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Environment

  • Levelling with China
    Linda Jaivin | The Monthly Essays | August 2008 | Environment | Foreign Affairs

    It was my first visit to Beijing, some 28 years ago. Chairman Mao had died in 1976; two years later, the new Communist leadership under Deng Xiaoping declared itself in favour of economic reform and modernisation, an end to ideological extremism, and an open door to Western...

  • Comment
    Guy Pearse | The Nation Reviewed | July 2008 | Environment | Politics

    Kevin Rudd wasn't the only one licking his lips on election night last year. For millions of Australians, an end to John Howard's lamentable response to climate change couldn't come soon enough. Unlike Howard, Rudd harboured no doubt about the seriousness of...

  • Pipe Dreams: Maude Barlow’s ‘Blue Covenant’ & Åsa Wahlquist’s 'Thirsty Country'
    Michael Cathcart | Books | July 2008 | Environment

    According to Maude Barlow, the human race is facing a threat more lethal than global warming. Barlow is a Canadian writer who crusades against corporate control of natural resources. She is also a co-founder of the Blue Planet Project, a network of activists who are fighting...

  • In the Giant Green Cathedral: Tim Winton’s ‘Breath & surf writing’
    Malcolm Knox | Books | May 2008 | Environment

    "I can never remember my best waves," said Mick Fanning, of Coolangatta, when he became the world surfing champion last year. "You ride it without even really knowing what you're doing. And you get to the end and you're thinking, What did I just do?...

  • Gas!: Upton Sinclair’s ‘Oil!’ & Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘There Will Be Blood’
    Gideon Haigh | Books | Film | April 2008 | Environment

    Upton Sinclair never had much faith in the movies. When the great American socialist's novel The Moneychangers (1908) was adapted for the screen, he was appalled to find that what he had written as a denunciation of JP Morgan was populated by millionaires...

  • Eco-Worriers: Michael Pollan’s ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma’ & Bill McKibben’s ‘Deep Economy’
    Robyn Davidson | Books | November 2007 | Environment

    It would be interesting to know how many trees and how much oil (petrol for the delivery of, aviation fuel for the author promotion of, ink for the printing of, machines for shredding the remainders of), have gone into the plethora of books bringing us the bad eco-news in the...

  • A Natural Competitive Advantage: Guy Pearse’s 'High and Dry' The Online Monthly - subscriber only access
    John Button | Books | July 2007 | Business | Environment

    High and Dry: John Howard, Climate Change and the Selling of Australia's Future (Viking, 480pp; $35.00) is the second recently published Australian book on climate change. The first, Clive Hamilton's Scorcher, was subtitled ‘The Dirty Politics of...

  • The Myth of Ethical Investment The Online Monthly - subscriber only access
    James Kirby | The Nation Reviewed | Business | Environment | July 2006

    Did you know that Woolworths now controls 14,000 poker machines? The supermarket company has followed the money down the street to the pub, where cash that some might say should be spent on groceries is instead being spent on the often fruitless activity of...