Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alex Russell, Senior Postdoctoral Fellow, CQUniversity Australia

The Melbourne Cup is supposed to be the “race that stops a nation”.

But among increasing community concern about gambling and animal welfare, does it stop us for the right reasons? As Cup Day dawns at Flemington, how is our relationship to the Cup changing?

Gambling in Australia

Gambling is a significant part of Australian culture. Helped by the fact we have pokies in clubs and pubs, we lose more money on gambling than any other nation. Per capita, our gambling losses are more than double those in the United States.

But research shows gambling participation is dropping. A recently released study, led by Nerilee Hing at CQUniversity, and funded by Gambling Research Australia, was the first national gambling prevalence study since 2010-11. It included a telephone survey of 15,000 Australian adults in 2019, giving an insight into the nature and extent of gambling in Australia.

According to this report, 56.9% of those surveyed had gambled in the previous 12 months, compared with 64.3% the decade before. Participation on every gambling form has declined, apart from forms that were not available ten years ago, such as betting on e-sports and gambling within video games. Race betting has dropped from 22.4% to 16.8%.

What do people think of gambling?

Despite this decline, total race betting turnover continues to climb, up by about A$4 billion in today’s dollars from A$22.9 billion in 2010-11 to A$26.9 billion in 2018-19.

This may be in part due to the rise in online gambling, which has doubled over the past decade. Race betting is certainly more accessible than ever, with a lot of promotions ready to entice you to place a bet, or bet more than you intended.

For many, however, a bet on the Melbourne Cup will be the only race bet they place each year. The decline in race betting prevalence, despite an increase in turnover, suggests it is these less-engaged punters who are not betting anymore.

There certainly appears to be a growing concern about gambling in the community. A 2019 state government gambling survey of more than 10,000 adults in New South Wales included a question about whether gambling has done more harm than good for the community. Of those surveyed, 46% strongly agreed gambling has done more harm than good, and a further 32% agreed. Only 8% disagreed or strongly disagreed.

Animal welfare

In 2020, the horse Anthony Van Dyck became the sixth horse to die in the Melbourne Cup, and the seventh to die in a race on Cup day, since 2013.

These deaths have been met with mounting concern about the racing industry. A 2019 report examining stewards’ documents from August 2018 to July 2019 found 122 horses died on race tracks in Australia. In 2019, the ABC’s 7.30 program aired an expose on cruelty, with former racehorses being sent to slaughterhouses, despite animal welfare guarantees.

Earlier this year, Racing Victoria announced it was implementing new measures to reduce risk to horses. Many of these appear to revolve around the Melbourne Cup in particular, especially international horses, given deaths in recent years have all been foreign runners. But for horses in the thousands of other races across Australia, the risks remain as real as ever.

Changing attitudes

The increasing visibility of the impact on animals has soured the Cup. A 2019 analysis of Melbourne Cup tweets found that #nuptothecup was the third most popular hashtag associated with #melbournecup. The hashtags #horseracingkills and #animalcruelty also appeared in the top ten.

The hashtag #youbettheydie was also associated with #nuptothecup. These findings suggest the animal welfare issue is a strong driver of anti-Cup sentiment.

Increasing public awareness of how the Cup (like other major sporting events) is accompanied by a spike in domestic violence has also tarnished the “feelgood” atmosphere.

Beyond the Cup, public opinion around horse racing is not reliably supportive. In 2018, the barrier draw for another prestige race, The Everest, was projected onto the Opera House sails. This was met with significant public outcry, despite the sails previously being used for projections about sport, including the Wallabies and the Ashes, and even for Samsung mobile phones. Protesters cited concerns about animal welfare and gambling.

What next?

This is not to suggest the race is going anywhere.

For many, the Melbourne Cup isn’t really about gambling, or even horses. It’s a reason to dress up and have a few (or more) drinks with friends. Or enjoy a sweep and some nibbles in the office. It’s also a welcome public holiday for Victorians.

But there is also a growing realisation this party day has real costs to others.

Read more:
Whether teams win or lose, sporting events lead to spikes in violence against women and children

In the last 5 years, Alex Russell has received funding from Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation; New South Wales Office of Responsible Gambling; South Australian Government; Gambling Research Australia; New Zealand Ministry of Health; Australian Communications and Media Authority and the Alberta Gambling Research Institute. Travel expenses have been paid by the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation, PsychMed and the Hawthorn Hawks Football Club Players Association, for research presentations. He has received an honorarium from Movember for assessing applications for funding. He is a member of the International Gambling Think Tank.

– ref. Is the Melbourne Cup still the race that stops the nation – or are we saying #nuptothecup? – https://theconversation.com/is-the-melbourne-cup-still-the-race-that-stops-the-nation-or-are-we-saying-nuptothecup-170801

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Kirchhoffer, Director, Queensland Bioethics Centre, Australian Catholic University

Unvaccinated Victorians have a grace period of about three weeks to go on a shopping spree before they’re no longer permitted to enter non-essential retail from November 24, according to the state’s roadmap out of restrictions.

The roadmap says all retail is now open to everyone after Victoria hit the 80% double-dose milestone last week. However, when it hits the 90% milestone, those who aren’t yet vaccinated won’t be allowed into non-essential retail, and stores will be responsible for policing this.

Premier Daniel Andrews warned unvaccinated Victorians could continue to be locked out “for the entirety of 2022”. By contrast, New South Wales is set to allow non-essential retail for unvaccinated people from December 1.

Ethically, the situation in Victoria is a problem, especially when the state’s vaccination rates are so high.

Vaccination clearly the right thing to do

There’s little doubt vaccination against COVID is a proportionate and morally good thing to do. The most important reason for this is the vaccines have proven effective in reducing severe illness and death.

This has two consequences. First, if you’re vaccinated, even if you do contract the virus, you’re at much lower risk of severe disease and hospitalisation.

Second, if you only have a mild infection, you don’t end up needing costly, intensive and potentially long-term treatment. This alleviates the burden on the health system, making more resources available for people with other serious conditions.

Read more:
How well do COVID vaccines work in the real world?

Excluding unvaccinated people not justified

Despite the clear reasons for why one ought to get vaccinated, it’s conceivable a person has other objections to vaccination (apart from medical reasons that would make vaccination a bad idea for them).

So, the question arises about what kinds of force, especially by states, are morally acceptable. When do the limitations on a person’s freedom of movement or association go too far, morally speaking?

Read more:
Lockdown returns: how far can coronavirus measures go before they infringe on human rights?

The answer can be a movable feast because it depends on what we know about the virus and vaccines as much as on ethical reasoning.

In the current circumstances, however, it would seem excluding unvaccinated people from non-essential retail is not morally justifiable.

First, there’s the obvious contradiction in allowing unvaccinated people to access retail at 80% vaccination rate and not at 90%. Then one needs to consider the actual risk to vaccinated people and to the health system that allowing unvaccinated people access to non-essential retail would entail.

While vaccines reduce the risk of infection and more importantly the risk of severe illness, Delta transmission can still occur even among a vaccinated population.

UK research, published recently in medical journal The Lancet Infection Diseases, found vaccinated people who caught Delta were similarly likely to transmit to their household members as unvaccinated people. Each infected about a quarter of their household.

A recent Dutch pre-print, which is yet to be independently verified, found 12-13% of household members of a fully vaccinated person, who tested positive for COVID during a time of Delta dominance, also tested positive for the virus regardless of whether the contacts were vaccinated or not. This is about half of what the UK study reported, which is a discrepancy that arises from differing methodologies.

The point, however, is clear. In a shop where everyone is vaccinated, if one of those vaccinated people has the virus, these two studies suggest they’re just as likely to infect vaccinated people as they are to infect unvaccinated people.

The Dutch study also showed only 11% of vaccinated household contacts were infected from an unvaccinated index case. This means vaccinated people in a retail space don’t seem to be more at risk of contracting the virus from unvaccinated customers if they themselves are fully vaccinated.

It’s worth noting, though, these studies measured spread of the virus within households, and it’s not entirely clear how this would play out in retail spaces. One would expect, however, that because households tend to include longer and closer exposure, the rates of transmission would be lower still in retail spaces.

Read more:
How contagious is Delta? How long are you infectious? Is it more deadly? A quick guide to the latest science

Nevertheless, these studies suggest that the risk of contracting the virus is primarily borne by the unvaccinated person. According to the Dutch study, the unvaccinated person is twice as likely as a vaccinated person to contract the disease from another unvaccinated person, than from a vaccinated person. And, as has been well-established, unvaccinated people are at higher risk of severe disease or death.

In other words, vaccinated people in a restaurant or shop don’t seem to have anything more to fear from an unvaccinated person than a vaccinated person.

The unvaccinated person, by contrast, should be wary of contact with anyone.

It’s unvaccinated people who carry the risk

What becomes relevant from an ethical point of view in the situation Victoria finds itself in is an estimate of what the likely burden will be on the health-care system of very sick, unvaccinated people.

And, whether that outweighs the real challenges to individual choice and risks of social division and stigma, as well as the moral and emotional burden on often low-paid and young workers in retail and hospitality who would have to police people’s vaccination status.

Read more:
Soon you’ll need to be vaccinated to enjoy shops, cafes and events — but what about the staff there?

It would be interesting if someone were able to conduct a prospective study to see whether there’s a significant increase in severe disease amongst unvaccinated people in the next three weeks since the 80% target was hit and retail is open to all.

With high vaccination rates the emphasis should still be on communicating the benefits of vaccination, both for the individual and for others. This continues to appropriately respect individual autonomy. It’s morally acceptable to require vaccination in high-risk settings, such as for health and aged-care workers.

However, blocking access to retail or restaurants for unvaccinated people goes too far given the risk primarily carried in the current situation seems to be their own. If vaccination rates were very low, or the disease more deadly, such measures could be necessary. But this seems unnecessary at a rate of 90% vaccination expected soon in Victoria.

That said, those who choose not to get vaccinated still have a moral obligation to take other precautions against contracting or transmitting the virus, such as wearing masks, social distancing, checking in, staying home if they’re unwell, and getting tested.

To not do so would be to act in a morally irresponsible way.

The Queensland Bioethics Centre receives funding from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane, the Roman Catholic Bishops of Queensland, and several Catholic health and aged care agencies. The views in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the views of any of these agencies.

– ref. Some unvaccinated Australians won’t be able to browse in the shops until 2023. That’s a worry – https://theconversation.com/some-unvaccinated-australians-wont-be-able-to-browse-in-the-shops-until-2023-thats-a-worry-170800

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee White, Research Fellow, Australian National University

The crucial climate change summit in Glasgow has just begun, and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is bringing his widely criticised plan for net-zero emissions by 2050 to the negotiating table.

Released last week, the plan promises to deliver deep cuts to Australia’s greenhouse-gas emissions by relying on new technology, while eschewing taxes and mandates. As the Grattan Institute warned this week, this will fail unless the government rolls out other market-based policies too, including better plans to use already existing low-emissions technology for vehicles and energy.

The priority technologies identified in the plan include clean hydrogen, ultra low-cost solar, energy storage, low-emissions steel and aluminium, and carbon capture and storage.

But the plan is scant on detail and long-term thinking. It provides support for technology only in the early stages of research and development, not sustained support throughout the commercialisation process.

Many of these technologies are heavily tied to progress on renewable electricity generation, with the plan relying on 91-97% emissions reduction occurring in the electricity grid by 2050.

Australia needs to massively scale up renewable electricity generation to reach net zero, but the renewables sector is handicapped by competing in a system originally designed for fossil fuels.

In 2020, only 24% of Australia’s electricity came from renewable sources, despite Australia’s massive potential as a global leader in the sector thanks to our abundance of sunshine, wind and space.

Here are four ways the current electricity system favours existing, higher-emitting technologies. These must be overcome to rapidly cut Australia’s emissions and help the world avert catastrophic impacts of climate change.

1. Framing renewables as a ‘problem’

Fossil-fuel energy is entrenched in Australia, and resists efforts to shift. Meanwhile, renewables are often framed as a problem that needs controlling, with the Australian Energy Market Operator identifying renewable generation and rooftop solar as challenges to the stability of the electricity grid.

Even the government’s net-zero plan emphasises the need for coal and gas for grid stability, despite including goals to boost emissions-free storage technologies, such as batteries and pumped hydro, that could likewise support this stability.

Read more:
Scott Morrison attends pivotal global climate talks today, bringing a weak plan that leaves Australia exposed

This is an example of the entrenched system at work – a transition to renewable energy will require the grid to be reimagined. This is technologically feasible, and should be viewed as an opportunity rather than a problem.

Indeed, the existing electricity grid is rife with problems that aren’t fully acknowledged in the strategy. For example, coal and gas can pollute for free, with consequences falling on society at large rather than on those paid for coal-fired electricity.

2. Securing long-term investors

Renewable generation is expensive to install upfront, but has no fuel costs and so is extremely cheap to run, once built. For investors in renewable generation, being able to plan for long-range sales over the course of the generating plant’s life is crucial.

In a 2020 study, a researcher from Switzerland interviewed 40 renewable energy investors in the UK, Germany, and Spain. They indicated investment was riskier when they relied on variable spot market prices rather than on fixed prices agreed on at the time of construction.

Read more:
Baffled by baseload? Dumbfounded by dispatchables?
Here’s a glossary of the energy debate

In Australia, spot market energy prices are extremely volatile and change every 30 minutes. Prices can go as high as A$14,500 per megawatt hour and, when there’s an oversupply of electricity, can go as low as A$1,000 below zero per megawatt hour.

But the net-zero plan includes no mechanisms for providing stability to renewables investors regarding return on investment. However, there are many examples of this type of mechanism worldwide, even locally in Australia.

The Australian Capital Territory, for instance, has a “reverse-auction renewable feed-in tariff”. This promises a fixed price per unit of electricity for 20 years, produced by contracted renewable energy investors (around A$80 per megawatt hour for recent wind investments).

3. No real plan for energy storage

Solar and wind are “non-dispatchable” technologies, meaning they can’t be turned on when needed. This is an issue because the electricity grid relies on a real-time balance of electricity supply and demand, and has very little storage capacity.

Without sufficient storage in the grid, renewable generation may need to be curtailed at times when there’s too much supply, adding to the financial risk for renewable energy investors and introducing financing challenges.

More storage is key to fixing this issue, and the plan rightly names storage as a priority technology to develop. However the plan’s focus on early-stage development can only be the first step. Australia also needs a plan to commercialise and deploy storage technology, but the plan is light on details.

Read more:
Australia’s net-zero plan fails to tackle our biggest contribution to climate change: fossil fuel exports

The two key examples it gives for this are co-investment in the Neoen Hornsdale Power Reserve battery storage program in South Australia, and the Victorian Big Battery.

Neither project represents any new action or commitment. The Neoen project was completed in September 2020, and the Big Battery was committed to in February this year – both well before the plan was released.

4. Little imperative without legislation

The plan states “Australia will not legislate its net-zero by 2050 target”. Without legislation behind the target, there will be less imperative to dig deep to mobilise sufficient resources (funding, time, effort) to meet it.

