WAS ROUSSEAU RIGHT?

An examination of the Discourse on Inequality

ON FIRST SEEING AYERS ROCK:

An imaginitive puzzle

CLIMATE DENIAL:

What is going on with organised opposition to climate action?

A Review

of

IAN PLIMER's

Heaven &

Earth

A COUPLE OF DEGREES:

Why is a little bit of warming a big deal?

CAPITALISM

&

THE CLIMATE

TONY ABBOTT's

short speech

at the G20

November, 2014

EASTER

ISLAND:

An ecological history lesson

THE PARIS AGREEMENT:

What does it mean?

PARIS:

A second look.

What does it really mean?

JIM HANSEN's

2013 Paper:

What is he

telling us?

Forgotten People:

Trump the Populist

TRUMP

&

The Climate Problem

DEMOCRACY

and

The Climate Problem

UTOPIA:

Reflections on an Aboriginal Community in the Northern Territory

What are the conditions of life in small remote communities in the Territory? How did they come about? Can they remain as they are indefinitely? No answers - only suggestions.

In 1754 Rousseau wrote a treatise about human origins, our social nature, and the corruption of civilized life. His views became famous - but did he know what he was talking about?

For any first time visitor, Uluru is a surprise. These are a few thoughts on why it is so moving and interesting.

Understanding climate denial is essential. We can't possibly figure out how to manage this immense problem without knowing why our collective response has been so tardy.

A very competent and senior scientist writes a book full of foolish stuff, believing that, by so doing he has refuted an entire well-founded research program. How was this possible?

Everyone not trained in science must have wondered how it can be that a couple of degrees of warming can be enough to seriously disrupt human life. This is an attempt to explain.

Is there something about the system of capitalism that is preventing us responding to the threatening climate problem?

When the G20 leaders met in Brisbane at the end of 2014, prime minister Abbott made a little speech which I thought very revealing - a small window onto his 'conservative' prejudices.

Is it the case that the ecological and human history of this small and very remote Pacific island can tell us something important about our global predicament?

Paris was quite an achievement: the first decent global agreement on a climate response. I wrote this assessment in the month it was signed, trying to undertsand what had just happened.

After a while, and thinking it over, I had some second thoughts about Paris, which are recorded here. My concern was that the agreement might be a sign of some limit on what is possible.

In December 2013 Jim Hansen published a much anticipated paper explaining what he believes recent evidence means for our understanding of the climate problem.

Trump's inaugural address in January 2017 was most unusual, and to me, it appeared to give a glimpse into the authoritarian mind of this frightening politician.

What will Trump mean for global management of the climate problem? Here, I reflect on this, and on the strange perversity of political 'conservatives' and their aversion to the 'environment'.

On the face of it, you might think a people free to make decisions about their own best interest would quickly respond to the climate problem - but we haven't. So what's going on?

ECOLOGY

&

CLIMATE POLITICS

Ecology is a revolution in thought. I argue here that it is so disturbing that we haven't come close to incorporating its many implications; and this might be a reason for climate confusion.

CONSERVATISM

What is it?

How does it work?

Politics was originally about the art of cooperation, but we now practice a politics of war. Who can say, though, exactly what the opponents actually stand for; what motivates them?

EARTH'S FEVER

Towards a diagnosis of the climate problem

Surface warming is a symptom of something fundamental about conditions on Earth that has changed recently - the balance between the quantity of energy the planet takes in, and gives out.