the Black Sea – would require nothing short of a dramatic reversal of its fortunes.

Putin now essentially has three options.

First, he can seek a political solution, hoping to hold onto the territory Kremlin proxies captured in the eight years prior to his 2022 invasion. That’s an unattractive choice, especially since a bullish Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is hardly in the mood to negotiate favourable terms for Moscow. Internationally, it would be a humiliating blow to Russian prestige: a smaller state defeating a top-tier nuclear power in a major land war.

Domestically, and more worrying for Putin, it would sharply call his leadership into question. Mounting signs of domestic discontent now even include St Petersburg regional deputies publicly calling for Putin to be tried for treason, another group from Moscow calling for him to step down, and even state media questioning the conflict.

Option two for Putin is to try to reimpose a long and grinding campaign. But even if his forces can blunt the Ukrainian advance, Russia can achieve only a stalemate if the war returns to static artillery duels. That would buy time. It would wear down Ukrainian forces and allow him to test whether using energy as a weapon fragments the European Union’s resolve over the winter.

However, at Russia’s current rate of losses its conventional forces will be exhausted beyond about 12 months. Both NATO and Ukraine would be well aware of that.

Putin’s third option is to escalate: to send a message to both the West and Ukraine that he means business. Given the dubious nature of his other choices, that may be increasingly likely. But where? And, of equal importance, how?

Invade Moldova

Numerous experts have claimed Moscow might seek to annexe Moldova’s breakaway region of Transdniestria, plus further chunks of Moldovan territory. And in early September, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov warned of armed conflict if Moldova threatened the 2,000 Russian troops guarding Transdniestria’s large ammunition dump at Cobasna.

An actual invasion would be difficult, because it would require Russian control over the Ukrainian city of Odesa for land access. But an airborne reinforcement of its Transdniestrian garrison might be tempting, or launching a hybrid warfare campaign to justify doing so.

In April 2022, there were several “terrorist incidents”, including the bombing of Transdniestria’s Ministry of State Security, as potential pretexts for such a move.

That said, invading would arguably be counterproductive, not least because it may prompt Moldova’s close partner Romania – a member of NATO – to become involved.

Send a ‘stabilisation force’ to Kazakhstan

Although unlikely, a Russian incursion into Northern Kazakhstan to “protect ethnic Russians” was commonly nominated by Russia-watchers playing grim games of “where does Putin invade next?”. Or, at least, they did before Ukraine.

Russian forces under the banner of the “Collective Security Treaty Organization” (CSTO), comprising some of the former Soviet states, actually intervened as recently as January 2022 at the request of Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

However, that was soon exposed as a ploy to help Tokayev defeat his enemies. Since then, he has drifted towards neutrality on the war in Ukraine.

A new Russian intervention would certainly reinforce to restive Central Asian states that the Kremlin sees the region as its privileged sphere of influence. Indeed, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev recently hinted that northern Kazakhstan was next on Russia’s invasion list. Yet, with many of its forces already tied up in Ukraine, it’s questionable whether doing so would really be worth the effort.

Full mobilisation

The significant losses suffered by Russian forces might be covered by putting the nation on a war footing. A general mobilisation would direct the economy towards military production, and provide an unending stream of personnel.

Putin has avoided this so far, choosing a shadow approach instead, which has called up an extra 137,000 Russians.

It does remain a live option, although it would mean admitting the conflict is a war (not a “Special Military Operation”), which would be domestically unpopular and result in untrained and ill-equipped conscripts flooding the front line.

Draw NATO in

Apart from the Moldovan scenario, Putin might elect to stage a “provocation” against a NATO state like Estonia. That would be a risky gambit indeed: given what we have seen of the performance of Russia’s conventional forces, even a limited war with NATO would hasten Russia’s defeat, and thus far Putin has assiduously avoided such provocations, apart from bluster and rhetoric.

Perversely, that might allow Putin to salvage some domestic pride by claiming he lost to NATO rather than Ukraine.