The plan flags five-yearly reviews of progress towards emissions targets. The low level of detail in the plan means doing these reviews well, and acting on their findings, will be crucial to achieving actual progress on emissions reduction.

However, the plan doesn’t specify what these reviews will look like, or what will happen if reviews show progress is falling short. Without legislating its target, the Australian government has promised no consequences for failing to meet the net-zero plan.

Read more:
G20 leaders talk up climate action but avoid real commitments, casting a shadow over crucial Glasgow talks

Lee White receives funding from the Zero-Carbon Energy for the Asia-Pacific Grand Challenge, funded by the ANU. She has also received grants to support research on energy transition, including a grant from Energy Consumers Australia (for the project “How can we involve renters in the renewable energy transition in Australia?”), and a grant from the Icon Water and ActewAGL Endowment Fund (for the project “Maximising consumer ability to manage electricity demand”).

– ref. How Australia’s coal country past is scuppering its renewable energy future – https://theconversation.com/how-australias-coal-country-past-is-scuppering-its-renewable-energy-future-170717

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert McLachlan, Professor in Applied Mathematics, Massey University

As the Glasgow climate summits gets underway, New Zealand’s government has announced a revised pledge, with a headline figure of a 50% reduction on gross 2005 emissions by the end of this decade.

This looks good on the surface, but the substance of this new commitment, known as a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), is best assessed in emissions across decades.

New Zealand’s actual emissions in the 2010s were 701 million tonnes (Mt) of carbon dioxide equivalent. The carbon budget for the 2020s is 675Mt. The old pledge for the 2020s was 623Mt.

The Climate Change Commission’s advice was for “much less than” 593Mt, and the new NDC is 571Mt. So yes, the new pledge meets the commission’s advice and is a step up on the old, but it does not meet our fair share under the Paris Agreement.

It is also a stretch to call the new NDC consistent with the goal of keeping global temperature rise under 1.5℃.

True 1.5℃ compliance would require halving fossil fuel burning over the next decade, while the current plan is for cuts of a quarter.

Emissions need to half this decade

Countries’ climate pledges are at the heart of the Paris Agreement. The initial round of pledges in 2016 added up to global warming of 3.5℃, but it was always intended they would be ratcheted up over time. In the run-up to COP26, a flurry of new announcements brought that figure down to 2.7℃ — better, but still a significant miss on 1.5℃.

As this graph from the UN’s Emissions Gap Report 2021 shows, the world will need to halve emissions this decade to keep on track for 1.5℃.

New Zealand’s first NDC, for net 2030 emissions to be 30% below gross 2005 emissions, was widely seen as inadequate. An update, reflecting the ambition of the 2019 Zero Carbon Act to keep warming below 1.5℃, has been awaited eagerly.

But several factors have combined to make a truly ambitious NDC particularly difficult.

First, New Zealand’s old climate strategy was based on tree planting and the purchase of offshore carbon credits. The tree planting came to and end in the early 2010s and is only now resuming, while the Emissions Trading Scheme was closed to international markets in 2015. The Paris Agreement was intended to allow a restart of international carbon trading, but this has not yet been possible.

Second, New Zealand has a terrible record in cutting emissions so far. Burning of fossil fuels actually increased by 9% from 2016 to 2019. It’s a challenge to turn around our high-emissions economy.

Third, our new climate strategy, involving carbon budgets and pathways under advice from the Climate Change Commission, is only just kicking in. The government has made an in-principle agreement on carbon budgets out to 2030, and has begun consultation on how to meet them. The full emissions-reduction plan will not be ready until May 2022.

Read more:
COP26: time for New Zealand to show regional leadership on climate change

Regarding a revised NDC, the government passed the buck and asked the commission for advice. The commission declined to give specific recommendations, but advised:

We recommend that to make the NDC more likely to be compatible with contributing to global efforts under the Paris Agreement to limit warming to 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels, the contribution Aotearoa makes over the NDC period should reflect a reduction to net emissions of much more than 36% below 2005 gross levels by 2030, with the likelihood of compatibility increasing as the NDC is strengthened further.

The government then received advice on what would be a fair target for New Zealand. However, any consideration of historic or economic responsibility points to vastly increased cuts, essentially leading to net-zero emissions by 2030.

Announcing the new NDC, Climate Change Minister James Shaw admitted it wasn’t enough, saying:

I think we should be doing a whole lot more. But, the alternative is committing to something that we can’t deliver on.

What proper climate action could look like

Only about a third of New Zealand’s pledged emissions cuts will come from within the country. The rest will have to be purchased as carbon credits from offshore mitigation.

That’s the same amount (100Mt) that Japan, with an economy 25 times larger than New Zealand’s, is planning to include in its NDC. There is no system for doing this yet, or for ensuring these cuts are genuine. And there’s a price tag, possibly running into many billions of dollars.

New Zealand has an impressive climate framework in place. Unfortunately, just as its institutions are beginning to bite, they are starting to falter against the scale of the challenge.

The commission’s advice to the minister was disappointing. It’s being challenged in court by Lawyers For Climate Action New Zealand, whose judicial review in relation to both the NDC and the domestic emissions budgets will be heard in February 2022.

With only two months to go until 2022 and the official start of the carbon budgets, there is no plan how to meet them. The suggestions in the consultation document add up to only half the cuts needed for the first budget period.

Thinking in the transport area is the furthest advanced, with a solid approach to fuel efficiency already approved, and an acknowledgement total driving must decrease, active and public transport must increase, and new roads may not be compatible with climate targets.

Read more:
Electrifying transport: why New Zealand can’t rely on battery-powered cars alone

But industry needs to step up massively. The proposed 2037 end date for coal burning is far too late, while the milk cooperative Fonterra — poised to announce a record payout to farmers — intends to begin phasing out natural gas for milk drying only after that date.

The potentially most far-reaching suggestion is to set a renewable energy target. A clear path to 100% renewable energy would provide a significant counterweight to the endless debates about trees and agricultural emissions, but it is still barely on the radar.

Perhaps one outcome of the new NDC will be that, faced with the prospect of a NZ$5 billion bill for offshore mitigation, we might decide to spend the money on emissions cuts in Aotearoa instead.

Robert McLachlan 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. COP26: New Zealand’s new climate pledge is a step up, but not a ‘fair share’ – https://theconversation.com/cop26-new-zealands-new-climate-pledge-is-a-step-up-but-not-a-fair-share-170932

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Wooden, Professorial Fellow, The University of Melbourne

In the wake of a jump in the proportion of workers quitting jobs in the United States – dubbed the “Great Resignation” – Australia’s media has been warning of a surge in resignations here.

“Here comes the Great Resignation,” reads one headline; “Millions of Aussies predicted to leave jobs” reads another.

In fact:

• there is no evidence of such a phenomenon here

• if there was, it would be no bad thing

• Australia’s resignation rate has fallen to an all-time low.

The term was coined in late 2020 by Texas A&M University’s Anthony Klotz in response to two developments he said had collided like a perfect storm: growing quit rates and the burnout and rethinking of work-life balance that followed COVID.

Over much of 2021, Klotz’s predictions appear to be borne out in the US, with the monthly quit rate climbing from about 2.4% in 2019 to 2.9% in August – the highest rate ever recorded.

And there’s little to suggest the trend will come to a stop there any time soon.

Writing in the New York Times, Nobel Prizewinning economist Paul Krugman suggests America is witnessing a new form of worker revolt in the wake of years of substandard conditions. Workers are using growing job openings to look for better or less demanding jobs, or are simply retiring early.

In Australia, resignation rates are falling

Data collected each year by the Australian Bureau of Statistics suggests that in the 12 months to February 2021 almost 1.1 million Australians left their jobs.

That’s not unusual. In most years more than a million Australians leave their jobs.

Leaving and changing jobs is a sign of a healthy, well-functioning labour market.

If Australia has had a problem, it is with fewer and fewer quitting, something Treasury officials have identified as a contributor to low growth in both wages and productivity.

In the year to February 2021 the proportion of Australian workers switching jobs fell to an all-time low: 7.6% of employed Australians changed jobs that year, down from a peak of 19.5% in 1988-89.

Of course, it is possible Australia’s labour market will change direction and ape the US labour market. But a few caveats are worth noting.

First, although quit rates in the US have increased significantly over the past decade, the increase was largely about playing catchup after the recession that accompanied the global financial crisis of 2008-09. Monthly US quit rates in 2019 were little different to rates 20 years earlier.

Read more:
Voices from an age of uncertain work – Americans miss stability and a shared sense of purpose in their jobs

Second, the increase in US quit rates has been uneven across sectors. There has been no increase in the finance, information and government services sectors. But in leisure and hospitality, monthly quit rates have jumped from 4.4% to 6.4%.

Even in the US, only some resignation rates are climbing

Our assessment is that the trends in the US result from two forces.

One is the usual pattern associated with economic cycles – when jobs become more plentiful, quit rates rise.

The other is that in jobs exposed to the public an ongoing fear of COVID-19 and increased requirements imposed by employers, including vaccination mandates, has made employment less attractive.

What does this all mean for Australia? The first thing to say is that a rise in quit rates would be far from undesirable.

Australia should welcome more resignations

Also, if job opportunities improve as the economy opens and competition for workers increases, quit rates should increase as more workers seek to move to jobs providing better wages and opportunities. But we repeat: there would be nothing unusual or undesirable about this.

Third, as in the US, COVID-19 will likely continue to weigh on decisions. Fear might lead some workers to exit the workforce, especially older workers close to retirement age and those with underlying health conditions.

Nevertheless, with vaccination rates rising rapidly and predicted to exceed 90% very soon, we do not expect this to play a big role in Australia.

Possibly more important will be how employers manage workers who became accustomed to working from home during the pandemic.

As in the US many of them might be reluctant to return to the office.

As other researchers have shown, there are good reasons to expect working from home to stick and for workers to have a stronger preference for mixed arrangements than many managers might like.

The issue here is not so much a Great Resignation, but how to deal with a Great Resistance to the idea of returning to the office, and the daily commute.

Mark Wooden has received funding from the Australian Research Council and is currently receiving from the US National Institutes of Health.

Peter Gahan has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council and the Commonwealth Government.

– ref. Australia’s “great resignation” is a myth — we are changing jobs less than ever before – https://theconversation.com/australias-great-resignation-is-a-myth-we-are-changing-jobs-less-than-ever-before-170784

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Kruger, Aboriginal Lecturer and Researcher, Moondani Balluk Academic Centre, Victoria University

Review: Wilam Biik (Home Country), TarraWarra Museum of Art

Wilam Biik (Home Country) is a multi-layered conversation between Country, people and ancestors that surges with the power of Aboriginal connectivity.

The first major exhibition curated by Wurundjeri and Dja Dja Wurrung woman Stacie Piper in her role as Tarawarra’s 2019 Yalingwa Curator, it is a generous offer to see Wurundjeri biik (Country) the way Wurundjeri see it — not as a “natural resource” to be exploited, but a life-sustaining force interconnected with all things.

It is an important call to those who live on Wurundjeri biik to uphold Wurundjeri people’s principles of relationality: to live in reciprocity with all life, including land, animals, water, sky and people.

The exhibition embodies the Wurundjeri concept of layers of biik: country extends from below the ground to above in the sky, all interconnected through water country.

Piper gathered artists by following the “waterlines” and “bushlines” which connect Wurundjeri to the 38 Aboriginal groups throughout south east Australia.

These artists offer a different way to look at Country. Not by the roads we travel, but by the relationships embedded in it.

Care for Country

Piper developed her curatorial practice at Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre after working for many years with her Elders at Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation.

The vision for Wilam Biik came from Piper’s sovereign responsibility to care for Country, and her despair at the unsustainable logging of old growth forest in the Warburton ranges not far from Tarrawarra on Wurundjeri biik.

Climate trauma and relationship to country was the starting point for Stacie’s curatorial vision. Wilam biik embodies the rich knowledge of Country that holds the answers to recovering from this trauma.

The exhibition is grounded in land and ancestors. Audiences are welcomed by a wall-sized historical photograph of Wurundjeri biik and baluk (people) at Corranderrk.

“Ancestor tools”, such as Barak’s carved parrying shield, a boomerang and basket – on loan from Melbourne Museum – are displayed in the way they would be held: close to the people.

Eel trap by Wurundjeri Elder Kim Wandin underlines the continuing connection between generations.

In conversation with the sepia image of their ancestors, their living descendants — the Djirri Djirri dancers — are projected dancing on Wurundjeri country in the upper reaches of the Birrarung.

Ceremony (c1895) by Wurundjeri painter Ngurungaeta Wiliam Barak has been brought to wilam biik by Wurundjeri people for the first time since they were made. The painting details ceremonial adornment, as referenced by the Djirri Djirris today.

Read more:
Explainer: the importance of William Barak’s Ceremony

Water, land, sky

Following the water sources that start in Country shared with Gunnai and Taungurung Peoples, Gunnai and Gunditjmara artist Arika Waulu’s matriarchal Digging Sticks are carved wood adorned in gold, set against a wallpaper showing layers of country and the cycle of plant life. In this, Waulu speaks of women’s interconnectivity with Country.

Of the Earth, an installation by Taungurung artist Steven Rhall, places a photograph of a boulder on a sound platform, animating the image in a contemplation of the deep time written into Taungurung Country, or in what Alexis Wright has called the ancient library.

The water connection flows through Dhunghula (Murray River) to Yorta Yorta, Waddi Waddi, Wemba Wemba, and all the way to Ngarrindjeri Country as well as into Kolety (Edwards River) and the Baaka (Darling River).

In Drag Net, a woven net incorporating river mussel shell, Waddi Waddi, Yorta Yorta and Ngarrindjeri artist Glenda Nicholls evokes this connection to the river and “water country”.

In Wemba Wemba and Gunditjmara artist Paola Balla’s intergenerational work, Murrup Weaving in Rosie Kuka Lar with Rosie Tang, Balla builds a camp house made from cloth imbued with bush dyes in the landscape of her grandmother’s painting of country. Through these bush dyes, Balla brings the smell of “on ground country” directly into the gallery.

Barkindji artist Kent Morris’ Barkindji Blue Sky – Ancestral Connections is a stunning photographic series, embodying water connections to the Baaka as well as “sky country”.

Many varied relationships

Waterlines like the Birrarung and the Werribee River, marking connections and boundaries with the Boonwurrrung, Wathaurong and Tyereelore, are mapped with kelp baskets by Nannette Shaw and paintings by Deanne Gilson.

These artists reference the transition from freshwater to saltwater and the relationships that exist amongst the Kulin, across to Tasmania and all life forms within Country.

Wilam Biik speaks of the powerful connections between artists, Peoples and Country. It is also a testament to the power of Aboriginal knowledge in Aboriginal hands, and the centring of south east artists and curators as the experts of their knowledges, practices and Country.

Importantly, it is also a call to learn how to live in good relationship with Wurundjeri biik and baluk.

Wilam Biik (Home Country) is at TarraWarra Museum until 21 November.

Kim Kruger is a member of Creative Victoria’s First Peoples’ Directions Circle.

– ref. A new artistic call for us to recognise the connections of Country is a testament to the power of Aboriginal knowledge – https://theconversation.com/a-new-artistic-call-for-us-to-recognise-the-connections-of-country-is-a-testament-to-the-power-of-aboriginal-knowledge-169102

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

Scott Morrison weighed whether to go to the G20 and COP26. The political hard heads will be thinking maybe it would have been wiser to have stayed at home.

Important as it is internationally, the Glasgow conference is billed as a harm-minimisation assignment for the prime minister. And the G20 wasn’t expected to yield much that was useful for him.

Everyone knew that after the submarine contract cancellation an awkward encounter with France’s Emmanuel Macron was possible at one of these meetings.

But it’s safe to say no one expected the French president would call pants-on-fire when asked about the PM.

Morrison had been claiming the fractured Australian-French relationship was starting to recover, albeit slowly.

He tried to underline the progress by approaching Macron in an off-stage moment at the G20, which was captured by his official photographer.

Morrison later told reporters: “He was having a chat with someone. I went up and just put my arm on his shoulder, I said, g’day Emmanuel and look forward to catching up over the next couple of days.

“And he was happy to exchange those greetings, and we’ve known each other for a while. But you know, it’s just the process of being on the road back.”

Read more:
‘I don’t think, I know’ – what makes Macron’s comments about Morrison so extraordinary and so worrying

But the picture told another story – the look in Macron’s eye was anything but friendly.

Macron was having none of the Morrison spin. When asked a day later by the Australian media whether he thought the PM had lied to him over the cancellation of the submarine contract, he said “I don’t think, I know”.

The French were furious at the time by the sudden announcement of AUKUS and the way the subs contract was quashed without notice, and, although their ambassador is now back in Canberra (and at the National Press Club on Wednesday) the anger obviously remains strong.

In a phone conversation just as Morrison was about to leave for Rome Macron told him it was up to the Australian government “to propose tangible actions” to redefine the bilateral relationship.

Morrison tends to speak of the French rather as if they are children deprived of a valued toy who are naturally “disappointed” but just need time to get over their tantrum.

Admitting error or showing contrition are not part of Morrison’s political repertoire. Instead, when caught or cornered, he denies, spins, blusters, changes the subject.

The French president’s forthrightness has made these tactics more difficult to deploy. But Morrison always has excuses.

Macron blindsided? The PM argues the president should have realised, from their mid-year conversation in Paris, that the contract was likely to become history.

“I was very clear that what was going to be provided to us was not going to meet our strategic interests,” he said at the weekend. Did he indicate he’d break the submarine deal? No but, “We all understood what the gates in the contract were and what then needed to be decided.”

Read more:
View from The Hill: Morrison and Macron need to talk

The French kept in the dark about the Australian move to new partners and nuclear subs? Morrison says they couldn’t be brought into the secrecy surrounding AUKUS.

Joe Biden (who has again apologised to Macron for the lack of communication) saying he hadn’t known the French weren’t in the loop much earlier? Apparently all the fault of the US officials not passing information up to the president.

Morrison denied Macron’s claim he’d lied – “it’s not true” – and defaulted to his line that “I’ll always stand up for Australia’s interests”.

The French will be further riled by the intervention by acting PM Barnaby Joyce, who tried to minimise the whole affair.

“We didn’t steal an island. We didn’t deface the Eiffel Tower – it was a contract. And contracts have terms and conditions, and one of those terms and conditions and propositions is that you might get out of the contract.”

Asked whether things could have been handled better, Joyce said, “With hindsight – you know tomorrow the Melbourne Cup’s on? If only I could put a bet on last year’s one, geez, I’d make some money.”

Another line the government is running is that the French have an election coming up. Defence Minister Peter Dutton raised this last week. Whether or not this is a factor in Macron’s reaction, it just adds to the diplomatic rift to pull out that card.

How much will all this matter politically for Morrison?

Internationally, it is very bad for his reputation and that of Australia.

And indirectly, it has brought back questions about the AUKUS submarine deal, which will deliver no boats until about 2040, which is increasingly looking a very concerning timeframe.

Domestically, Labor has seized on the liar line to reinforce its argument that Morrison misleads and worse.

Morrison surely will (and should be) be embarrassed by what’s happened. But he’ll be more intent on asking what the voters think, and he’ll probably be reckoning that on the home front he can neutralise Macron’s allegation.

And that’s by invoking “national interest”, which sits besides “national security.

“I’m not going to put that [relationship with France] interest higher than Australia’s national interest, and I don’t think any Australian would expect me […] to surrender that interest for the sake of another,” he said.

He’ll be betting that in the focus groups, while this might be seen as fresh government untidiness, they won’t be on Macron’s side.

And that’s where Morrison’s attention is centred, as he currently looks at everything through next year’s election prism.

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. View from The Hill: How will Macron’s “pants on fire” claim about Morrison play in the focus groups? – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-how-will-macrons-pants-on-fire-claim-about-morrison-play-in-the-focus-groups-170964

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Romain Fathi, Senior Lecturer, History, Flinders University

French President Emmanuel Macron has called Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison a liar on the world stage.

In an extraordinary doorstop interview with Australian reporters at the G20 in Rome, Macron was asked if he thought Morrison lied to him over the cancellation of a submarine contract in September. The French President’s reply was damning:

I don’t think, I know.

For his part, Morrison says he did not lie (and gave Macron a heads-up in June about the contract). Nevertheless, the comments show a diplomatic relationship in deep trouble.

What is this about?

Macron’s comments come off the back of Australia’s abrupt strategic breakup with France as part of the AUKUS partnership. In September, Australia announced this new alliance, which meant it would end a multibillion-dollar submarine deal with France.

Read more:
Why the Australia-France submarine deal collapse was predictable

This sudden decision greatly angered the French, who have likened it to a “stab in the back”.

As a result, France cut off diplomatic communication. This only resumed on October 28 with a frosty phonecall between Macron and Morrison. The recently concluded G20 meeting in Rome was their first meeting in person since the tensions emerged.

What happened in Rome

As the tensions swirled, Morrison approached the French President unannounced at the Rome summit, while Macron was talking to others. Morrison put his arm on the President’s shoulder and reportedly said “g’day”. Images were then released by Morrison’s office as proof of the functional relationship between the two leaders.

The next day, Macron answered Australian reporters’ questions as he was leaving a press conference. Macron’s informal comments, at such a highly choreographed diplomatic event, show how he went out of his way to show he and Morrison are not mates on “g’day” terms.

Macron also took these further steps to ensure his message did not get lost in translation:

1. He made the comments in English. The French President speaks English but usually uses French, the language of the republic he represents. Using English was a way of speaking to Australians directly, rather than having a voiceover doing a translation from the French.

2. He spoke to the media of a foreign country – usually a world leader would not engage informally with media from other countries. This is done formally, at joint press conferences.

3. He did not use “diplo-speak”. Macron is a highly educated, polished politician who knows how to choose his words and send subtle messages. This message was deliberately blunt.

Why this is serious

Since the September fallout, France recalled its ambassador from Canberra to “re-evaluate” its relationship with Australia. In French diplomatic language, “re-evaluate” is a powerful euphemism. All forms of cooperation (military, political, educational, cultural) are at a standstill.

As of January 2022, France will take on the presidency of the Council of the European Union for six months. The timing could not be worse for Australia as it tries to negotiate a major trade deal with the EU. Negotiations have already been paused for a month as a result of the failed submarine deal. The economic implications are serious for Australia, which has a lot more at stake than Europe here. The EU is Australia’s third-largest market but Australia is only the EU’s 19th-largest trading partner.

Indeed, Australia is a sensible target for France to send signals to any other allies that may be tempted to act against French interests. As a middle power, Canberra can be treated as a naughty child in a way that more powerful allies, such as the United States, cannot.

What happens now?

Macron has made it clear he respects Australia, its people, and its shared values with France.

Read more:
C’est fini: can the Australia-France relationship be salvaged after scrapping the sub deal?

But his comments also show it will be very hard to properly repair the bilateral relationship while the two men are in power. Fundamentally, Macron says he does not trust the current Australian prime minister.

What is urgently needed is for French and Australian diplomats and high-level officials to start talking again, because so much more is at stake than submarines. If they do, this will mean the infrastructure is there at the working level, when leaders are able to engage properly again. Regrettably, this may not happen for a while.

Romain Fathi 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. ‘I don’t think, I know’ – what makes Macron’s comments about Morrison so extraordinary and so worrying – https://theconversation.com/i-dont-think-i-know-what-makes-macrons-comments-about-morrison-so-extraordinary-and-so-worrying-170947

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jacqui Katona, Lecturer, Victoria University

As the Glasgow climate conference begins, and the time we have to avert a climate crisis narrows, it is time to revisit successful First Nations campaigns against the fossil fuel industry.

Like the current fight to avert a climate catastrophe, these battles are good, old-fashioned, come-from-behind, David-versus-Goliath examples we can all learn from. The Jabiluka campaign is a good example.

In the late 1990s, a mining company, Energy Resources of Australia, was planning to expand its Kakadu uranium mine into Jabiluka, land belonging to Mirarr Traditional Owners in the Northern Territory. The adjacent Ranger Uranium mine had been operating for 20 years without Traditional Owners’ consent and against their wishes, causing long-term cultural and environmental destruction.

But the expansion of the mine ultimately failed, thanks to an extraordinary campaign by the Traditional Owners, led by Yvonne Maragula and a relative, the lead author of this article, Jacqui Katona (a Djok woman).

In recognition of our work, we shared the 1999 Goldman Environmental Prize, one of the most prestigious international grassroots environmental awards.

The campaign included a huge on-site protest camp, shareholder action and significant overseas support (including from the European Parliament, US Congress and an expert committee to UNESCO). It also included a blockade of the mine site – one of the biggest blockades Australia had ever seen.

These are valuable lessons for those wanting to take decisive action against the fossil fuel industry. Here are six ways to learn from our experience:

1. Put pressure on the financial sector

Continuous pressure on companies in the financial sector (such as banks), which are complicit in the success of fossil fuel companies, can have an impact. This can be done by exposing their involvement with fossil fuels and pressuring them to be held accountable for these partnerships.

One of the most successful actions of the Jabiluka campaign was the coordination of protests at Westpac, which financed the mine’s owner, Energy Resources of Australia. Not only did protesters raise awareness about Westpac’s investment at local branches, they created bureaucratic chaos by opening and closing bank accounts.

This resulted in a corporate shift in Westpac towards better accountability on issues affecting First Nations people. Coordinated protests like this are an effective way to empower people to participate in positive action for change.

Similar protests, strategic litigation and investor campaigns have also effectively disrupted the Adani mining project in Queensland, including making financing and insurance for the project very difficult.

2. Join a strong organisation or alliance

First Nations campaigns against mining and other fossil fuel companies show the single most important factor in successful protests is leadership by politically powerful organisations or alliances.

In the Jabiluka campaign, Katona and Margarula were successful in large part because of their insistence on a Mirrar-led campaign forming strong alliances with powerful unions, environmental groups and other national and international organisations.

3. Hit them where it hurts: the hip pocket

The Mirarr’s successful campaign was one of the first to use shareholder activism, and it worked. The campaigners engaged in two years of activism against Energy Resources of Australia, including forming a group of shareholders who lobbied within the project for protesters’ demands.

In that time, the share price of Energy Resources of Australia fell from more than A$6 to less than A$2. This forced the company to hold an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting where representatives of the lobbying group were present.

Shareholders were then able to have some influence over corporate responsibility and accountability, including the appointment of a sustainable development manager. While the government ultimately amended the Corporations Act to make such actions more difficult, this nevertheless shows that creative direct action can be successful in holding corporations accountable.

4. Win over the right people

When Rio Tinto detonated 46,000-year-old rock shelters at Juukan Gorge on the traditional land of the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura peoples last year, it was not only public outcry that led to the resignation of three senior executives, including the chief executive.

Pressure also came from investor groups, including major Australian super funds, and the media over the perceived lack of accountability.

5. There’s never a perfect time to act

Katona led the Jabiluka campaign while a mother to two small children, juggling local work with international activism. She was jailed for trespassing on Aboriginal land. She was hospitalised with complications from lupus, which required a long recovery.

Be strategic about your participation in high-energy campaigns and find ways to support the efforts of key activists. But also know the fight against the fossil fuel industry takes more effort than just changing your social media profile picture.

There is no perfect time, or single solution, to campaigning for a better future. The power of people is a resource which often delivers inspiration to disrupt and needs to be nurtured.

6. Believe you can win

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have faced hundreds of years of colonisation, industrial desecration of their sacred lands, and destruction of their Country. However in many cases, they have won battles against the odds.

The Mirrar faced a discriminatory system which sidelined their interests in Kakadu for more than 20 years. But they continued their fight to protect Country, and ultimately succeeded in preventing Jabiluka’s expansion.

So take heart and don’t give up. This is a fight that can be won.

Lily O’Neill is a Research Fellow on the Zero-Carbon Energy for the Asia-Pacific Grand Challenge Project, funded by the Australian National University.

Jacqui Katona 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. What climate change activists can learn from First Nations campaigns against the fossil fuel industry – https://theconversation.com/what-climate-change-activists-can-learn-from-first-nations-campaigns-against-the-fossil-fuel-industry-165869

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Erin Harrington, Senior Lecturer in English and Cultural Studies, University of Canterbury

It is a remarkable coincidence that both New Zealand black comedy Creamerie and American post-apocalyptic drama Y: The Last Man have arrived on our screens in the middle of a global pandemic. Both are shows about the aftermath of plagues that kill off the male population.

Both were well into production by the time COVID-19 hit, the latter adapting a critically acclaimed DC Comics series by Brian K. Vaughn and Pia Guerra. Both are led and entirely directed by women – a strong statement in a significantly male-dominated industry.

And as dystopian narratives, they also tap into some significant areas of current social and political interest. These include anxieties about gender roles, and how we deal with loss and grief at a global scale.

Dystopian stories are very effective at exploring the fractures and inequities in our everyday lives by throwing up scenarios in which dreams of a better world have become nightmarish. They take present conditions and challenges and extrapolate them into a society that is deeply recognisable, but more extreme than our own.

Whether they are horrific or comedic, they expose and often satirise the real-world conditions, such as political trends or environmental inaction, that already facilitate oppression and destruction. They act as both thought experiment and warning.

Apocalyptic narratives, too, foreground the best and the worst of us. Although the “end of the world” might be triggered by a sudden calamity – plague, war, a supernatural event – these stories are more concerned with what happens next.

They ask: what happens when the things that structure our everyday lives are stripped away? How can we learn to live in these new conditions? And are we as much of a threat to one another as the catastrophe itself?

Both TV shows engage with these questions, although to different ends and with very different tones.