Yet his propaganda machine has already been falsely claiming NATO is directly involved in the fight against Russian forces.

And if Putin isn’t prepared to initiate a peace process, then really only one escalation pathway remains.

Read more:
Russia is fighting three undeclared wars. Its fourth – an internal struggle for Russia itself – might be looming

Arrange a radiological ‘accident’

The Kremlin has obliquely hinted at this for a while.

Russian forces have controlled the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant near the city of Kherson since March, turning it into a military base. Rocket and artillery fire is actually not a huge concern, since the plant is heavily hardened.

But if the plant loses connection to the Ukrainian grid – which has already happened several times – the reactors are only controlled by their own power generation, with no fail safe.

Arranging a false flag “accident” blamed on Ukraine is certainly possible, raising the nightmare prospect of a new Chernobyl.

Use tactical nuclear weapons

Look, it’s unlikely. But it can’t be ruled out.

Realistically, using tactical nuclear weapons would be of dubious military value. There would be no guarantee NATO would back down, or that Ukraine would capitulate. It would be very difficult for Russia’s few remaining partners to continue supporting Putin, either tacitly (like China) or indirectly (like India).

Indeed, while much has been made of Russia’s supposed “escalate to de-escalate” doctrine, involving using nuclear weapons to force others to blink, there’s plenty of evidence it’s a myth designed to increase fear of nuclear war among Moscow’s adversaries.

In summary, Putin’s choices remain poor, both domestically and internationally. He may soon feel forced to pick between those that are unpalatable, and those that are risky.

Unfortunately, identifying what he will choose is guesswork: we simply don’t know enough about how Putin’s mind works, or how he prioritises information to make decisions.

But perhaps there’s one hint. Throughout his tenure, Putin has consistently invited NATO and its allies to blink. At this crucial time, the West owes it to Ukraine, and for the sake of its own credibility, to ensure it does not give the Russian president what he wants.

Matthew Sussex has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Lowy Institute, the Carnegie Foundation, and various Australian government agencies.

– ref. With his army on the back foot, is escalation over Ukraine Vladimir Putin’s only real option? – https://theconversation.com/with-his-army-on-the-back-foot-is-escalation-over-ukraine-vladimir-putins-only-real-option-190046

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Dearnaley, Associate Professor, University of Southern Queensland

Hay fever is a downside of springtime around the world. As temperatures increase, plant growth resumes and flowers start appearing.

But while native flowering plants such as wattle often get the blame when the seasonal sneezes strike, hay fever in Australia is typically caused by introduced plant species often pollinated by the wind.

A closer look at pollen

Pollen grains are the tiny reproductive structures that move genetic material between flower parts, individual flowers on the same plant or a nearby member of the same species. They are typically lightweight structures easily carried on wind currents or are sticky and picked up in clumps on the feathers of a honeyeater or the fur of a fruit bat or possum.

Hay fever is when the human immune system overreacts to allergens in the air. It is not only caused by pollen grains but fungal spores, non-flowering plant spores, mites and even pet hair.

The classic symptoms of hay fever are sneezing, runny noses, red, itchy, and watery eyes, swelling around the eyes and scratchy ears and throat.

The problem with pollen grains is when they land on the skin around our eyes, in our nose and mouth, the proteins found in the wall of these tiny structures leak out and are recognised as foreign by the body and trigger a reaction from the immune system.

Read more:
Do I have COVID or hay fever? Here’s how to tell

So what plants are the worst culprits for causing hay fever?

Grasses, trees, and herbaceous weeds such as plantain are the main problem species as their pollen is usually scattered by wind. In Australia, the main grass offenders are exotic species including rye grass and couch grass (a commonly used lawn species).

Weed species that cause hay fever problems include introduced ragweed, Paterson’s curse, parthenium weed and plantain. The problematic tree species are also exotic in origin and include liquid amber, Chinese elm, maple, cypress, ash, birch, poplar, and plane trees.