Divisions and the ‘double shift’

The sudden death of all mammals with a Y chromosome in Y: The Last Man is only the first in a series of rolling disasters – not least the logistical problem of dealing with the physical remains of half the population.

The series is very interested in the ripple effects of gender inequality, especially in the workplace. This exposes how much our societies remain structured along roughly binary lines, despite significant attempts to move towards a more equitable and egalitarian society.

In early episodes the former Congresswoman and newly minted President Jennifer Brown (Diane Lane) struggles to govern. The United States’ critical infrastructure, which was staffed almost entirely by men, has collapsed.

Without water, power or food, people are beginning to riot, but there aren’t enough police or military personnel to keep the peace. Because men still dominate decision-making roles, a skeleton crew of female politicians and civil servants is left to salvage civil society.

In a moving scene, Brown tries to persuade one of the only remaining female nuclear engineers to help restore the power grid. Brown reminds her how hard it has been to always be the only woman in the room – and the burden that she now bears because of this.

But power struggles swiftly emerge. The overnight erasure of gender privilege only exacerbates other sources of inequity, such as race and class. There is also an ideological clash between Brown and more politically conservative women, notably the Machiavellian former First Daughter Kimberley, played by Amber Tamblyn.

Their insidious emphasis upon the importance of traditional gender roles and so-called “family values” sits uncomfortably against scenes, pre- and post-disaster, where women struggle to deal with their domestic and professional roles. We are reminded that social inequity is deeply tied to child-bearing and rearing.

Far from critiquing women’s professional ambitions and reproductive choices, the series’ domestic scenes illustrate powerfully the damaging “double shift”: the large amount of invisible, underappreciated and unpaid domestic labour undertaken by women.

This is a problem not just for women, but society at large – made worse when the survival of the species relies on sperm banks and willing mothers.

Read more:
Are we living in a dystopia?

A feminist utopia

Reproduction is also central to Creamerie’s satirical project. Eight years after the emergence of the virus – illustrated through a gory, slo-mo montage set ironically to a dreamy cover of What A Wonderful World – we seem to be in a feminist utopia.

The new society is overseen by blonde, charismatic Lane (Tandi Wright), leader of a hyperfeminine, Goop-like organisation. Education and healthcare are free, and menstruation leave is mandatory. Thanks to the survival of sperm banks, women enter a lottery to be artificially inseminated so they may re-populate the world with their daughters.

Rebel Alex (Ally Xue), grieving mother Jamie (JJ Fong), and perky rule-follower Pip (Perlina Lau) live together on an organic dairy farm. Crisis hits when Pip accidentally runs over a man – potentially the last man alive. He believes there are other survivors, which would upend this new way of life.

The premise inverts many of the tropes laid bare in the reproductive horrors of The Handmaid’s Tale and its many imitators, which similarly foreground natalist policies.

Instead, Creamerie is wickedly funny and playful. Its bougie wellness cult operates with silken voices, performative kindness, and what appears to be the veneration of female collectivity.

However, we soon witness the classist, racist, heteronormative, and individualistic tendencies at the heart of this new society, which satirises the predatory nature of the wellness industry.

We are also faced with difficult questions about the fate of those men who might remain – how they too might be objectified and commodified for their reproductive potential.

Read more:
The Handmaid’s Tale: no wonder we’ve got a sequel in this age of affronts on women’s rights

A world grappling with cataclysm

Although they differ considerably in tone, both shows are united in their exploration of loss and trauma. This reflects the rising number of recent series, films, books and games that feature inexplicable mass casualty events and ecological cataclysm.

In a world grappling with a climate disaster, and now a brutal pandemic, it is natural to turn to art to explore how we might live when our lives are braided with inconsolable grief.

Ultimately Creamerie and Y: The Last Man ask us how we suffer losses that are too great for words, and whether we cope with tears, connection, or gallows humour.

Creamerie is available to stream on SBS on Demand, and Y: The Last Man is currently streaming on Binge.

Erin Harrington 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. Is a world without men a dystopia or a utopia? Creamerie and Y: The Last Man explore loss at a time of mass grief – https://theconversation.com/is-a-world-without-men-a-dystopia-or-a-utopia-creamerie-and-y-the-last-man-explore-loss-at-a-time-of-mass-grief-169944

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Soheil Mohseni, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Sustainable Energy Systems, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

The transport sector accounts for 47% of New Zealand’s carbon dioxide emissions. It will be a focus for decarbonisation to meet the country’s new climate pledge to cut emissions by half by 2030.

Most (90%) transport emissions come from road transport, which is also the fastest-growing sector. Battery-driven electric vehicles have been highlighted as the sole pathway to a net-zero transport sector. But a life-cycle approach suggests we should consider more than one option.

Advances in hydrogen fuel cell technologies suggest a multi-pronged strategy is a more sensible approach to decarbonisation. It also aligns well with the aim of building resilient transport systems.

We argue a single solution will not be adequate to decarbonise road transport.

Hydrogen fuel cells versus batteries

Electric vehicles with hydrogen-powered fuel cells have the edge on battery-driven cars in three important ways: longer range, shorter refuelling time and greater payload.

Hydrogen contains nearly three times the energy density of diesel and petrol. This makes it attractive for use in heavy commercial vehicles. Hydrogen’s light but energy-dense properties allow heavy-duty and long-haul trucks to couple hefty payloads and long ranges while offering refuelling times comparable to conventional combustion-engine vehicles.

But while hydrogen is lighter than batteries, efficiency losses are significant. Producing green hydrogen by splitting water using renewable electricity in a state-of-the-art electrolyser results in an energy loss of about 35%.

Of the remaining 65% of the original energy, another 55% is lost during compression, distribution and conversion back to electricity in the fuel cell to drive the electric motor. This results in an overall efficiency of around 35% with existing technologies.

Read more:
Australia’s clean hydrogen revolution is a path to prosperity – but it must be powered by renewable energy

In contrast, the overall electrical loss (from plant to plug) in centralised electricity networks is only up to 8%. This includes transmission and distribution losses, as well as the efficiency of grid-scale storage. This represents the worst-case scenario in light of the recent developments in smart local energy systems.

Battery vehicles have a battery-to-wheel efficiency of 75-87%, resulting in a well-to-wheel efficiency of 70-80%, depending on the model. But batteries (particularly lithium-ion batteries) have a substantially lower energy density than hydrogen.

This means the range of a battery-driven electric vehicle can only be increased by adding weight and cost. This tips the hydrogen fuel cell to be the most promising future of heavy-duty road transport.

Read more:
Zero emissions: government must address hurdles putting people off electric cars

Impacts on the environment

The environmental cost of producing batteries or fuel cells is another important factor to consider when evaluating the sustainability of future carbon-neutral fleets.

Technology improvements and economies of scale have pushed down the cost of lithium-ion batteries substantially. But the so-called “green conflict” highlights humanitarian controversies in communities where mining battery metals (mainly cobalt, but also lithium, nickel and copper) takes place.

This is a major challenge for the battery electric vehicle industry. Costly and energy-intensive processes are now available to recycle depleted batteries. The green transportation industry is also considering “second-life options” to reuse batteries elsewhere before recycling the raw materials.

However, moving to a hydrogen-powered fleet would also drive up demand for nickel, platinum and other rare minerals, given the significant losses in efficiency.

Hydrogen infrastructure investment

Last year, the New Zealand government pledged NZ$20 million towards establishing a nationwide network of hydrogen refuelling stations. The commitment from the infrastructure reference group will help to attract an additional $49 million from Hiringa Energy, joint-venture partners and other private investors.

As part of the initiative, eight hydrogen filling stations tailored to heavy-duty fuel-cell trucks and buses will be installed across the country.

The network is expected to service heavy-duty freight routes in the North Island and South Island, at 95% and 82% of current capacity, respectively. Hiringa has also signed a vehicle-supply agreement with Hyzon Motors to deliver up to 1,500 fuel-cell electric trucks, assembled at its site in the Netherlands, by 2026.

When it comes to the electrification of transport, most advocates fall into one of two camps: battery electric or hydrogen fuel cell. The two are nearly always perceived as opponents. Few organisations or companies promote an optimal mix of the two technologies.

But recent research suggests the cheapest and environmentally and socially most acceptable approach is to combine complementary characteristics of these technologies. It also contributes to the goal of a 100% renewable electric grid.

We believe battery and hydrogen vehicles will coexist for different applications, as each finds its niche in the future zero-carbon economy.

jim.hinkley@vuw.ac.nz is a board member of the New Zealand Hydrogen Council

Alan Brent and Soheil Mohseni 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. Electrifying transport: why New Zealand can’t rely on battery-powered cars alone – https://theconversation.com/electrifying-transport-why-new-zealand-cant-rely-on-battery-powered-cars-alone-170703

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caitlin Byrne, Director, Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University

The G20 summit in Rome concluded over the weekend with a disappointing outcome for Earth’s climate.

Leaders of the world’s wealthiest countries, including Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison, failed to reach a commitment to phase out fossil fuels. And the meeting’s final communique did not include a commitment to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

G20 leaders made significant strides to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, especially on global vaccine targets. They also struck an agreement that will mean profits of large multinational companies pay more tax.

But breakthrough leadership on climate change was missing. This outcome does not bode well for the Glasgow talks – the world’s last hope for keeping the 1.5℃ global warming limit within reach.

No timeline for coal exit

The G20 meeting was seen as a crucial precursor to the COP26 negotiations. But while world leaders agreed substantial action was needed to stay within 1.5℃ of global warming, they made few real commitments to meeting that target.

Going into the G20, Morrison was under pressure, after US President Joe Biden on Saturday described Australia’s handling of the cancelled French submarine deal as “clumsy”. And in the months leading to the talks, both the US and United Kingdom had called on Australia to up its climate ambition.

Days before leaving to attend the summit, Morrison struck a deal with the Nationals for Australia to adopt a target of net-zero emissions by 2050.

The Rome talks, however, failed to set a concrete 2050 target for all G20 nations – instead underlining the importance of reaching the target by or around the middle of the century. This phrasing meets the positions of China and Saudi Arabia, which don’t plan to reach net zero until 2060.

Read more:
Scott Morrison attends pivotal global climate talks today, bringing a weak plan that leaves Australia exposed

Morrison’s commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050 was welcomed by some, and scrutinised by others, particularly for lack of detail.

UK Climate Change Committee chair John Gummer said international pressure “squeezed out” a net-zero pledge from Morrison, and the plan lacked the action necessary to meet the target.

Major global news outlets have labelled Morrison’s plan “hollow” and “hard to believe”. CNN called Australia “the rich world’s weakest link at COP26”.

In his closing statement at the G20, Morrison talked up the nation’s record on emissions reduction and sought to justify his government’s “technology not taxes” approach to climate action.

He promoted the case for emerging technologies, saying many existed now. He conceded some technologies were not yet invented, but likened the challenge to development of the COVID-19 vaccine which “didn’t exist two years ago”.

Morrison’s focus on technology appeared to resonate. G20 leaders agreed to “cooperate on the deployment and dissemination of zero or low carbon emission and renewable technologies, including sustainable bioenergy, to enable a transition towards low-emission power systems”.

Read more:
If all 2030 climate targets are met, the planet will heat by 2.7℃ this century. That’s not OK

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres had called on G20 leaders to strike a deal on coal, saying wealthy countries should phase out coal-fired power by 2030 while developing nations should do so by 2040.

But he was left disappointed. The G20’s final communique failed to put a timeline on the phase-out, instead saying it should be done “as soon as possible”.

Unsurprisingly, Australia pushed back on coal phase-outs, alongside India and China.

However, small steps towards phasing out coal were achieved. Leaders accepted the G7 position to end international public finance for “new unabated coal power generation abroad by the end of 2021”. But this commitment does not address existing coal plants, and it means coal can still be burned with carbon capture and storage technology.

Now to COP26

Australia’s overall contribution to the G20 was low-key. In a defiant statement about climate policy issued last week, Morrison declared the nation “won’t be lectured by others who do not understand Australia”. On this, Morrison may regard the G20 as a success, for it required few concessions to Australia’s position on climate.

Morrison enjoyed some positive moments at the G20, including a bilateral meeting with Indonesian President Joko Widodo. This resulted in a joint statement on cooperation on the green economy and energy transition – an important move that advances the bilateral relationship while recognising the significance of Indonesia’s forthcoming G20 presidency.

But that high note was overshadowed when French President Emmanuel Macron claimed Morrison lied to him about cancelling the major French submarine contract.

The comments deepen the rift between Australia and France. Heading into COP26, this could cause Australia issues with coalitions such as the G7, the OECD and the European Union, where France is a major player.

Of course, there’s still room for diplomatic pressure and progress on climate action in Glasgow.

There, attention will turn towards national pledges for emissions reduction by 2030 and the action required to meet them. Australia’s 2030 target lags almost all developed countries, and we are one of very few rich nations not to ramp up its 2030 target since the Paris Agreement six years ago.

Macron has declared “2030 is the new 2050”. On that score, Australia is likely to feel the heat.

Read more:
Glasgow COP26: climate finance pledges from rich nations are inadequate and time is running out

Caitlin Byrne receives funding from the Australia Indonesia Institute.

Susan Harris Rimmer receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. G20 leaders talk up climate action but avoid real commitments, casting a shadow over crucial Glasgow talks – https://theconversation.com/g20-leaders-talk-up-climate-action-but-avoid-real-commitments-casting-a-shadow-over-crucial-glasgow-talks-170533

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dean J. Miller, Research Officer, CQUniversity Australia

LED face masks are the latest device promoted on social media as a marriage of technology and beauty.

A range of celebrities have endorsed portable versions of the product that was previously offered in beauty salons. Actress Olivia Munn carries hers with her at all times. Julia Roberts, Victoria Beckham and Chrissy Tiegen are also reportedly fans. The trend has even achieved the social media holy grail – a Kardashian Instagram post.

But regardless of whether they’ll help make your skin glow, our understanding of circadian rhythms suggests they have the potential to disrupt users’ sleep-wake cycles.

Read more:
6 ways to stop daylight saving derailing your child’s sleep

Daily rhythms

The human body has its own internal clock which, among other things, helps to control our sleep-wake patterns. This internal clock is influenced by several factors, the most potent being light exposure directly into the eyes. More specifically, short-wavelength “blue light” influences this system the most.

Exposure to this type of light at night has been shown interrupt the production of melatonin – also known as “the sleep hormone”. Melatonin is produced by the pineal gland in the brain and released within 2 hours of your habitual bedtime – preparing the body for sleep. But bright blue light exposure may interrupt this process.

There are a range of sources for blue light – including our beloved phones, electronic devices and also the room lighting in our homes. While it has become a common recommendation to avoid using electronic devices close to bedtime, in the context of blue light exposure, our phones and tablets do not seem to be bright enough to impact sleep. In fact, home lighting appears to have a greater influence – likely due to the transition to energy-efficient LED, “blue light” wavelength light.

Last year, Monash University researchers examined sleep and light exposure in 57 participants, finding that nearly half of them had LED lighting that suppressed melatonin by 50%. The study also found those with greater evening light exposure had increased wakefulness after bedtime.

Insufficient sleep has been shown to increase the likelihood of poor health outcomes, including cardiovascular disease.

Read more:
Poor sleep is really bad for your health. But we found exercise can offset some of these harms

How face masks compare to other LED sources

LED mask manufacturers say they are the “future of skin care”, with masks emitting light at different wavelengths to target particular skin-related outcomes.

Several devices are FDA-approved in the United States, and claim to target acne with “blue light” modes – the precise wavelength range that may impact melatonin production.

To date, no experimental research studies have examined the impact of these devices, and their blue light settings, on sleep or the human body clock. But given the device’s proximity to users’ eyes and the intensity of LED light bulbs, it is reasonable to flag concerns about their possible impact on our body clock.

Sean Cain, a leading scientist on the impact of light exposure on human health, coined an analogy to provide perspective to the sources of artificial light. The light we receive from electronic devices can be thought of as like a glass of water being poured over your head, while home LED lighting is more like a bucket of water. In keeping with this analogy, could LED masks be something on the scale of a bathtub or swimming pool? Further research could quantify their effect.

Read more:
Snooze blues? How using your favourite song as an alarm can help you wake up more alert

You can still make like a Kardashian … in the daytime

These concerns, based on well-established circadian principles, do not rule out the use of these devices entirely. However, it is important for people who use them to avoid doing so at night – especially on the blue light settings.

Ideally, use of the masks should be during daylight hours, to avoid potential sleep disturbances and/or shifts in the human body clock. Future research could clarify any negative outcomes associated with these devices and potentially prompt manufacturers to provide recommendations on the timing of their use.

Dean J. Miller’s position at CQUniversity is funded by WHOOP inc .

– ref. LED face masks are popular on social media for glowing skin – but they could disrupt your sleep – https://theconversation.com/led-face-masks-are-popular-on-social-media-for-glowing-skin-but-they-could-disrupt-your-sleep-170108

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

Right wing Queensland Liberal senator Gerard Rennick has told Scott Morrison he will withhold his vote from the Coalition until various issues relating to COVID are resolved.

Rennick says there should be a “fit and proper” compensation scheme for victims of “vaccine adverse events”, and the right upheld for people who have had an adverse event to refuse a second shot.

Also, no one should lose their job because they won’t be vaccinated, Rennick says in his letter.

The Senator says domestic travel restrictions relating to COVID should be scrapped. and says children do not need to take the vaccine.

The government has a scheme to cover the costs of injuries above A$5,000 resulting from “a proven adverse reaction to a COVID-19 vaccination”.

The program is funded by the Commonwealth to provide compensation for the small number of people who have significant adverse reactions, giving them an alternative to legal action.

Read more:
Your unvaccinated friend is roughly 20 times more likely to give you COVID

Rennick wants the scheme enhanced including by providing compensation “from the first dollar of expenses incurred”.

“In the last two weeks I have become aware of severe and undiagnosed injuries to people as a result of the Covid vaccines. Many of these are not being acknowledged by the very medical authorities who should be helping them. Those who have suffered injuries from vaccines need help urgently,” he writes.

In the letter to Prime Minister Scott Morrison he says “you need to stop vaccine mandates regardless of if they are mandated by the employer or State Governments.

“If as you say that the Commonwealth doesn’t support mandatory vaccinations, then why are we paying for and indemnifying vaccines being mandated by the State”.

“I have been inundated from many Australians who are stressed about losing their jobs or having mandatory vaccinations for their children.”

Read more:
Australians will soon receive COVID booster vaccines. Why do we need them, and how effective are they?

Facebook has put information alerts on many of the controversial senator’s postings about COVID and vaccines.

Recently Rennick in the Coalition parties room reportedly threatened to withhold his vote on critical legislation unless the government challenged Queensland’s border restrictions.

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. Queensland rebel Liberal senator says he’ll withhold vote over COVID issues – https://theconversation.com/queensland-rebel-liberal-senator-says-hell-withhold-vote-over-covid-issues-170951

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Craig Mark, Professor, Faculty of International Studies, Kyoritsu Women’s University

Japan’s ruling conservative nationalist Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will remain comfortably in power under its new prime minister Fumio Kishida, after the weekend’s national election.

This comes after a historically short 12-day campaign.

According to projections by public broadcaster NHK, the LDP will still keep a majority in the 465-seat house of representatives (or Diet). It looks like losing 15 seats to 261, supported by 32 seats held by its coalition partner Komeito, which gained three seats.

The main opposition, the centrist Constitutional Democratic Party, lost 13 seats, to end up with 96. Other smaller opposition parties only shifted slightly, with the Japanese Communist Party dropping two to ten, and the centre-right Democratic Party for the People gaining three to reach 11. The biggest gains were made by the populist Japan Innovation Party (JIP), which boosted its numbers from 11 to 41 seats.

Voter turnout was 55.33%, a slight increase from 53.68% in the last election in 2017.

Frustrated voters

Kishida is new to the job, only winning the LDP leadership last month. He is gratified by the election result, stating he will “really listen to people” for “a bright future for Japan”.

Since gaining the leadership, he deliberately lowered expectations for the election, setting a goal for the LDP of securing a bare majority. With 261-plus seats, the coalition can retain control of Diet committees and keep its tight control of the parliamentary agenda.

Read more:
Who is Fumio Kishida, Japan’s new prime minister?

The decline in the LDP’s vote reflects the electorate’s frustration over its erratic handling of the economy and coronavirus pandemic under former prime ministers Shinzo Abe and Yoshihide Suga, particularly the decision to go ahead with the Tokyo Olympics despite the spike in delta cases.

The progressive opposition parties tried to increase their chances with an agreement not to run against each other in more than 200 electorates. However, many disgruntled voters in Japan’s second-largest city of Osaka completely swung to the JIP, based in the central-west Kansai region, which promotes more neoliberal economic policies.

‘New capitalism’ for Japan

Kishida now has the challenge of delivering a “new capitalism” – reducing the income inequality that worsened under the previous nine years of “Abenomics”. The LDP will now prepare a draft supplementary budget with “tens of trillions of yen” to stimulate a post-pandemic recovery, which may include tax breaks for firms that raise wages, and increases to wages for public-sector workers

Having only made a virtual appearance at the G20 Rome summit, Kishida will immediately set off for the COP26 summit in Glasgow.

Suga committed Japan to net zero by 2050, a policy Kishida has pledged to pursue by restarting Japan’s idled nuclear power plants. His cabinet’s plan, released before election campaign, has a target for carbon neutrality by 2050, and to cut emissions by 46% from 2013 levels by 2030, an improvement on the previous target of 26%.

Renewable energy is aimed to reach 36-38%, and fossil fuel-generated power 41% by 2030, leaving nuclear power at 20-22% of energy generation. This is likely to continue the gradual decline of coal and gas imports from Australia, potentially to be replaced by hydrogen.

More defence spending, security fears

During the election campaign, Kishida interrupted his campaigning to address North Korea’s latest illegal missile tests and attend virtual meetings of the ASEAN-Japan and East Asia summits. He again indirectly criticised China for its human rights abuses in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, pledged support for Taiwan, and reaffirmed Japan’s opposition to any change to the rules-based maritime order in the region.

Read more:
Japan signals a ‘sense of crisis’ over Taiwan — this is why it is worried about China’s military aims

Kishida is also set to continue the LDP’s policy of increased defence spending, ensuring Japan’s participation in the escalating regional arms race. Developing an overseas strike capacity, including hypersonic missiles, will further push the boundaries on constitutional limits to operations by the Japanese Self-Defence Forces. Japan may even eventually join the AUKUS security pact.

Equality for women?

Various social issues confront Kishida’s returned government, particularly gender equality, where Japan is 120th in the rankings of the World Economic Forum. Fewer than 18% of candidates in the election were women, no better than 2017.

The media frenzy over the delayed marriage of Japan’s Princess Mako last week highlighted how gender inequality even threatens the future viability of the imperial family. Kishida has so far been against changing the law to allow female succession, despite widespread public support for this reform.

Most Japanese similarly wish to see laws changed to allow women to keep their family names after marriage, and to allow same-sex marriage, but these are also resisted by LDP conservatives.

Another election ahead

The loss of LDP seats puts Kishida on notice. If his approval ratings continue to fall below 50%, he remains vulnerable to pressure from discontented Diet members and rival LDP faction leaders.

There will be increasingly nervousness about further setbacks in an the election scheduled for the middle of next year, for half the seats in the upper house. If the LDP-Komeito lose its majority in the upper house, this could turn Kishida into a lame duck, and see him follow his predecessors Abe and Suga into an early departure.

Craig Mark 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. Japan’s ruling conservatives have been returned to power, but amid voter frustration, challenges lurk for Kishida – https://theconversation.com/japans-ruling-conservatives-have-been-returned-to-power-but-amid-voter-frustration-challenges-lurk-for-kishida-170561

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yvonne Wong, Associate professor of physics and ARC Future Fellow, UNSW

Physicists searching for evidence of a “light sterile neutrino”, a hypothetical particle that could give clues to cosmic puzzles such as the nature of dark matter and why the Universe is made of matter at all, have announced their hunt has come back empty-handed.

The MicroBooNE experiment at Fermilab was designed to follow up on earlier hints of neutrinos behaving oddly, but the negative result deals a blow to the idea of such a new elementary particle.

Read more:
Explainer: the elusive neutrino

Neutrinos are lightweight, elusive subatomic particles, and current theories recognise three different types. In 1995, however, the Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detector (LSND) experiment in Los Alamos detected more of one type than anyone expected.

Most attempts to explain the anomaly proposed the existence of a fourth kind of neutrino that barely interacts with normal matter at all: a so-called “sterile” neutrino.

More recent experiments have also reported results broadly consistent with the sterile neutrino hypothesis, but the MicroBooNE result casts the whole idea into doubt.

What is a sterile neutrino?

Neutrinos are subatomic particles postulated by Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli in 1930 to explain how some radioactive atoms fire out electrons.

Their existence wasn’t confirmed until 1956, when Americans Clyde Cowan and Frederick Reines observed tiny flashes of light made by neutrinos crashing into the atoms in a tank of water.

Today, neutrinos are an integral part of the “Standard Model of particle physics”. This is our best theory of the Universe’s particles, describing the 17 known elementary particles and how they interact via three fundamental forces (electromagnetism and the strong and weak forces).

Read more:
Explainer: Standard Model of Particle Physics

The Standard Model divides the 17 particles into two basic groups: 12 fermions, which make up matter, and five bosons, which carry the forces.

Not all fermions interact with all the forces. For example, neutrinos are only affected by the weak force (and gravity, which doesn’t fit into the Standard Model).

The fermions are split into three families, each of which has a neutrino: the electron, muon, and tau neutrinos.

All of these neutrinos are “left-handed” with respect to the weak force. It’s hard to explain simply what that means, but suffice to say left- and right-handed particles are mirror images of one another, and they are affected differently by the weak force.

All other known fermions come in both left- and right-handed versions. This encourages us to think that right-handed neutrinos should also exist in nature.

Being right-handed, these hypothetical neutrinos are blind even to the weak force and are in this sense “sterile”.

But like all known particles, they should still feel gravity. Sterile neutrinos are also predicted by “grand unified theories” that try to combine the three forces into one.

Hunting for sterile neutrinos

If sterile neutrinos exist, how would we find them? One way is to use a process called “neutrino oscillation”, in which the three known kinds of neutrinos can transform into one another.

Experiments measuring these oscillations usually look at either how many of a given kind of neutrino appear in some situation, or how many disappear.

The LSND experiment which originally inspired the sterile neutrino hypothesis was an “appearance” experiment, as are MicroBooNE (which produced the new negative result) and its predecessor MiniBooNE.

They fire a beam of muon-neutrinos over a relatively short distance (between 30 and 500 metres) and measure how many electron-neutrinos are detected at the other end.

At LSND and MiniBooNE, they saw more electron-neutrinos than expected. We know from other experiments that muon-neutrinos cannot oscillate directly into electron-neutrinos over these distances.

But if some of muon-neutrinos turn into very light sterile neutrinos and then into electron-neutrinos, it could explain how those extra electron-neutrinos appeared.

This is the sterile neutrino hypothesis.

What if there are sterile neutrinos?

If experiments did confirm the existence of a light sterile neutrino, there would be a good chance that heavier sterile neutrinos exist as well.

These heavier cousins could answer several major puzzles in particle physics, such as the nature of the “dark matter” that seems to make up most of the Universe, why neutrinos have any mass at all, and why the Universe contains so much more matter than antimatter.

There is but one problem. The light sterile neutrino we started with is a headache for cosmologists.

If it exists, we should be able to observe traces of sterile neutrinos formed just after the Big Bang.

However, no recent surveys of the cosmic microwave background radiation or the distribution of galaxies and light elements in between them show any sign these sterile neutrinos existed.

This could mean the sterile neutrino hypothesis is incorrect. But it is also possible that something else in our understanding of the Universe is amiss.

MicroBooNE and the global picture

MicroBooNE analysed its results in four different ways, and none of them turned up signs of extra electron-neutrinos. This is disappointing for the researchers behind the LSND and MiniBooNE collaborations, and for proponents of the sterile neutrino hypothesis.

It also raises the question of exactly what caused the results observed by the earlier experiments. Further analysis of the MicroBooNE data may help unravel this mystery.

Globally, however, MicroBooNE’s latest result is in line with the findings of two large “disappearance” experiments, MINOS+ and IceCube. Neither of these saw evidence of disappearing muon-neutrinos as the sterile neutrino hypothesis predicts.

Read more:
Spotting astrophysical neutrinos is just the tip of the IceCube

Elsewhere, there have been claims of disappearing neutrinos in nuclear reactor experiments. However, calculating how many neutrinos a nuclear reactor will emit is notoriously difficult, so these claims are best taken with a grain of salt.

Future searches

The MicroBooNE collaboration has so far analysed only half of its collected data.

Some have also questioned whether no excess of electron-neutrinos necessarily means no neutrino oscillations, given the measurement has been made at only one distance. Technically, we need measurements at two distances or more to definitively establish oscillations or otherwise.

These measurements are likely to come in the next few years, when Fermilab switches on two more detectors as part of the Fermilab Short Baseline Neutrino program. The trio of detectors will test for disappearance of muon-neutrinos and appearance of electron-neutrinos using a single beam of source neutrinos.

The prospects for a final verdict on light sterile neutrinos in the next decade are therefore good.

Yvonne Wong receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Michael Schmidt receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. The hunt for ‘sterile neutrinos’: a new experiment has dashed hopes of an undiscovered particle – https://theconversation.com/the-hunt-for-sterile-neutrinos-a-new-experiment-has-dashed-hopes-of-an-undiscovered-particle-170369

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carolyn Holbrook, ARC DECRA Fellow, Deakin University

For a brief moment in 2020, it appeared the COVID pandemic might be the catalyst for a new era in Australian federal relations.