Although there are some native plants that have wind-spread pollen such as she-oaks and white cypress pine, and which can induce hay fever, these species are exceptional in the Australian flora. Many Australian plants are not wind pollinated and use animals to move their clumped pollen around.

For example, yellow-coloured flowers such as wattles and peas are pollinated by insect such as bees. Red- and orange-coloured flowers are usually visited by birds such as honeyeaters. Large, dull-coloured flowers with copious nectar (the reward for pollination) are visited by nocturnal mammals including bats and possums. Obviously Australian plant pollen can still potentially cause the immune system to overreact, but these structures are less likely to reach the mucous membranes of humans.

Read more:
Got allergies? You could be at lower risk of catching COVID

What can we do to prevent hay fever attacks at this time of the year?

With all of this in mind, here are some strategies to prevent the affects of hay fever:

1. stay inside and keep the house closed up on warm, windy days when more pollen is in the air
2. if you must go outside, wear sunglasses and a face mask
3. when you return indoors gently rinse (and don’t rub) your eyes with running water, change your clothes and shower to remove pollen grains from hair and skin
4. try to avoid mowing the lawn in spring particularly when grasses are in flower (the multi-pronged spiked flowers of couch grass are distinctive)
5. when working in the garden, wear gloves and facial coverings particularly when handling flowers
6. consider converting your garden to a native one. Grevilleas are a great alternative to rose bushes. Coastal rosemary are a fabulous native replacement for lavender. Why not replace your liquid amber tree with a fast growing, evergreen and low-allergenic lilly pilly tree?

If you do suffer a hay fever attack

Sometimes even with our best efforts, or if it’s not always possible to stay at home, hay fever can still creep up on us. If this happens:

• antihistamines will reduce sneezing and itching symptoms
• corticosteroid nasal sprays are very effective at reducing inflammation and clearing blocked noses
• decongestants provide quick and temporary relief by drying runny noses but should not be used by those with high blood pressure
• salt water is a good way to remove excessive mucous from the nasal passages.

Behavioural changes on warm, windy spring days are a good way of avoiding a hay fever attack.

An awareness of the plants around us and their basic reproductive biology is also useful in preventing our immune systems from overreacting to pollen proteins that they are not used to encountering.

John Dearnaley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Sneezing with hay fever? Native plants aren’t usually the culprit – https://theconversation.com/sneezing-with-hay-fever-native-plants-arent-usually-the-culprit-190336

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wesley Morgan, Research Fellow, Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University

Australia last week moved to tackle the climate crisis when federal parliament passed Labor’s climate bill. But the new law is just the first step. Over the next eight years to 2030, we must get on a steep trajectory of emissions reductions.

The law set a national target to cut emissions by 43% this decade, based on 2005 levels. While this brings Australia closer to the international consensus, we should be aiming to go much further, much faster.

When Prime Minister Anthony Albanese informed the United Nations of Australia’s new target, he wrote of his government’s aspiration for “even greater emission reductions in the coming decade”. But how will Australia go beyond a 43% cut to emissions? And what policies should the government implement and fund first?

A roadmap released today by the Climate Council charts the way forward. It sets out key goals Australia should be chasing this decade, and ten climate policy “game-changers” to help get us there.

100% renewables by 2030

Australia’s energy grid is responsible for 33% of our national emissions. Today, 59% of our electricity comes from coal-fired power plants.

Renewables are not just a clean form of energy – they are also the cheapest form of new energy. Our analysis suggests Australia should aim to achieve 100% renewables by 2030.

We must also increase overall power generation by around 40% this decade to make steep inroads into electrifying other sectors of the economy.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Enable transmission infrastructure: the federal government has promised A$20 billion for transmission infrastructure. This is crucial. To connect renewables to the grid, we need new transmission lines, and lots of them. The total length of transmission will need to be about 24 times what it is now.