The national cabinet, comprising the prime minister and state and territory leaders, was established in March 2020 in response to the pandemic. Following the first meeting, Prime Minister Scott Morrison praised the forum’s “very strong spirit of unity and co-operation”.

Soon after, in May 2020, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) was abolished. The national cabinet took its place as the nation’s peak intergovernmental forum.

Read more:
The national cabinet’s in and COAG’s out. It’s a fresh chance to put health issues on the agenda, but there are risks

The national cabinet did not just represent a new, more direct line of communication between political leaders. It promised reform of a federal system that is widely agreed to be inefficient and inadequate.

According to the prime minister, the defining mission of the new intergovernmental infrastructure was “to create jobs”. This would be achieved through “a congestion-busting process” of centralising decision-making in the national cabinet and Council of Federal Financial Relations (a forum of treasurers).

While the national cabinet enjoyed early achievements such as the JobKeeper scheme of wage subsidies and increased hospital funding, optimism about a new era of co-operative federalism has waned.

Cracks that appeared last year over hotel quarantine arrangements and border closures have widened in 2021. The Commonwealth has been accused of favouring New South Wales in the provision of financial assistance and vaccines.

The status and power of state and territory leaders have continued to rise through the pandemic, and there has been condemnation of the Commonwealth’s attempt to subject the national cabinet to the same secrecy provisions that apply to the federal cabinet.

When Queensland’s Annastacia Palaszczuk and Western Australia’s Mark McGowan indicated they would set their own targets for reopening in defiance of the national plan, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce quipped Australia had gone

from a federation […] back to little colonies again […] I was waiting for Queensland to get their own air force and Western Australia to get their own navy.

Joyce’s derision of the popular support for state premiers’ action was likely an attempt to deflect attention from adverse polling on Commonwealth leadership during the pandemic. Evidently, many regard a weakening of federal government power over their state as no bad thing.

One might think that emboldened states threaten national cabinet. On the other hand, a national co-ordinating body in which there is (relatively) more parity between participants, inducing measured negotiation that leads to consensual decisions, might provide the circuit breaker to end the bitter partisan deadlocks that have plagued major policy decisions for decades.

As Australia re-opens, can national cabinet serve such purposes and fulfil its early promise as a vehicle for much-needed reform?

The answer to the first question is manifest: though the Australian Constitution is silent on the issue, the nature of our federal system of government, with overlapping jurisdictional responsibilities and complex funding arrangements, means some form of intergovernmental forum is vital.

For the first 91 years after Federation on January 1 1901, this forum was known as the Premiers’ Conference. The first meeting between the prime minister and premiers was held in November 1901.

In the following decades, premiers’ conferences were sometimes held once, twice, even three times a year. Occasionally, two or three years passed with no conferences. By the early 1960s, under the Menzies government, premiers’ conferences had settled into a mostly regular schedule of twice-yearly meetings.

In 1992 the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) superseded the Premiers’ Conference. The recently commissioned Conran Review claimed COAG “was a slow, bottom-up framework for intergovernmental cooperation that too often resulted in lowest common denominator outcomes”. But this seems an overly crude characterisation.

Read more:
COAG: How to turn a ‘parking lot for tough decisions’ into something really useful

As constituted by Paul Keating, COAG enjoyed the administrative support of the prime minister’s department and the credibility that came with the leader’s imprimatur. COAG met with early success in dealing with pressing national issues of native title and competition policy.

Morrison’s criticisms of COAG’s overly bureaucratic nature ignore the fact that it was John Howard’s Coalition government that decentralised COAG’s health expenditure negotiations to ministerial councils.

The proliferation of ministerial councils, with secretariats, was one of the factors that led Conran and others rightly to conclude that COAG had become unwieldy and inefficient.

But little attention was paid to the COAG Reform Council, established in 2010. Initially, under the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments, the council looked set to address such problems and continue promoting expert input into the policy deliberation.

Thereafter, Coalition impatience with “bureaucratic” process diminished that momentum.

National cabinet, initially attentive to health experts and epidemiologists, enjoyed success at the onset of the COVID crisis. It effectively addressed a pressing national issue about which it was able to achieve bipartisan consensus, in much the same way as COAG achieved with native title and competition policy. Since then, national cabinet has looked less exceptional and more like its now-maligned predecessor.

The issue, then, is not whether the national cabinet will survive when Australia re-opens. Rather, the issue is how well it will work.

The “job-making agenda” that Morrison assigns to national cabinet seems a thin foundation on which to build an intergovernmental forum. It smacks of sloganeering and politicking. Jobs are vital, but so are other complex issues of economic, energy, climate and social policy.

Read more:
Will national cabinet change federal-state dynamics?

The efficacy of premiers’ conferences, COAG and national cabinet is not determined by nomenclature or tweaks in process. It lies ultimately in the willingness and capacity of the prime minister to provide dynamic and sensitive leadership, prioritise policy reform over political spin and negotiate outcomes with all levels of government.

The premiers’ moment in the political sun may seem temporary. But when the national government fails to lead on portentous issues, as it continues to do in regard to climate policy, state premiers have shown themselves ready to act.

Australia needs a prime minister who is willing to deal with the range of pressing challenges we face as a nation, and is capable of orchestrating all parties necessary to their solution.

If Scott Morrison proves unwilling or incapable of providing the strong leadership and consensus-building that an effective intergovernmental forum requires, his failure may well see national cabinet fatally diminished. But successors will surely then create another such forum. Will they learn from what has gone before?

Carolyn Holbrook receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

James Walter 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. Will national cabinet survive the COVID ‘opening up’? – https://theconversation.com/will-national-cabinet-survive-the-covid-opening-up-170631

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brock Bastian, Professor, Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne

The term “toxic positivity” has received a good deal of attention lately. Coming off the back of the “positivity movement” we are beginning to recognise while feeling happy is a good thing, overemphasising the importance of a positive attitude can backfire, ironically leading to more unhappiness.

Yes, research shows happier people tend to live longer, be healthier and enjoy more successful lives. And “very happy people” have more of these benefits relative to only averagely happy people. But pursued in certain ways, happiness or positivity can become toxic.

Our research, published in The Journal of Positive Psychology and involving almost 500 people, was inspired by these apparently inconsistent findings – pursuing happiness may be both good and bad for our well-being. We aimed to uncover a key ingredient that turns positivity toxic.

Read more:
The rise of pop-psychology: can it make your life better, or is it all snake-oil?

Expecting the best, feeling worse

Some studies have shown that when people place a high value on their own happiness it can lead to less happiness, especially in contexts where they most expect to feel happy.

This tendency to expect happiness and then to feel disappointed or to blame oneself for not feeling happy enough, has been linked to greater depressive symptoms and deficits in well-being.

As the line to a cartoon by Randy Glasbergen depicting a patient confessing to his psychologist puts it:

I am very, very happy. But I want to be very, very, very happy, and that is why I’m miserable.

However, researchers have also observed when people prioritise behaviours that maximise the likelihood of their future happiness – rather than attempting to directly increase their levels of happiness “in the moment” – they are more likely to experience improvements (rather than deficits) in their levels of well-being.

This may mean engaging in activities that provide a sense of achievement or purpose, such as volunteering time or completing difficult tasks, or constructing daily routines that support well-being.

This work suggests pursuing happiness indirectly, rather than making it the main focus, could turn our search for positivity from toxic to tonic.

Read more:
Coronavirus: tiny moments of pleasure really can help us through this stressful time

Valuing happiness vs. prioritising positivity

We wanted to find out what it was about making happiness a focal goal that backfires.

To gain a better understanding, we measured these two approaches to finding happiness: valuing happiness versus prioritising positivity.

People who valued happiness agreed with statements such as “I am concerned about my happiness even when I feel happy” or “If I don’t feel happy, maybe there is something wrong with me”.

People who prioritised positivity agreed with statements such as “I structure my day to maximise my happiness” or “I look for and nurture my positive emotions”.

We also included a measure of the extent to which people feel uncomfortable with their negative emotional experiences. To do this, we asked for responses to statements like: “I see myself as failing in life when feeling depressed or anxious” or “I like myself less when I feel depressed or anxious”.

People who expected to feel happy (scoring high on valuing happiness), also tended to see their negative emotional states as a sign of failure in life and lacked acceptance of these emotional experiences. This discomfort with negative emotions partly explained why they had lower levels of well-being.

On the other hand, people who pursued happiness indirectly (scoring high on prioritising positivity), did not see their negative emotional states this way. They were more accepting of low feelings and did not see them as a sign they were failing in life.

What this shows is when people believe they need to maintain high levels of positivity or happiness all the time to make their lives worthwhile, or to be valued by others, they react poorly to their negative emotions. They struggle with these feelings or try to avoid them, rather than accept them as a normal part of life.

Pursuing happiness indirectly does not lead to this same reaction. Feeling down or stressed is not inconsistent with finding happiness.

Read more:
Here comes the sun: how the weather affects our mood

What makes positivity toxic?

So, it appears the key ingredient in toxic positivity is not positivity itself, after all. Rather, it is how a person’s attitude to happiness leads them to respond to negative experiences in life.

The prospect of experiencing pain, failure, loss, or disappointment in life is unavoidable. There are times we are going to feel depressed, anxious, fearful, or lonely. This is a fact. What matters is how we respond to these experiences. Do we lean into them and accept them for what they are, or do we try to avoid and escape from them?

Read more:
Why bad moods are good for you: the surprising benefits of sadness

If we are aiming to be happy all the time then we might feel tough times are interrupting our goal. But if we simply put a priority on positivity, we are less concerned by these feelings – we see them as an ingredient in the good life and part of the overall journey.

Rather than always trying to “turn a frown upside down”, we are more willing to sit with our low or uncomfortable emotions and understand that doing so will, in the long run, make us happy.

Learning to respond rather than react to these emotions is a key enabler of our happiness.

Our reaction to discomfort is often to get away and to reduce the pain. This might mean we employ ineffective emotion regulation strategies such as avoiding or suppressing unpleasant feelings.

If we do, we fail to engage with the insights an unpleasant experiences bring. Responding well to these experiences means getting “discomfortable” – being comfortable with our discomfort. Then we can be willing to feel what we feel and get curious about why those feeling are there. Taking this response allows us to increase our understanding, see our choices, and make better decisions.

As the saying goes: “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional”.

Brock Bastian works for the University of Melbourne and consults to organisations on issues of culture, ethics, and wellbeing for Psychological Safety Australia. He receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Ashley Humphrey 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. How to avoid ‘toxic positivity’ and take the less direct route to happiness – https://theconversation.com/how-to-avoid-toxic-positivity-and-take-the-less-direct-route-to-happiness-170260

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Frank Jotzo, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy and Head of Energy, Institute for Climate Energy and Disaster Solutions, Australian National University

Prime Minister Scott Morrison arrives at today’s opening of the United Nations climate summit with a 2050 net-zero emissions target born from a painful political process.

Friendly nations will breathe a sigh of relief, freed from the awkward task of calling out Australia on that basic climate pledge. But the target won’t afford Australia much cover in Glasgow.

This nation still doesn’t have a 2030 emissions-reduction target that passes international muster. Nor does it have policies to achieve greater near-term emissions cuts, or a strategy for the economic and social transition.

The paucity of process around Australia’s climate policy must end. We need a proper long-term emissions strategy – one that’s transparent, inclusive and informed by the best available knowledge.

Does the net-zero target matter?

Net-zero targets or pledges have now been proclaimed by almost all developed countries and many industrialising countries – including China, Russia and Saudia Arabia, which all came in before Australia.

Targets for the middle of the century can be cynically regarded as an attempt to kick the can down the road. But they’re important signposts – an affirmation of commitment to the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement.

And importantly, a long-term commitment implies the need for action in the meantime.

Net-zero targets are likely to be increasingly influential in future policy-making. And they matter for investment decisions.

In Australia, the net-zero target could serve yet another function. The fact it was adopted by a conservative government previously opposed to substantial climate action could help end the political “climate wars” which have raged in Australia since 2009.

Net-zero will likely be a durable bipartisan cornerstone – giving the political contest a chance to move beyond whether to do it, to how to do it.

Read more:
Reaching net zero is every minister’s problem. Here’s how they can make better decisions

What about the 2030 target?

That said, mid-century net-zero targets will be mostly taken for granted at Glasgow. High-level political talks will be focused on stronger emissions targets for 2030 – and almost all developed countries have 2030 targets far more ambitious than Australia’s.

Australia will aim for a 26-28% emissions reduction by 2030, based on 2005 levels. The key point of comparison is the United States, which has committed to a 50-52% reduction in the same time period.

Other important reference points include the United Kingdom and European Union, which respectively aim for emissions reductions of 68% and 55% on 1990 levels. Japan has pledged to cut emissions by 46% based on 2013 levels.

Australia’s 2030 ambition, put forward at the Paris climate talks in 2015, was relatively weak even back then. Six years on, it’s not even in the ballpark of what’s acceptable internationally. And Australia will be just about alone among developed countries in not having updated its target since Paris.

The majority of the 26% target has already been fulfilled, through reductions in emissions from land-use change and forestry, which occurred mostly during 2005 to 2012. In fact, the latest official figures project Australia’s emissions will decline by 30-38% by 2030, without new policy efforts beyond technology support.

The government’s tactic is to argue that Australia over-achieves on its targets. But the purpose of setting targets is to define an ambition, and let that ambition drive policy action.

Other nations will rightly argue the projections show Australia should take on a target far more ambitious than 38%, let alone the current 26-28%.

The existing target is also inadequate to guide the transition to a low carbon economy. The Business Council of Australia is now calling for a 46-50% emissions reduction by 2030.

We need a national plan

The document accompanying the federal government’s net-zero announcement last week was heavy on politics and light on analysis. The government called it a “plan”, but in reality it was little more than a statement of aspiration.

First, it assumes technological innovation will take Australia most of the way to net-zero. But much of the technology we need already exists. This includes but is not limited to sectors such as:

• electricity (renewable energy, energy storage and decentralised power supply)
• transport (electric vehicles, clean hydrogen in heavy transport)
• industry (electricity for heat and processes, hydrogen for specific uses)
• agriculture (lower-carbon practices and products).

After many years of very little climate policy, even a moderate policy effort could harvest much low-hanging fruit.

Policies can be tailored to specific applications, including market and regulatory reform, R&D support, and broad-based and specific incentives and regulations. They can also help with the economic transition in particular regions and industries.

A carbon price is a key part of a sensible policy mix. Carbon pricing is the most cost-effective mechanism to shift to low-emissions production. Australia’s political class must overcome its hang-ups about carbon pricing. Over 20% of global emissions are now subject to emissions trading or a carbon tax, and for good reason.

Read more:
Scott Morrison’s deal with the Nationals must not ignore land stewardship – an attractive, low-hanging fruit

Where are the costs?

But there’s no escaping the fact Australia’s fossil fuel industries will bear most of the economic cost of a global shift to net-zero, as demand for fossil fuels declines and eventually dries up. This is out of the government’s hands.

Governments can help, though – not by propping up old industries, but by investing in infrastructure and economic diversification, worker retraining and social programs.

And there’s a huge upside to the transition. Australia’s comparative advantage in renewable energy means such industries could become very large, if we’re smart about it.

A proper national conversation

Quite inexplicably, the modelling underpinning the government’s net-zero plan has not been released. It’s but one small illustration of the paucity of process around climate policy in Australia.

Governments dropping glossy brochures brimming with political messaging, produced behind closed doors, is not the way to deal with a complex long term national issue.

Australia needs a proper long-term emissions strategy that fully maps out how to position the nation for success in a low-carbon world. It should be developed openly, draw from the best available knowledge and bring major stakeholders to the table.

Out of that, a shared understanding can be forged between industry, federal and state governments, the unions, civil society and communities. Universities can bring research and analysis to the table.

Many other countries have prepared long-term emissions strategies of this kind, often led by independent statutory agencies like Australia’s Climate Change Authority.

Perhaps our prime minister will return from Glasgow with a few good ideas for how to start a real conversation.

Read more:
Australia’s net-zero plan fails to tackle our biggest contribution to climate change: fossil fuel exports

Frank Jotzo leads and has led research projects funded by a variety of funders. None present a conflict of interest on this topic.

– ref. Scott Morrison attends pivotal global climate talks today, bringing a weak plan that leaves Australia exposed – https://theconversation.com/scott-morrison-attends-pivotal-global-climate-talks-today-bringing-a-weak-plan-that-leaves-australia-exposed-170842

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melanie Pill, PhD candidate, Australian National University

The make-or-break United Nations climate talks in Glasgow have begun. Much attention so far has rightly focused on the emissions reduction ambition each nation is taking to the negotiations. But another key goal of the talks is to dramatically scale up so-called “climate finance” for developing nations.

Climate finance is money paid by wealthy countries (which are responsible for most of the historic emissions) to developing countries to help them pay for emissions reduction measures and adaptation. Climate finance should be in addition to standard development aid.

At the 2009 Copenhagen climate talks, wealthy nations promised US$100 billion a year in climate finance to developing nations by 2020. But that goal has not been met.

A new climate finance plan, developed by Germany and Canada, has been proposed. Reports suggest it will propose meeting the US$100 billion annual target by taking an average of the finance provided from 2020 to 2025, instead of in single years.

The renewed focus on the plan is welcome. But it must be robust enough to tackle the mammoth task ahead, not just an exercise in shuffling figures. Time is running out – if developing nations can’t afford to reduce emissions, we won’t hit global climate goals and everyone will suffer.

Read more:
Glasgow showdown: Pacific Islands demand global leaders bring action, not excuses, to UN summit

Failing to commit enough climate finance puts us all at risk

At COP26, intense pressure will be applied to developed countries to provide adequate climate finance.

The promised US$100 billion a year is not nearly enough. The IPCC estimates US$2.4 trillion is needed annually for the energy sector alone until 2035 to limit global warming below 1.5℃ to prevent catastrophic consequences.

The cost for inaction is high and livelihoods are at stake. Crop failures, water shortages, and poor health outcomes due to pollution in major cities are all on the cards.

Wealthy nations such as Australia are also affected by such issues – but they often have a far greater capacity to prepare and respond than developing nations.

Australia’s pledges lag behind others

Australia’s current pledge for climate finance under the Paris agreement is A$300 million a year by 2025. So far, there are no signs this will change.

Compared to many countries, Australia is lagging. Even New Zealand, with its much smaller economy, has increased its pledge to NZ$1.3 billion over four years 2025.

The European Union is pledging an additional €4.7 billion until 2027 and the US is doubling its commitment to over US$11 billion annually by 2024.

The EU remains a world leader in climate action and pledges commitments fully in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement. Its impressive set of actions includes:

• the “Green Deal” as a COVID recovery package

• the adoption of a European Climate law

• further reduced greenhouse gas emissions from 40% to at least 55% by 2030

• carbon neutrality by 2050

• a reformed emission trading scheme

• a carbon border adjustment mechanism.

Other sticking points

COP26 will also likely see “Article 6” of the Paris Agreement come into effect, and produce more detail on how this would work in practice.

This article establishes a market mechanism which would encourage emission reductions by means of carbon trading. It could mean companies have to buy allowances to continue emitting CO₂.

This carbon trading will provide a funding stream for climate finance. In an ideal world, it generates climate cash that poor countries can use to reduce emissions and adapt.

Another topic expected to be fiercely negotiated at COP26 is the so-called “third pillar” of climate change action: loss and damage caused by human-induced climate change.

Loss and damage can be, for example, slow onset events such as sea level rise or prolonged droughts. It could be extreme weather events such as floods and cyclones.

Other impacts include economic damage to livelihoods and personal “non-economic losses” such as cultural heritage or loss of loved ones. Loss and damage goes beyond what we consider “normal weather”.

Increased human migration and displacement also fall under “loss and damage” if caused by climate change impacts. Between 2008 and 2014 and average of 22.5 million people were displaced because of extreme weather and climate-related disasters. This figure does not include migration due to sea level rise, desertification or environmental degradation.

Loss and damage has been a highly sensitive topic in international negotiations. Wealthy countries fear being made liable and opening themselves up to compensation claims from poorer countries due to climate inaction, human rights violations because of forced migration or other issues related to climate injustices.

After several previous attempts to include loss and damage in convention text, it was finally recognised under Article 8 in the Paris Agreement in 2015.

However, the document’s fine print ensured Article 8 does not provide any basis for liability or compensation. Finance to address loss and damage was also not identified.

The Alliance of Small Island Developing States, the Least Developed Countries and the Africa Group make up over half the world’s nations and currently take the brunt of climate damage. These groups have banded together and are expected to negotiate hard on loss and damage at COP26.

Read more:
If governments fail to act, can the courts save our planet?

Failing on climate finance means failing the planet

The risk of legal consequences from climate inaction is increasing. Court cases against fossil fuel companies are on the rise.

Governments are no longer immune either. In 2015, an environmental group called the Urgenda Foundation joined with 900 citizens to sue the Dutch government for not doing enough to prevent climate change.

The law suit was successful. The court found the Dutch government’s commitment to reduce greenhhouse gas emissions was insufficient.

In the US, 21 young Americans recently sued the government for violating their constitutional rights by exacerbating climate change. While unsuccessful, the Biden administration agreed to symbolic settlement talks.

And only last month, Vanuatu asked the International Court of Justice to weigh in on what rights current and future generations may have to be protected from climate change.

If developing countries do not receive financial assistance to reduce emissions, it is unlikely we will meet the commitment of the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5℃.

Clearly, helping developing nations pay for the expensive work of emissions reduction and adaptation benefits everyone on the planet.

Read more:
Climate wars, carbon taxes and toppled leaders: the 30-year history of Australia’s climate response, in brief

Melanie Pill 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. Glasgow COP26: climate finance pledges from rich nations are inadequate and time is running out – https://theconversation.com/glasgow-cop26-climate-finance-pledges-from-rich-nations-are-inadequate-and-time-is-running-out-169686

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Ha, Associate, Grattan Institute

The federal government has finally committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 – a target Prime Minister Scott Morrison will take to this week’s crucial United Nations climate summit in Glasgow.

Though unlegislated, the target represents a rare moment of bipartisanship in Australia’s climate wars, and brings the federal government into line with the states’ and territories’ own net-zero targets.

Yet the target is much closer to a ceasefire than a peace treaty. Without changes to how climate policy gets done in Australia, there will be many more skirmishes about how we should get to net zero, and how much carbon we emit along the way.

Australia can’t afford further delay: governments need to act now to avoiding locking in emissions, or there will be little chance of reaching net zero by 2050.

Read more:
View from The Hill: Morrison’s net-zero plan is built more on politics than detailed policy

Government-as-usual won’t cut it

Australian governments typically have a single minister for climate change or emissions reduction, who often has responsibility for the energy or environment portfolios too. But to reach net zero will take policies that span energy, industry, transport, agriculture, land use, even trade. Climate change is a whole-of-government issue. It’s every minister’s problem.

Now all governments are committed to net zero by 2050 or earlier, they need to ensure their policies are consistent with this target. Every government decision on planning, infrastructure, resource extraction, forests, national parks, and land management potentially locks in future emissions.

At a minimum, governments should stop subsidising further expansion of fossil fuel production – taxpayers should not be on the hook for industry handouts such as the A$217 million in federal funding for gas industry road upgrades in the Northern Territory or the Queensland government’s royalty holiday for the proposed Carmichael coal mine.

And governments should not weaken existing land-clearing laws, given the contribution avoided land-clearing is expected to make to future emissions reductions.

Climate policy should also be harmonised across tiers of government. Currently, there is a mess of divergent, sometimes contradictory policies. In the electricity sector, for example, the federal and state governments have repeatedly failed to implement any national emissions policy.

The vacuum has been filled by various renewable energy targets, pledges, electricity infrastructure roadmaps, deals with coal-fired power stations, contracts with wind and solar generators, and even the federal government deciding to build its own gas-fired generator.

Federal and state energy ministers used to meet and discuss reforms through the COAG Energy Council. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, the council was replaced by the clumsily-titled Energy National Cabinet Reform Committee.

The committee has curtailed opportunities for future coordination because of confidentiality requirements and a limited remit.

State and federal governments should re-establish the co-operative co-ordination structures formerly dealt with through the energy council, and create similar structures for climate policy and programs.

Climate change and the global transition to net zero will batter government revenues and create greater calls for government spending. All governments need to start planning how to replace the revenue they current derive from fossil fuels.

Read more:
Australia’s stumbling, last-minute dash for climate respectability doesn’t negate a decade of abject failure

Better information is key

Up to this point, Australia has asked itself: what progress are we making in decarbonising the economy? What emissions target should we therefore set? And what is the emissions budget to meet this target?

Now that we’re agreed on net zero, the order of these questions need to be reversed. Our carbon budget should be set with respect to Australia’s fair share of contributing to the global net-zero goal.

Our near-term target should be set with respect to staying within this budget. And then policies should be set to achieve this target, and adjusted if they are failing.

Setting a carbon budget also allows businesses to reach their own conclusions about how fast they might be required to reduce or offset emissions in the future. Once we have a carbon budget, the annual emissions projections become critical information about the future direction of the economy. They need to be developed, released, and treated with the same seriousness and commitment to rigour and independence as other economic data.

An emissions budget will determine the direction of economic policy for decades, so it requires bipartisan support. Evaluating policy effectiveness can be subject to politicisation, because there is always an incentive for governments to find fault with their predecessor’s policies, and seek praise for their own.

Luckily, as we note in our latest Grattan Institute report, Australia already has an institution tailor-made to provide independent, rigorous advice on issues like carbon budgets, emissions projections, and policy reviews. The Climate Change Authority, reinvigorated, could do all this, and could also advise governments on interim targets to keep Australia on the pathway to net zero.

Adopting the target is only the first step

Investing in new technology is one part of the puzzle, but these technologies won’t deliver emissions reductions until the 2030s or 2040s – and many of them may turn out to be dead-ends or failures.

There’s plenty governments could do now, through market-based policy approaches and technologies that already exist, to push emissions down.

Three of our suggestions are vehicle fuel emissions ceilings, a safeguard mechanism with real teeth, and a robust high-integrity offset market for the residual emissions that can’t be avoided.

It’s time to start.

Read more:
The Morrison government is set to finally announce a 2050 net-zero commitment. Here’s a ‘to do’ list for each sector

Grattan Institute began with contributions to its endowment of $15 million from each of the Federal and Victorian Governments, $4 million from BHP Billiton, and $1 million from NAB. In order to safeguard its independence, Grattan Institute’s board controls this endowment. The funds are invested and contribute to funding Grattan Institute’s activities. Grattan Institute also receives funding from corporates, foundations, and individuals to support its general activities as disclosed on its website.

Alison Reeve was previously general manager of project delivery at the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. She led development of Australia’s National Hydrogen Strategy in 2019, as well as Commonwealth policy for offshore wind, energy innovation, energy efficiency, and structural adjustment.

– ref. Reaching net zero is every minister’s problem. Here’s how they can make better decisions – https://theconversation.com/reaching-net-zero-is-every-ministers-problem-heres-how-they-can-make-better-decisions-170633

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fleur Sharafizad, Lecturer in Management, Edith Cowan University

Female academics continue to be underrepresented in senior academic positions in Australia and internationally. Most research has focused on the low number of women professors at universities. But the largest drop-off in the number of female academics is between two mid-level positions: lecturer and senior lecturer.

We set out to find why this occurs, using a new method to explore the career journeys of male and female academics. We found they continue to experience different careers: men commonly described a clear run at their career goals, while many women found themselves in a holding pattern as a result of having to juggle other responsibilities.

Read more:
No change at the top for university leaders as men outnumber women 3 to 1

Most female lecturers in our study were ambitious, but unable to fully commit to their careers. The main reasons for this included their avoidance of work-life conflict, undertaking service activities and a lack of support from colleagues.

Our research shows gender equity efforts need to target this holding pattern for women to make career progress.

COVID-19 is expected to further set back the careers of female academics. Rather than writing papers, they are likely to be at home looking after children. Journal editors have already noticed fewer submissions from female academics.

Read more:
How COVID is widening the academic gender divide

Exploring the holding pattern

To explore the careers of female academics we created a new method called Draw, Write, Reflect (DWR). We asked 18 male and 29 female academics at one university to draw or write their career journeys, since not all knowledge can be expressed in words. Our participants confirmed drawing made it easier to express their experiences and relay emotions.

Next, we asked respondents to reflect on their drawing. We also interviewed nine senior stakeholders including executive leaders, HR managers and gender equity committee members.

Male academics had a clear career focus and many described their career journeys as “lucky” or “privileged” and with “tailwinds”.

One example of a drawing by a male academic is shown below. He drew a snakes and ladders game to represent his “lucky” career, with ladders well outnumbering snakes on his game board.

Another male academic wrote “tailwinds” on his drawing as shown below.

Juggling competing responsibilities

Female academics were much more likely to include their families in their career drawings, highlighting the interrelatedness of work and family. Those with children were all primary carers. Their academic work had one set of requirements, their family another and both required their attention, often at the same time.

This situation resulted in a constant struggle and negotiation, as the drawing below shows.

Connectedness was also clear in the drawing below created by another female academic.

To maintain a level of balance – “to keep my head above water” as one put it – most female academics chose not to progress their careers. They could not see themselves successfully managing their domestic tasks in a senior lecturer role. One female lecturer said:

“Half the time I feel like I am sinking, so for now I am happy just to keep doing the best I can in my job and then retire at the age of 65.”

Seven of the eight female lecturers reported putting their career aspirations on hold.