2. Boost storage: to support grid security, we’ll need lots of electricity storage – think grid-scale batteries and pumped-hydro. To encourage greater investment the federal government should set a mandatory Renewable Energy Storage target, with specific goals for additional storage each year to 2030.

3. Upskill Australians: a new energy system will need skilled workers. The federal government must help workers upskill for clean trades through new investment in TAFE courses and electrical apprenticeships.

4. Establish a National Energy Transition Authority: this new organisation should set closure dates and develop transition plans for all coal-fired power stations by 2024, and support communities through the process.

Read more:
Labor’s 2030 climate target betters the Morrison government, but Australia must go much further, much faster

Clean up transport

Australia’s transport sector is responsible for 19% of national greenhouse gas emissions. By the end of this decade, transport emissions should be halved. Almost all new cars in Australia will need to be zero-emissions vehicles, and we’ll need major improvements in public and active transport infrastructure and use.

How do we get there?

5. Fuel efficiency: the federal government should implement mandatory fuel efficiency standards. Already common across the developed world, these standards encourage auto companies to supply more low and zero-emissions vehicles to the market.

The standards can be made more stringent over time, ensuring an orderly shift to zero-emissions vehicles. Without them, Australia risks becoming a dumping ground for polluting older-model cars – while the rest of the world charges ahead.

6. Ditch dirty diesel: Governments – both state and federal – need to invest in cleaner and more convenient public transport. A key first step is replacing diesel buses with a renewable electric fleet.

Read more:
Australia is failing on electric vehicles. California shows it’s possible to pick up the pace

Net-zero buildings

Some 20% of Australia’s emissions are created by the building sector. (It should be noted, this figure includes electricity consumed in buildings, which is also counted as emissions from the energy sector). To reach our climate goals we’ll need to change the way our homes, businesses and other buildings are constructed and run.

This should be done by:

7. Tightening building rules: The National Construction Code must be tightened so all new homes are net-zero emissions – through energy efficient design, rooftop solar and all-electric appliances.

By 2025 gas connections should be banned for new homes, and new gas appliances should be banned for established homes. This would ensure the move to cheaper and cleaner forms of heating and cooking.

Households will also need government support to refit their homes with electric appliances, through incentive programs and concessional finance. As Australians switch energy-efficient renewables-powered homes, they’ll save on bills.

Read more:
Will 7-star housing really cost more? It depends, but you can keep costs down in a few simple ways

Overhaul industry

Australia’s industrial sector creates 34% of our national emissions – and that’s excluding electricity use. These emissions must be halved, by increasing energy efficiency, electrifying processes where possible, switching fuels and phasing out fossil fuel extraction.

At the same time, we must seize new economic opportunities for industry in a future low-carbon world.

Reaching this goal will require:

8. Proper rules for big polluters: The federal government must reform what’s known as the “safeguard mechanism” to ensure big polluters do their fair share to cut emissions. This includes government incentives to drive the steepest emissions reduction possible.

Redirect public spending

Public spending must be aligned with the net-zero goal. That means:

9. No more handouts: federal and state governments spent an estimated $11.6 billion on subsidies for the fossil fuel industry last financial year, up $1.3 billion on the previous year. These handouts, such as fuel tax credits, must stop.

10. Create a climate and energy investment plan: the federal government should introduce climate budget statements outlining how taxpayer investment is aligned with the goal of rapidly reducing emissions.

Time to get started

Australia has already warmed by around 1.4℃ since pre-industrial times. We’re suffering significant losses from accelerating climate change, and worse is on the way.

The passing of the climate bill into law has set the floor for action. Now, we must immediately build our cleaner future – because waiting until the 2030s will be much too late.

Read more:
We pay billions to subsidise Australia’s fossil fuel industry. This makes absolutely no economic sense

Wesley Morgan is a Senior Researcher with the Climate Council

– ref. Now, we begin: 10 simple ways to make Australia’s climate game truly next-level – https://theconversation.com/now-we-begin-10-simple-ways-to-make-australias-climate-game-truly-next-level-190427