Read more:
Forget the ideal worker myth. Unis need to become more inclusive for all women (men will benefit too)

Doing the ‘academic housework’

Another reason for the holding pattern was female academics undertaking more service activities. Coined “academic housework”, these activities are associated with caring and include assisting students, administration of teaching, or organising professional academic activities. Generally, these activities are not considered for career progression.

This situation was confirmed by a member of the executive leadership team who said some women:

[…] have literally taken on a lot of things that you can tell no one else wants to do – academic housework.

Similarly, a female academic reported male colleagues are:

[…] focusing on the things that matter for promotion, not on the things that matter for the team.

Lacking support from colleagues

Some junior female academics did not support ambitious senior female colleagues. They referred to them as “alpha women”, “men dressed in women’s clothing” or “women acting like men”. This situation was confirmed by senior female academics who reported backlash from other women for being ambitious. One said:

“I am ambitious and if this was a man sitting here there would be a different connotation of ‘Wow, you’ve done well!’, but for a woman it is like, ‘Well, how are your children? And your family and everything else?’ So, there is an issue.”

Another female academic reported “thinking like a man” had helped her have a very successful career. She reported that this requires not thinking about family, putting yourself first and “being selfish”.

Fear of backlash may stop some women, however, from pursuing career progression.

Read more:
Time to gender parity has blown out to 135 years. Here’s what women can do to close the gap

What can universities do?

Despite their career aspirations, organisational and personal reasons resulted in women not pursuing promotion to senior lecturer and beyond. Our study identified a clear holding pattern among female lecturers that inhibited their progression to the next level.

While male academics reported focused career trajectories, women reported difficulty managing many work and life responsibilities in pursuing their careers.

Universities can help female lecturers break the holding pattern cycle and assist their career progression. They can start by developing guidance in better negotiating academic housework and service tasks and by changing the narrative and culture around career ambition for women at universities. This will be a win-win for female academics and universities.

Kerry Brown receives funding from the Australian government through several Cooperative Research Centres.

u.jogulu@ecu.edu.au receives funding from Australian Research Council, AMA (WA), DWER.

Fleur Sharafizad and Maryam Omari 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’s academic careers are in a ‘holding pattern’ while men enjoy a ‘tailwind’ – https://theconversation.com/womens-academic-careers-are-in-a-holding-pattern-while-men-enjoy-a-tailwind-168840

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joanna Mendelssohn, Principal Fellow (Hon), Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne

Many years ago my daily pleasure was to walk past a Margel Hinder masterpiece, the Civic Park Fountain in Newcastle. With water spraying in rhythmic patterns, it would bring a smile to my face for its beauty, the way the streams caught the light.

Fountains can’t be moved for an exhibition, of course, but Hinder’s Civic Park Fountain and her sadly decommissioned Northpoint Fountain of 1975 have been digitally simulated by Andrew Yip for Margel Hinder: Modern in Motion, a joint project of Heide Museum of Modern Art and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Throughout the 1960s and 70s Hinder was commissioned to create sculptures for Australia’s public places, including the Reserve Bank in Sydney, Woden Town Square in Canberra and the Telecommunications Building in Adelaide. So her work has hardly been hidden from the public gaze.

But for many years the dominant book on Australian art was Bernard Smith’s Australian Painting. As a result, artists in other media are less well known than they deserve to be.

The Art Gallery of New South Wales began collecting her work in 1949. Nevertheless the range of the sculptures in the current exhibition is still a surprise. With mostly small works, this is sculpture at its most intimate – welcoming the viewer into a world where asymmetrical form rules.

American by birth

Margel Ina Harris was born in New York, brought up in Buffalo, and lived in Boston with a family that encouraged creativity.

In 1929, at the age of 23, she went to a summer school in upstate New York to work with the modernist artist Emil Bisttram. There she met young Australian artist and designer Frank Hinder. They married in 1930 and daughter Enid was born the following year.

In 1933, at the depths of the Great Depression, the Hinders travelled to New Mexico, again to work with Bisstram. Margel took nourishment from the dry sculptural Mesa landscapes of Taos – and observed the rhythms and of the Pueblo women as they went about their daily business. Her approach to form began to change from modelling to carving.

Read more:
Joy Hester – a body of work, remembered at last

On the family’s subsequent slow sea voyage from the US to Sydney, she carved her first wooden relief sculpture, Taos Women. After arriving in Sydney she carved Pueblo Indian, a simplified solid form emerging from the wood.

Sydney’s art establishment was decidedly conservative. Nevertheless the Hinders soon befriended a small group of modernist painters and thinkers including Grace Crowley, Ralph Balson, Eleonore Lange and Rah Fizelle.

In Gerald Lewers, Margel found a fellow sculptor who understood her exploration of wood as form. She later wrote that Gerald Lewers “was the most developed of any sculptors here in Sydney”.

In 1939 she made Mother and Child, a work less about the subject and more about honouring the material from which it is made.

Light enters

Her methods changed again during and after the second world war. The Hinders moved to Canberra where Frank worked on camouflage projects for the Department of Home Security and Margel made small wooden models.

After the war they returned to Gordon in Sydney and a house that backed onto the bush. There birds would come to feed in the elaborate sculpture Frank made for them. Margel worked in her studio, surrounded by the light and sounds of the bush.

Her work became more constructive. And a new element entered — light. She sometimes used hand-coloured Perspex to get particular effects.

She shaped and soldered wire to cast shadows. Revolving Random Dots (1953) spins using a swivel mechanism, while movement in other constructions is aided by a carefully placed fan.

Many of her small sculptures were first exhibited at the NSW Contemporary Art Society, the only ready exhibition venue for modernist art.

At the same time, Hinder was entering public sculpture competitions. Most of these were local events, associated with the post-war building boom. But in 1953 she was awarded third prize out of 3502 entries in an international competition for a memorial to the Unknown Political Prisoner. Her entry shows an abstract embrace of an ethereal shape. Along with work by the other finalists, her maquette was exhibited at the Tate in London.

Read more:
Friday essay: the Melbourne bookshop that ignited Australian modernism

Going big

Hinder’s growing reputation led to her first public commission for a large sculpture in Sydney’s newly built Western Assurance Company Building.

The sculptures made for public spaces are bolder, more assertive than her smaller private sculptures. This is art made to withstand the elements but also bold statements disrupting the straight lines of corporate architecture.

The fate of the Western Assurance work is a reminder that sculptors face an extra peril in preserving their art. In the 1980s the building and the sculpture were demolished. Fortunately a passer-by alerted the Hinders who were able to salvage the pieces. The work was eventually reassembled at the University of Technology where it remains on permanent view.

Hinder was determined never to be defined by her gender or as a wife and mother. This was not only evident in her own single-minded pursuit of art, but in her frequent advice to young women that they must persist in their careers and not abandon art after having children. Talent, she believed, should not be wasted.

In the 1950s and 60s there was considerable cultural pressure on Australian women to limit themselves to domesticity. Hinder’s remarkable career was supported at every step by Frank, who sometimes did the heavy lifting (literally) in the creation of her larger works.

Their closeness might be one reason why previous survey exhibitions at Newcastle, Bathurst and the Art Gallery of NSW presented their work together. Now it is time for her art to stand alone.

Margel Hinder: Modern in Motion is at Heide Museum of Modern Art until 6 February 2022.

Joanna Mendelssohn has received funding from the Australian Research Council

– ref. Larger than life – sculptor Margel Hinder carved light and form and left a legacy – https://theconversation.com/larger-than-life-sculptor-margel-hinder-carved-light-and-form-and-left-a-legacy-165467

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lorna Piatti-Farnell, Professor of Popular Culture, Auckland University of Technology

In the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, when so many lives have been lost to the virus, celebrating a “day of the dead” might seem strange, even tactless. But despite the morbid associations of its name, the Day of the Dead is actually a time to be reminded of the beauty of life, rather than just the inevitability of death.

Part of an important season for most Christians that begins at the end of October, the day sits within the celebration of Allhallowtide. This three-day period comprises All Hallows’ Eve on October 31, All Saints’ Day on November 1, and All Souls’ Day on November 2.

The last one is particularly important for Catholics and is an official holiday in their ecclesiastic calendar. Also known as the Commemoration of the Dearly Departed and the Day of the Dead, All Souls’ Day is generally a day of remembrance, when prayers are said for the souls of those who have passed on.

Around the world, All Souls often involves visiting cemeteries where loved ones are buried, and tending to their graves. Attending a mass or church service, praying and eating particular foods are all part of these observations.

In Italy, for instance, one can eat the pan dei morti – literally, bread of the dead – a kind of chocolate biscuit filled with nuts. The biscuit represents the soil, and the nuts represent the bones of the departed. In a number of cultures, food is left out as an offering for the dead as a way of commemorating their lives.

Día de Muertos

While it is first and foremost a religious holiday, All Souls’ Day/The Day of the Dead has, as often happens, been incorporated into secular popular culture.

Most obviously, we see Day of the Dead motifs borrowed for secular Halloween celebrations – even if the two days within Allhallowtide have very different origins, iconographies and principles at their core.

Increasingly, though, it is the Mexican incarnation of the Day of the Dead that has taken hold of the popular imagination. Día de Muertos takes on special tones in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America, as well as within Latino communities around the world.

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Observed over the first two days of November, Día de Muertos is a time of both remembrance and celebration. But where All Souls can be a sombre occasion in other places, in Mexico it is a bright and colourful holiday, focused on celebrating the lives of those who have come before.

While Día de Muertos is certainly situated within Christian belief, it also mingles culturally and conceptually with Indigenous beliefs dating back before the Spanish invasion, where the celebration of “death as part of life” was central to religious systems.

The flower skull

An important part of Día de Muertos – which it shares with celebrations in other countries – is the belief that the dearly departed can return and visit the living during this time. Big family feasts and musical performances are held to welcome the spirits.

Altars known as ofrendas are set up for the dead, where their pictures are commonly displayed. You sometimes see the practice represented in popular culture, most recently in the 2017 animated film Coco.

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The iconic “flower skull” is perhaps the most recognisable motif of Día de Muertos. You will find it printed on postcards, banners and clothing. It’s also common to see people dressed as “flower skeletons”, and to consume “sugar skull” confectionery.

The flower skull has been widely appropriated by popular culture around the world, even in countries geographically and culturally distant from Mexico. This undoubtedly owes a lot to the enduring popularity of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), who regularly incorporated the flower skull in her paintings exploring the duality of life and death.

We’ll meet again

While it may seem at odds with the grim reality of the pandemic, the deeper meaning of the Day of the Dead is felt in many communities across many countries. For those who believe and celebrate All Souls in a religious way, the holiday can be a balm, as families pray and remember their dead.

In its more celebratory manifestations, the Day of the Dead rests on the belief that our loved ones who have gone are still always with us – and that we will see them once again when the time comes.

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While it can’t erase the grief and pain of losing loved ones, a recurring commemoration such as the Day of the Dead also emphasises the importance of celebrating life. This can certainly be a comfort for those who believe, and should be respected as something spiritually important in their lives.

And in its most colourful incarnation as the Mexican-inspired Día de Muertos, the day celebrates the profound idea that love, memory and family connections live on, even in the face of death.

Lorna Piatti-Farnell 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. Memory lives on: celebrating the Day of the Dead in the pandemic age – https://theconversation.com/memory-lives-on-celebrating-the-day-of-the-dead-in-the-pandemic-age-169087

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Liz Giuffre, Senior Lecturer in Communication, University of Technology Sydney

Bert Newton has died at 83.

An icon of Australian broadcasting, he is remembered as a master performer and comedian, with successful roles on radio, television and the theatre. He is survived by his wife Patti, children Matthew and Lauren, and grandchildren.

Bert Newton’s achievements, particularly relating to Australian television, are remarkable. As an Order of Australia and Member of the British Empire holder for his services, he is also a Logie Hall of Fame inductee, a four-time Gold Logie winner and 20-time host of the ceremony. It has often been said the Logies should be renamed the “Berts” in his honour.

Born July 23 1938, the Melbourne boy started his broadcast career as part of a children’s program, Peter’s Pals, on radio station 3XY while still in his early teens. As leading Australian media historian Bridget Griffen-Foley explained in her book Changing Stations, “Newton read newspapers aloud in his bedroom to overcome a childish lisp, and took his scripts to school”.

Soon, he would become a master radio, then television broadcaster. Relationships formed with Sir Frank Packer and Graham Kennedy during the 1950s set him up for renown in the best possible way.

Depending on your age and media preference, Newton was either your late night or early morning companion. First, late-night viewers knew him as Graham Kennedy’s partner on In Melbourne Tonight (1957-1970) – apparently the “straight man” to Kennedy’s bluster, but with comedic skills just as sharp.

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Later, early morning viewers knew him as the host of Good Morning Australia (1992- 2005) – an otherwise “graveyard” broadcasting shift between breakfast and lunch into which Newton somehow managed to inject remarkable life. There were the standard interviews and infomercials, but those paying closer attention were rewarded with nuance and incredible cheeky comedy.

Later in life, Bert appeared on stage in musicals, from Beauty and the Beast to The Wizard of Oz, and notably as the infamous Narrator in The Rocky Horror Picture Show in 2015.

A perfect place for the host who has it “all together”, it was a role that also let him play, too. Although in his late 70s at the time, he told the Sydney Morning Herald he saw the Narrator as a “the calming influence” amid some otherwise “wild scenes”.

A complicated man

Rumours about Newton’s addiction to gambling have been circulated for many years, and domestic abuse allegations against his son Matthew are on the public record.

A product of his times, some of his comedy has not aged well, either. Some sketches relating to race and gender are particularly problematic for contemporary viewers who now, rightly, expect more.

But as Denise Scott tweeted this morning, Bert’s devotion to comedy and the comedy community knew no bounds or personal ego, recalling how when her friend and colleague, iconic comedian Lynda Gibson was dying of cancer, Bert attended and “paid homage by removing his ‘rumoured’ toupee & revealing his total baldness.”

This is a sentiment also shared by Dan Illic, saying Newton’s “immense talents were only amplified by his generosity of spirit and kindness to even the smallest names in showbiz.”

A good ending

I’ve been asked three times over the past few years to draft obituaries for Bert Newton, “just in case”. Each time, I’ve said “no” – the reason has always been timing. While I know lots of media outlets have a bank of obits ready to go (famously, The Queen’s “Operation London Bridge” strategy has been updated periodically for decades and a variety of new media forms), I believe you should always let a comedian choose their own timing.

In his 1977 autobiography, Bert!, Newton wrote about his own struggle with finding a satisfying conclusion:

The hope of every good producer is to come up not only with a good show or a good movie but also to have a good ending.

Only a few days ago, his beloved wife, Patti Newton, posted a picture of him in a hospital bed but beaming, surrounded by his family, with the caption “This is what happiness is”. A good ending, indeed.

Liz Giuffre 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. A comedian always in search of ‘a good ending’, Bert Newton has died at 83 – https://theconversation.com/a-comedian-always-in-search-of-a-good-ending-bert-newton-has-died-at-83-170933